Brit Butt Rally 26/28 May 2017

FJRPilot

Brit Butt Rallymaster RBLR1000 routemaster
Premier Member
IBA Member

Robert

IBR Finisher
Premier Member
I think was not possible to go to Yorkshire as well. Again, it's not about what you visit, it's about what you leave out.
Doing Yorkshire on top took away too much time to boost the multiplier number. The effect of the additional 127 Yorkshire points was equalized by 3 -4 extra counties which were much easier to reach. ;)
 

Cicero

Latvian emergency bike transport !!!!!!!
Hi All

I thoroughly enjoyed my first BBR so many thanks to Steve, Phil and all the organisers and helpers.

A couple of rookie errors kept my score down but still I was pleased with 13th place.

Rookie Error No 1: I was obsessed with the high scoring counties and plotted my route almost exclusively around them without realising the importance of picking up points as I connected them. I didn't realise my error until I was riding on the M5 at 2 am on Sunday with still 140 miles to go to my next scoring point. So I stopped at Gordano services to re-plan. Which brought me to:

Rookie Error No 2: I got into a bit of a panic on Friday night worried that I wouldn't be able to put a route together and would end up sitting there at the start on Saturday morning not knowing where to head for. In the end I was just glad to get a route planned at all and made the mistake of copying the route into my Garmin rather than the checkpoint list. So when I tried to re-plan I didn't have the locations. Luckily for me they were easy to find by typing in the village name. Also I didn't have any easy way of seeing the geographical distribution of the points so in the end I just had to guess on the basis that Dorset is next to Hampshire which is next to Berkshire etc

Rookie Error No 3. I assumed it was about being macho and doing big mileages when, of course, it's about doing efficient miles. So I was mistakenly quite proud of my 1300 miles which was why I looked a bit strangely at Steve when he pointed out that I'd done it the hard way when he gave me my certificate.

Other than that I had a very sick Triumph to nurse home. Engine is hunting at 3-5000 revs which makes it really difficult to hold a steady throttle and made me look like a learner as I rode through towns and villages. It's going back to the dealer again tomorrow for the fourth time in 3 months.

All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and can't wait to do it again. See some of you at BBL.

Chris
 
yep I figured you had to get big points plus multipliers but it was that combination when do you stop getting the points and picking up multipliers, isn't an easy one to answer I think there is probably an optimum point when you should start concentrating on multiplication but when that is, is beyond me. my plan was to collect town signs at night but I used to many of them the first day so just packed in once it started going dark.
 

Quill4

Brit Butt Rallymaster
IBA Member
IBR Finisher
Some comments from your Rallymaster

It was in Cornwall during the 2016 BBR that the 2017 Rally was born. Early on Sunday morning I found myself riding down a precipitous hill to a point above a harbour where the GPS said stop, “you have arrived at your destination”. I looked at the rally book and the bonus picture perfectly matched the one I was looking at on my camera. Click, job done, points in the bag, move on, to the next perfect match, and the next, and so on. In the planning all you had to do was join the dots, in the riding it was just follow the arrow on the screen. To me the sense of achievement had been diluted, it was a world away from my first rally, the 1999 Iron Butt, when there was no fancy electronic guide to show you which way to go. All you had was a paper map folded up and stuffed into the viewing panel of the tank bag, and the necessity of having to search around once you got within the vicinity of the bonus location. Then, once you were certain you had found it, you would pull your bulky polaroid camera out of the top box and take a picture with its fixed focus fixed aperture lens. Once it had ejected the print you waved it around a bit and waited for it to develop. When you were sure that the evidence was presentable to the scorer, then, and only then, you put it somewhere safe, ticked it off of your route sheet and headed off towards the next bonus.

Now, I’m not going to get all misty eyed and say things were better then, because in many ways they were not. Maps will get you there, and of course you need to know how to read them, but having to keep taking your eye off the road to glance at where you are is just plain dangerous. This led me to thinking how I could give the 2017 rally a more retro feel, but without confiscating everyone’s GPS at the start of the rally.

I can’t remember exactly how I tripped over the ‘Y’ concept, but the points doubling came fairly soon afterwards. I did however see a problem for the counties with just one bonus location, who would visit them for a single point? Hence the multiplier was born, it brought every location into play. As I indicated on the first slide at the rally briefing, the requirement to search around to find evidence of the village name was my homage to the 1999 Iron Butt Rally, old style bonuses with new style mapping and photographic equipment.

