2-up rally report: GLMC Bonzai Road Rally 2022

#1
Hello all,

A couple of months ago I saw there would be a 12-hour rally here close to my area. My wife has been intrigued about what it's like to do a rally, so I figured why not bring her with? I signed us up and we waited patiently for the day to arrive.

(Side note, kudos to my neighbor who last minute agreed to watch our kids. We had a sitter lined up but she bailed a week before the Rally. We almost had to cancel it!)

It was pretty low key, I think there were 10 riders total. Upon arrival back at the start/end location, we met Connie Gabrick and her husband. They both drove down to help Chris, the rallymaster with scoring, food, etc. Wonderful meeting those two!

All we knew is that the bonus locations would be around the driftless area. The Wednesday before the rally Chris emailed all the participants the gps coordinates for all possible locations. Lisa and I sat down after dinner (and the kids in bed...) and started plotting some points on the map. Lots of locations all over the place. I could tell my wife was intrigued. I tried to sit back and let her decide....where would we go?

We decided to do an outer perimeter of the Northern locations. At 6:58am we were both at the bike and ready. Once Chris waved us off at 7am, it was on. The first 5 stops were along the Mississippi, culminating with a tantalizing 99 point bonus at the Lake City peninsula. We got some pretty hard rain right away from a fast moving storm front, but walking away from that many points would have crushed us more than getting a little wet.
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Following that, our route took us to Wisconsin, where we found several parks, markers, and memorials. Lisa was quickly learning how the game is played....the infamous time vs. distance equation while thinking about point values. I let her immerse herself in the fun while I focused on getting us there. We got much needed time to chat and just spend time with each other. Refreshing for all of us!
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We had set a personal goal to hit 1000 points and to be back about 1/2 hour before the window closed. After a lunch stop and some re-planning, we hit some outer edge bonuses, one of which was a neat mill that we definitely want to visit again!

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We started meandering back south, keeping our stops efficient but also taking the time to enjoy the history these places offered. One of the stops was in Independence, WI (her hometown!), where we needed to picture a bell at Island park. She was puzzled because the only bell she remembered was a tiny little one on top of this pole with a sphere.A tricky one to find if you were expecting something like a church bell...
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One of the last stops we made was the rustic road bonus. It was 100 points plus the number of the road in points. I knew there was R91 with an easy sign on the way back, so we scooped that up and headed to our last bonus in Angelo:
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We ended up getting back around the time we planned. We relaxed a bit and had some dinner while riders started to return from their respective adventures. Eventually the scorers opened their tables and we were clear to sit down and get scored. Did we grab all our materials? Oh boy.....

Connie scored our points, and I could tell Lisa was pretty nervous. Once that was completed we waited to the final standings.

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We ended up taking first on the experience class, and ended up with most points overall with 1138. It was awesome to see her come up with me to receive the award. I can honestly say she is hooked and will likely rally with me again. We had a blast!

It was great to meet all of those there. Special thanks to Chris E. for putting the rally together and for Connie and her husband for coming down to help. It's a lot of work to put something like this together and we wouldn't be able to have that much fun without that work - thank you.

Hope you enjoyed the write-up. Until next time!

Kris H.
#70795
 
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