Brit Butt Rally 26/28 May 2017

michiel kerkhof

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
I've recently been diagnosed with a tumour in my oesophagus and awaiting surgery so have had to withdraw from the BBR (and the IBR:() but I hope to make it to Leicester to see the rest of you on the way.
So sorry to hear that Dave....looks like some really hard times ahead of you....find the right spirit to defeat that enemy!....wishing you all the luck you may need in that battle!
 

Megabuck

IBAUK Verifier
IBA Member
Sorry to hear that, Dave. Hopefully the last bad news you'll have for a while.

For the rest of us... well, the weather forecast is calling for the temperature to hit 30C on Saturday, across much of the Midlands and the south. The down side is that they are expecting a low to be moving in, bringing cooler temperatures and the possibility of heavy rain and thunderstorms, beginning in the south-west on Saturday evening.

Regards,
Martin
 

pihlo

12 Days? 12Days!
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
IBR Staff
@Dave Thomson - remember that the company which sells the Spot device and Spotwalla are two company's.
Spotwalla did not get Spot signals.
What they do (after creating accounts and so) is that they poll for your device. If there is no activity they reduce polling to a more then 24h period. To tell them "I am on a Tripp" press the ok button so that a message is send out. In the next polling period Spotwalla then starts polling in a some minute way.
Be aware that pressing the button is best 12...24h before the designed starting time....
 

Dave Thomson

BBR Veteran
IBA Member
@Dave Thomson - remember that the company which sells the Spot device and Spotwalla are two company's.
Spotwalla did not get Spot signals.
What they do (after creating accounts and so) is that they poll for your device. If there is no activity they reduce polling to a more then 24h period. To tell them "I am on a Tripp" press the ok button so that a message is send out. In the next polling period Spotwalla then starts polling in a some minute way.
Be aware that pressing the button is best 12...24h before the designed starting time....
Thanks Peter, it's OK I've got it sorted out now. I gave up my Spot tracker subscription last year, and I'm using SWConnect from my phone. However, being stupid, I didn't change the default device on the Spotwalla site, so it was still looking for the Spot Tracker.
 

Gerhard

#194
Staff member
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
I've recently been diagnosed with a tumour in my oesophagus and awaiting surgery so have had to withdraw from the BBR (and the IBR:() but I hope to make it to Leicester to see the rest of you on the way.
Sorry to hear that, Dave. I wish you all the best and much luck and strength for the upcoming time.
 

Megabuck

IBAUK Verifier
IBA Member
Well, that was... interesting. Steve had come up with a different concept for the rally. On each rally I've previously done (BBR, BBL, Iceni, European Tour), the rally book has listed bonus locations - each one was something specific like a monument, statue, pub and so on. Each location was worth a specific number of points; some were daytime-only, some photos needed to include the bike, some the rider, some you had to buy something and bring the receipt to scoring. There were some combo bonuses - visit a specific set and get extra points.

Forget ALL of that! There were 111 bonus locations, all towns/villages where the name started with Y or Z. You needed a photo of something with the village name, plus your flag - except you were only allowed five of the usual name signs found on the way in to the village. So, we were hunting notice boards, shops, pubs - but without knowing exactly where or what we might find. That meant that, while you could plan a route, I doubt anyone knew for sure when they left on Saturday morning that they could actually ride their plan.

Scoring - this was where it got complicated. The villages were spread across 45 counties; the first location in a county earned you 1 point, the second got 2 points, the third 4 points, the fourth 8 and so on. Two counties had 7 locations; hit all seven and they would be worth a combined 127 points. But then... each county where you got a location counted as a multiplier; if you hit 20 counties, then the points from the locations would be multiplied by 20. I decided to go for a mix of points and multipliers; a lap of Wales on Saturday picked up good points and about 15 multipliers; then a loop to north Yorkshire scored more points and a few more multipliers. Add in the sleep bonus, lose one multiplier for being 9 minutes late checking in, and I scored 6,520 points (326 * 20). With hindsight, I should have gone from south Wales down to Devon - one of the counties with seven locations. Isn't it strange how you can always plan the perfect rally after the event, given unlimited time?

Big thanks to Steve for setting us a very different - and head-scratching - challenge; Phil for organising the whole thing; Lynn, Dave, Ziggy, Mike, Rick, Bob and the rest of the rally team (I'm sure I've forgotten someone) for making it all happen. I'm already looking forward to next year's rally - and BBT!

Regards,
Martin
 
Thanks for reporting back Martin, it's a shame there's been no live posting over the weekend but it's been like that for the past few years.

Certainly was a bit of a twist this year, no bad thing - it's good to keep things fresh, but I imagine there was a bit of a stunned effect in the rally room when it was revealed. Sounds like you enjoyed it overall.
 