As a rider I always find the briefing, and the revelation of the challenge, the most exciting part of the rally. After that there is the routine sequence of confusion, worry and panic, followed by contemplation, enlightenment and mild confidence once you think that you have broken the code and solved the equation. As a rallymaster what you want to do is present a challenge that if you were riding it, you would like to solve. The one that I presented was; from the list of ‘Y’ locations in the rally book the rider needed to build points from the towns and villages, whilst at the same time accumulating multipliers from the counties they were located within. The complex mathematical formulae that needed to be mastered were as follows: adding some numbers then multiplying them. About three months before the start I tested out the concept and scoring method with Nobel prizewinning mathematician Professor Sir Phillip Weston. He got it.

The solution to this rally was, as it almost always is, ride the big points. Bag the towns and villages in the counties with five, six or seven bonuses, then pick up as many multipliers from the low scoring counties in between. Add this to the very generous sleep bonus being offered and a five figure score was achievable. Please note, apart from the addition and multiplication, this was a very simple rally. No fuel log was required, there was no call in bonus, there were no special instructions to follow (bike in picture, time limited bonuses, rider in picture, receipt required, time of day, daytime only, etc), nobody had to ride around with a balloon between their knees or go shopping, and there was no late twist at 5:55 on the morning of the ride. There were one hundred and eleven bonus locations, all available at any time, and there was just one special instruction, name of village and rally flag to be CLEARLY VISIBLE in each photo’.

Now before anyone thinks that I am beyond criticism, I’m not. I fully accept that some things were wrong, and, as my own worst critic I would give myself just 7/10; good in parts, can do better. Some of the villages did not have any signs anywhere, and despite what I thought were fairly clear instructions, some riders, a week after the rally has finished still remain confused with the scoring format. I have to take responsibility for that. However, I believe that it was correct to try and do something a little different. Over the years old riders have had to learn new tricks, consequently I saw nothing wrong in asking new riders to learn old tricks. And with those words still ringing in your ears, could all of you contemplating doing next year’s rally please get yourself familiar with advanced calculus, differential equations and algebraic fractions before the 2018 briefing, I’m already working on the next rally.

I can’t end without thanking everyone who helped out with the organisation, the riders for wanting to do this, and of course congratulating the winner, Robert Koeber. I know that you didn’t like the format Robert, but you beat my winning score estimate by some 3000 points, there must be re-entry scorch marks on the side of that Pan European.

One final point. The rookies I spoke to all seemed quite happy with the format, they had never done a rally before hence they were quite open minded, and the pillions also unanimously approved of it. One happily told me that for them it was great, they had something to do when they entered the village.

Steve
 
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I also thought it was an excellent rally, despite a very poor performance from me. Hey ho, maybe I'll do better next year.

Thanks Steve and thank you Phil an the whole rally team for all the organisation.
 

JON12A

IBAUK's retired Shop Keeper
Premier Member
IBA Member
I along with many others I spoke to real'y enjoyed this Rally. I for one will definitely be back for more next year.
It did require more time planning I thought, and this resulted in a very late finish Saturday morning and little sleep. Maybe we could get the bonus waypoint earlier ?
However this may be due to the new format and hopefully next year ill be quicker with my planning.
One thing that made it awkward was the roaming around small villages late at night looking for a notice board or plaque rather than going straight to an exact waypoint as in previous rally's.
I know talking to others that I wasn't the only one who had to explain what i was up to riding up and down slowly then taking pictures at this time of night. Perhaps after a certain time village name sign's should be accepted as often these are on the outskirts of a village.
I enjoyed the extra twist with the Math/Scoring and must admit I still wasn't sure come morning if I should chase multipliers or group points:confused:.One is no good without the other.
As Martin has stated it is easier now the pressure is off and i have all the time I need to find the best route.
Anyway just my thoughts and thanks again to Steve and all his team.
 
Some comments from your Rallymaster

It was in Cornwall during the 2016 BBR that the 2017 Rally was born. Early on Sunday morning I found myself riding down a precipitous hill to a point above a harbour where the GPS said stop, “you have arrived at your destination”. I looked at the rally book and the bonus picture perfectly matched the one I was looking at on my camera. Click, job done, points in the bag, move on, to the next perfect match, and the next, and so on. In the planning all you had to do was join the dots, in the riding it was just follow the arrow on the screen. To me the sense of achievement had been diluted, it was a world away from my first rally, the 1999 Iron Butt, when there was no fancy electronic guide to show you which way to go. All you had was a paper map folded up and stuffed into the viewing panel of the tank bag, and the necessity of having to search around once you got within the vicinity of the bonus location. Then, once you were certain you had found it, you would pull your bulky polaroid camera out of the top box and take a picture with its fixed focus fixed aperture lens. Once it had ejected the print you waved it around a bit and waited for it to develop. When you were sure that the evidence was presentable to the scorer, then, and only then, you put it somewhere safe, ticked it off of your route sheet and headed off towards the next bonus.

