Brit Butt Light 10 - BBL2018 - Been There, Done That
- Thread starter Rick UK
- Start date
The Brit Butt Light 2018 Rally Book has been released to the 18 riders (and 2 pillions) who have signed up! I look forward to seeing them all at the start on Saturday 21st July - it's going to be good!!!
If you are signed up, and haven't received my e-mail, first check your spam folder, then e-mail me!
Cheers
Rick
If you are signed up, and haven't received my e-mail, first check your spam folder, then e-mail me!
Cheers
Rick
Aaaah, Tan Hill....brings back memories...
https://giphy.com/gifs/l1J9u3TZfpmeDLkD6/html5
https://giphy.com/gifs/l1J9u3TZfpmeDLkD6/html5
I spent most of yesterday trying to come up with route options. 600 miles does seem a bit high for a mileage restriction as the first of my route planning trials gave me plenty of points and were less than 450 miles but the only bummer was I wouldn't get back until near midnight 
Now come up with 3 options for next weekend. Option 1 being the highest scoring route I could find but Basecamp states I'd probably be back ever so slightly late and as many of us rally veterans know we can never really keep to the the timings we plan as traffic and squitty little back roads will mean me losing maybe a thousand points or more in penalties for being late
Option 3 was just over 11 hours too and second highest score, so realistically that will lose more time and points too. I'll probably go for my Option 2 which might be achievable with reasonable points and under 11 hours with a very small amount of fiddle factor time
For any new riders on here it's worth copying and pasting the bonus location coordinates into Google maps then taking a look on Streetview to see if everything matches correctly and to see how quiet or busy the local area might be. And remember that mapping programmes and sat navs will always direct you down little back lanes as they often have a 60 mph limit compared with sticking to an A or B road that passes through a village with 30 mph restrictions meaning it reckons you should go down the back road instead because it's 30 seconds quicker (been there done that)
Now come up with 3 options for next weekend. Option 1 being the highest scoring route I could find but Basecamp states I'd probably be back ever so slightly late and as many of us rally veterans know we can never really keep to the the timings we plan as traffic and squitty little back roads will mean me losing maybe a thousand points or more in penalties for being late
Option 3 was just over 11 hours too and second highest score, so realistically that will lose more time and points too. I'll probably go for my Option 2 which might be achievable with reasonable points and under 11 hours with a very small amount of fiddle factor time
For any new riders on here it's worth copying and pasting the bonus location coordinates into Google maps then taking a look on Streetview to see if everything matches correctly and to see how quiet or busy the local area might be. And remember that mapping programmes and sat navs will always direct you down little back lanes as they often have a 60 mph limit compared with sticking to an A or B road that passes through a village with 30 mph restrictions meaning it reckons you should go down the back road instead because it's 30 seconds quicker (been there done that)
Well two of the routes I came up with visited high scoring locations and I tried to get to and from them via several others but this is why my timings were too tight. As I'm not prepared to try and ride like a lunatic I'd rather have a safe and enjoyable day out, so can confirm that I'd like to visit the two nearest locations to the start/finish, much like everybody else will do no doubt
Now have a fourth route option - decisions decisions (on the day probably)
I must admit, compared to the BBR it's both nice but also frustrating having more time to plan as I'm getting annoyed with myself as to which one I should go for. Another spooky thing is when you've planned a route then hit the 'invert' button it often makes quite a bit of time difference going the other way round, either better or worse.
I've also noticed that even though Garmin Basecamp is meant to plan a 'fastest' route if you manually tweak the route to take you slightly off course i.e. onto another major road it can gain you several minutes which means overall you can gain quite a bit of time
But as I've already mentioned, during rallies you never seem able to keep to your planned ETA's at each bonus location. Well, you can for the first few hours if you're lucky but then it always goes to pot and I always end up dropping some locations to get back on track.
I must admit, compared to the BBR it's both nice but also frustrating having more time to plan as I'm getting annoyed with myself as to which one I should go for. Another spooky thing is when you've planned a route then hit the 'invert' button it often makes quite a bit of time difference going the other way round, either better or worse.
I've also noticed that even though Garmin Basecamp is meant to plan a 'fastest' route if you manually tweak the route to take you slightly off course i.e. onto another major road it can gain you several minutes which means overall you can gain quite a bit of time
But as I've already mentioned, during rallies you never seem able to keep to your planned ETA's at each bonus location. Well, you can for the first few hours if you're lucky but then it always goes to pot and I always end up dropping some locations to get back on track.
If you are commonly falling behind time on your plan then I reckon you need to test and tweak your settings in Basecamp. It’s never an exact science but it can always be improved.
My current best scoring route plan is, according to Basecamp, 599 miles long and will have a moving time of 10 hours and 59 minutes! Dare I risk it?
My current best scoring route plan is, according to Basecamp, 599 miles long and will have a moving time of 10 hours and 59 minutes! Dare I risk it?
If you are commonly falling behind time on your plan then I reckon you need to test and tweak your settings in Basecamp. It’s never an exact science but it can always be improved.
My current best scoring route plan is, according to Basecamp, 599 miles long and will have a moving time of 10 hours and 59 minutes! Dare I risk it?
My current best scoring route plan is, according to Basecamp, 599 miles long and will have a moving time of 10 hours and 59 minutes! Dare I risk it?