FJRPilot

Brit Butt Rallymaster RBLR1000 routemaster
Premier Member
IBA Member
As I'm a person of habit the whole concept of this year's rally and how to score points threw me completely. :eek: Even though I'm an engineer my basic maths skills are poor so it freaked me out. It was the equal latest that I've ever got to bed (01.30) and probably not asleep due to the heat until about 02.00 :( THREE hours sleep prior to a 36 hour rally is not good so I resigned myself to just going where I thought reasonable points might be and accepted that 2017 wouldn't be a great result for me.

I've entered only one non-IBA rally (back in 2015) which was a total treasure hunt where I had to ride to a village and answer a question. Riding around looking for stuff, getting off and asking locals if they knew where this or that was completely frustrated me compared to the good old "ride exactly to here and take a photo to prove it" format of all the previous BBR's. So as soon as this year's briefing was finished I spent many hours back in my room scratching my head trying to understand it all and plan a route.

On Saturday morning I headed south through about an hour of light rain into Somerset and Dorset before heading back up and into South then West Wales (and more rain). Due to the searching skills required at each village location my timings began to slip so by the time I'd got into Wales in the afternoon I had to drop quite a few locations to make some time back up. I ended up binning the last bit of my Saturday route and succumbed to an extortionate Travelodge room (another reason why Bank Holidays aren't a good idea) so I could try and claw back some much needed quality sleep that I hadn't got before starting. I got up early and completely changed my Sunday route and half way round suddenly thought "how many counties will I have done". Extra points were available for visiting 10, 15, or 20 counties. I was in line for 14! I then changed my route midday to pick up one more county and got back to the rally hotel with 40 minutes to spare for sorting and handing my paperwork in to stop my clock.

After 950 miles 16th place was better than I expected to be fair and as Martin has said above after getting back home and calmly looking at the few pages that the rally book consisted of this year I'm sure I can now sit down with no pressure and come up with something much better, which funnily enough I always seem to be able to do ;)

On a positive note with every new Rallymaster comes new ideas and Steve certainly came up with that this year. I know from comments I heard from other riders that quite a few didn't enjoy this year's format (me included) but in hindsight this shouldn't put people off from entering next year as it all makes for memorable riding experiences and I can certainly concur that I had some great riding over the two days. Little traffic, mainly due to being in Wales for a lot of it, and the bike and gear all performed faultlessly. The rally staff were all excellent, without whom these events can't take place so if you can't ride always offer to help out at rallies ;) :p (Iceni Rally is 23rd Sept. LOL).

I'll be back in 2018 for my 8th BBR, with fingers crossed ;) :)
 
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michiel kerkhof

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
I had a blast ride though in hinsight it was all poorly plotted and executed.....new GPS(froze after 2 Hrs...new laptop...wouldn't receive open USB stick went down twice to get help and GPS numero 2 would not talk to me half the time.Made good time in the A.M. but lost time versus route during the night so skipped a big chunk of Wales,to be safe took 1 hr of restbonus at ard midnight to do the paperwork and check my schedule....must have made a mistake in calcs as I ended up at finish at 11.30 AM but still able to take rest 3 hr bonus thus resulting in wasting only 2.5 hrs riding time( not enough to do my balance Wales if I had opted for that) and with nothing really ard Leicester that I cud add I rested my case! surprisingly still got in 10th place losing a couple of bonii due to poor (new camera)photographing!! SO again I've learned a few things....Have 3 more weeks before the bigdance so want to work hard on my comp skills and pictureshooting!!I have no copy of the Rallybook here...does anyone have 1 that he/she could scan and send by email to me please??? email to: [email protected] many thanks in advance!!
Thanks Steve and all rallystaff for an inspiring rally and a great funweekend!!!I truly loved the pack as no colourcodingprocedure wasting 3 hrs of valuable sleep was necessary this time nor the next time as I now understand the concept clearly!!!
 

Kim Leeson

IBAUK Shopkeeper
Premier Member
IBA Member
BBR 2017 - DNF,

The Forum is very quiet on the Rally, I know Phil went off to Moscow, but was expecting more traffic on the site, results etc...so here is a brief account of my DNF...

Horrendous conditions, fog, low clouds, horrific rain, wind...about 6pm on B4407 East of Ffestiniog, Wales, single track, over a small bridge...maybe 30mph, and the RH turn was sharper than I calculated.
Rode into a very soft muddy ditch about a 1m deep, sat up before impact. Landing was soft but abrupt, damage was minimal, but enough to take me out, picking it up on Wednesday, pretty sure the forks are bent.
There was no shelter or signal on the high moor, I didn't want to activate Spot just yet, thankfully 2 London bankers out camping in their Range Rover came by and gave me a lift to a nice hotel in Ffestiniog where the phone calls started.
After retrieving and storing the bike that night, I got a taxi to Llandundo, (nearest Train Station) because of the Bank holiday, no hotels so I tried to sleep on a bench at the station. Trip back started at 8am, Sunday, which was 3 trains, 3 Tubes, 2 Taxis and 1 bus in 23C temps. carrying what I could, wearing my gear, got home at 4pm...buggered!