Now, I’m not going to get all misty eyed and say things were better then, because in many ways they were not. Maps will get you there, and of course you need to know how to read them, but having to keep taking your eye off the road to glance at where you are is just plain dangerous. This led me to thinking how I could give the 2017 rally a more retro feel, but without confiscating everyone’s GPS at the start of the rally.

I can’t remember exactly how I tripped over the ‘Y’ concept, but the points doubling came fairly soon afterwards. I did however see a problem for the counties with just one bonus location, who would visit them for a single point? Hence the multiplier was born, it brought every location into play. As I indicated on the first slide at the rally briefing, the requirement to search around to find evidence of the village name was my homage to the 1999 Iron Butt Rally, old style bonuses with new style mapping and photographic equipment.

As a rider I always find the briefing, and the revelation of the challenge, the most exciting part of the rally. After that there is the routine sequence of confusion, worry and panic, followed by contemplation, enlightenment and mild confidence once you think that you have broken the code and solved the equation. As a rallymaster what you want to do is present a challenge that if you were riding it, you would like to solve. The one that I presented was; from the list of ‘Y’ locations in the rally book the rider needed to build points from the towns and villages, whilst at the same time accumulating multipliers from the counties they were located within. The complex mathematical formulae that needed to be mastered were as follows: adding some numbers then multiplying them. About three months before the start I tested out the concept and scoring method with Nobel prizewinning mathematician Professor Sir Phillip Weston. He got it.

The solution to this rally was, as it almost always is, ride the big points. Bag the towns and villages in the counties with five, six or seven bonuses, then pick up as many multipliers from the low scoring counties in between. Add this to the very generous sleep bonus being offered and a five figure score was achievable. Please note, apart from the addition and multiplication, this was a very simple rally. No fuel log was required, there was no call in bonus, there were no special instructions to follow (bike in picture, time limited bonuses, rider in picture, receipt required, time of day, daytime only, etc), nobody had to ride around with a balloon between their knees or go shopping, and there was no late twist at 5:55 on the morning of the ride. There were one hundred and eleven bonus locations, all available at any time, and there was just one special instruction, name of village and rally flag to be CLEARLY VISIBLE in each photo’.

Now before anyone thinks that I am beyond criticism, I’m not. I fully accept that some things were wrong, and, as my own worst critic I would give myself just 7/10; good in parts, can do better. Some of the villages did not have any signs anywhere, and despite what I thought were fairly clear instructions, some riders, a week after the rally has finished still remain confused with the scoring format. I have to take responsibility for that. However, I believe that it was correct to try and do something a little different. Over the years old riders have had to learn new tricks, consequently I saw nothing wrong in asking new riders to learn old tricks. And with those words still ringing in your ears, could all of you contemplating doing next year’s rally please get yourself familiar with advanced calculus, differential equations and algebraic fractions before the 2018 briefing, I’m already working on the next rally.

I can’t end without thanking everyone who helped out with the organisation, the riders for wanting to do this, and of course congratulating the winner, Robert Koeber. I know that you didn’t like the format Robert, but you beat my winning score estimate by some 3000 points, there must be re-entry scorch marks on the side of that Pan European.

One final point. The rookies I spoke to all seemed quite happy with the format, they had never done a rally before hence they were quite open minded, and the pillions also unanimously approved of it. One happily told me that for them it was great, they had something to do when they entered the village.

Steve
 
I was very slow on the uptake and only worked out what I really should be doing on the ride to Yorkshire, consequentely I had to re-plan 'on the hoof' which led to some interesting routes. Then I made the tactical error of coming home for my restbreak but as I live in sight of Yeovilton it would have been rude not to.....I cannot stress how hard it is to get out of your own bed at 4:30 in the morning which is why I was an hour longer than needed. I was off the pace but knew it before the start so was truely happy with a good ride out and will be back for more next year.
Thanks to all!
PC
 
Some good feedback that Steve. I wish I'd been able to join in this year. I like the idea of the format, it's good to change things up a bit. I can imagine the air of confusion on Friday night though.