The Rally format was tough, some of those Welsh villages consisted of 4 houses and a village sign, wet gloves, score sheet wet, scouring for evidence...I had rain pretty much from Cardiff to Snowdonia all day.

Btw, new (to me) bike has been paid for, pick up next week, the VFR will be a donor bike, as I spent £1000's on extra's, Suspension, Exhaust, Sargent Seat, Clearwaters, Denali's, Engine Management, Peli Cases, New Fairings etc... and 100's of hours making it perfect...but the 120 mile range was killing me. All of the extra's will be sold...I'm totally fine with the outcome, my time on this planet is to live to the fullest whatever may come.

All in all a great adventure, that's what I wanted! Gutted I had a DNF, but at least that's out of the way now! Of course friends and colleagues are convinced I am certifiably a nutcase, but i loved it!

Hope everyone had a good time, I know I found the format very challenging.
Regards,
Kim rsz_20170527_213428.jpg rsz_20170527_213435.jpg
 

Megabuck

IBAUK Verifier
IBA Member
Hi Kim,

Ouch! Frustrating that the bike wasn't rideable; even if you'd decided to call it quits, it would have avoided that nightmare journey home. Still, the main thing is that you lived to tell the tale.

Pretty sure I did that road, heading from Ysbyty Ifan south to Ystumtuen - but I was there around 11 am, and the weather was pretty nice. Hit persistent light rain and drizzle, and some low cloud, in the Brecons later in the day - visibility down below 100 metres in places, which wasn't pleasant.

Regards,
Martin
 
To be honest I still don’t know if it’s better to score points or go for multipliers ??? In the end I went somewhere in the middle with a plan of course the plan did not survived the first day.

Spent most of the first day bumping into John Young hard luck John sorry to hear you had to drop out. My last control of the first day saw myself and John trundling up and down quite dubious gravel tracks on a Welsh hillside in rather inclement conditions. At one point with the aid of gps we both found a lake the gps thought it was a village ha ha ......we photographed our GPS’s as there was nothing else there of note. We did eventually find an actual village sign pretty sure village is an exaggeration of the facts at this point.

My plan told me to go somewhere in south Wales next, binned that idea figured I was struggling to find things in the daylight so doing it at night wouldn’t be any easier. Went about 30 mile of plan to find somewhere to get some sleep.

Set of in the morning doing controls in no logical order just looking and seeing what was nearest and doing that first, I knew the stuff in south Wales was pretty close together so just made the best of it. Did manage to flatten the battery on the bike at one stage that will teach me to leave everything turned on and ring home. Fortunately there are lots of hills in Wales so the bump start was not as bad as it could have been. And eventually made my way across country back in time to the final control.

I have to say a thoroughly enjoyed the rides between controls not a lot of motorway work and those inevitable traffic jams , was mainly on A,B, roads. So although busy at times they were not blocked
 

Megabuck

IBAUK Verifier
IBA Member
Hi Dave,

The key was to concentrate on big points, then pick up as many multipliers as possible between the 'big points' counties. That meant north Yorkshire, Ceredigion, Rhondda Cynon Taff, and Devon. I did six out of seven in north Yorkshire, five out of six in Ceredigion, and all six in Rhondda. I also hit all four in Shrophsire, three in Flint and three in Glamorgan, plus a bunch of 2s and 1s stringing them all together.

The optimum route would almost certainly hit all 28 across the four 'big points' counties, and then as many other counties as you could fit in.

For those asking for results, I do not have the full list; here's odd ones I noted:
30th: Graeme and Sally
26th: Thomas Bode
20th: John Cunniffe
19th: Deb
18th: Pete Churchill
15th: Mark Fowler
14th: Scott
11th: Steve Kirk
10th: Mikiel
9th: Gerald
8th: Tommy Wendt
7th: Gerhard
6th: Yours truly
5th: Rob Golthorp
4th: Dave Winter
3rd, 2nd: Two brother whose names I forget
1st: Robert Koeber

Apologies to all those I didn't note, or whose names I mangled.

Regards,
Martin
 

FazerPhil

President IBA UK
Staff member
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
Bob has results and will no doubt publish when he returns from Moscow. He came straight to Moscow after dropping off his printer at home.