Brit Butt Rally 25th to 27th May 2018

Quill4

Brit Butt Rallymaster
IBA Member
IBR Finisher
There's no point in arguing with you as you seem to take every comment as an insult.
The point to my initial comment is the rally format has been altered (in my opinion). It is billed as the most difficult rally in the country and it was, (also my opinion). But in it's current incarnation one could theoretically leave the rally H.Q. at 06:00 (05;00) travel to the nearest bonus take a picture and return back to bed and at 18;00 on Sunday be declared a finisher (another of my opinions) but you or anybody else cant deny me my views, the event has been diluted and the lack of entries is my proof.
Ken: Nobody is stopping you having an opinion or airing your views, but much of what you base them on is conjecture. As I understand it you are linking smartphones with the lack of entrants and falling standards. Here are the facts:

36 Entrants
11 Dropouts
25 Starters
21 Finishers

The person who finished 21st rode for over 1200 miles, that is not a once round the block ride. One of the mid pack runners clocked up over 1700 miles, nobody, ever, has clocked up that many in a Brit Butt Rally. The top two finishers returned to base with an extra 1550 miles on their odometers. Was it, or is it, the most difficult rally in the country, that is entirely subjective, but the halcyon days of yore when riders were riders and they filled in bits of paper at the end of 35 hours are gone, and only a very few diehards mourn their passing. The supreme difficulty of past rallies is a mythical construction of your own imagination. With smartphones, every time a rider sends an email he is at the scoring table. During the course the rally I rejected bonuses that had: the wrong bonus number, photograph not attached, not enough arches on their viaduct, wrong sign, in fact everything that would have otherwise happened on all rallies of any era, no matter what medium was used.

So please Ken, lighten up, things weren't always better in your (or my) day, and I was their before you.
 
There's no point in arguing with you as you seem to take every comment as an insult.
The point to my initial comment is the rally format has been altered (in my opinion). It is billed as the most difficult rally in the country and it was, (also my opinion). But in it's current incarnation one could theoretically leave the rally H.Q. at 06:00 (05;00) travel to the nearest bonus take a picture and return back to bed and at 18;00 on Sunday be declared a finisher (another of my opinions) but you or anybody else cant deny me my views, the event has been diluted and the lack of entries is my proof.
But in it's current incarnation one could theoretically leave the rally H.Q. at 06:00 (05;00) travel to the nearest bonus take a picture and return back to bed and at 18;00 on Sunday be declared a finisher (another of my opinions

What has that to do if you send it per mail or present it at the end???
 
Last edited:

FazerPhil

President IBA UK
Staff member
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
Good news is the system worked well and I believe it was the fairest ever as the scoring was equitable for every rider. Multiple scorers can judge the bonus equirements differently. With a few tweaks following various bit of feedback we will be using the same system next year.
The Rally will still be the same as it's always been . Plan a route take bonus pics and score points.
Thinking back to the 1st BBR in 2008. I typed in the bonus coordinates and took 7 bonus pics and qualified as a finisher by Saturday evening so I had a nap and got back to the finish mid afternoon.
You'll certainly get more sleep and start more rested next year but need to do more bonuses now.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Megabuck

IBAUK Verifier
IBA Member
The point to my initial comment is the rally format has been altered (in my opinion). It is billed as the most difficult rally in the country and it was, (also my opinion). But in it's current incarnation one could theoretically leave the rally H.Q. at 06:00 (05;00) travel to the nearest bonus take a picture and return back to bed and at 18;00 on Sunday be declared a finisher (another of my opinions) but you or anybody else cant deny me my views, the event has been diluted and the lack of entries is my proof.
Hi Ken,

Your second statement is true: you could do that, and be classified a finisher. But nobody did; none of the finishers rode less than 950 miles. The change from a minimum distance/minimum points requirement happened years ago - I've been riding the BBR since 2013, and it hasn't been part of the rally over that time. Some people complained about that change, but from what I've seen, no one has used it as a way of picking up a cheap finish.

Your first statement is, in my opinion, wrong: the format of the rally has NOT changed. We all turned up on Friday, and got the rally book after dinner; we all left on Saturday, and went our separate ways; and we all got back to rally HQ on Sunday afternoon. The change this year was only around how you submitted your bonus points to be scored; nothing else had changed. Yes, that change did away with the scoring table, which some people saw as a negative; OTOH it meant there were no last-minute arguments about photos, and what had been scored, so results were done and dusted by 7 pm.

As for the 'no back-up' if a phone got broken, as has been pointed out, riders could always carry a spare and swap SIM cards; or John could have had his satnav take him to the nearest Tesco superstore and bought a cheap replacement for £50. He didn't do the former, and didn't think of doing the latter. Yes, a smashed phone is a pretty major hit when you're relying on it for your rally. OTOH I had one satnav, and no road atlas; I was potentially as vulnerable to a technology problem as him.

Regards,
Martin
 

J.Young

Triumph Triple Engine mounting brackets expert
IBA Member
IBR Finisher
As this topic (unfortunately) has myself in the midst of it, all I will say is that (in my opinion) if Steve Jobs and Mike Hailwood were to suddenly find themselves back on Planet Earth and entered in the BBR, you'd be a fool to bet against Steve Jobs finishing higher in the list of finishers.

I thought the introduction of the smartphone into the BBR was a bad idea and still do. Will it stop me applying to enter next year ? Probably not.
 
Last edited:

Quill4

Brit Butt Rallymaster
IBA Member
IBR Finisher
Mark me down as that fool then John. I reckon it would be easier to teach someone how to type a few letters into a keyboard then it would be to ride a motorcycle well. You need a licence to ride a bike, and you need to demonstrate your competence to an accredited examiner; even the vrblly chillanged cn by n uze a smrtfone.

Having been on the admin side now for two rallies, one using digital cameras and bits of paper, the other by smartphone, there is no competition. Last years was 35 hours of mind numbing boredom followed by 3 hours of mayhem. Let's be honest, riders have been taking the piss for years. Appalling photographs, sloppy paperwork, in your face intimidation of the scorers, no consistency, it had to come to an end.

This years rally was an experiment. The tests that I had made, and more importantly the final one performed by Phil, demonstrated that it ought to work, but the proof would come from the rally itself. Having been subjected to many months of negativity I was preparing myself for the fact that it might not work as well with twenty five riders on the road. As it turned out, it worked fine. An email would arrive, I checked the data in the subject line, reviewed the photo, and marked the scoresheet accordingly. Bob Stammers would then update his wonderfully flexible scoresheet. One person judged the entire event, me. There were no queues, no hanging around, dinner and presentation times were all arrived at on schedule.

From the moment that the smartphone nature of the event was announced there was an appreciable undercurrent of dissent amongst the established riders. Some registered it by not entering, armchair riders spoke about in terms that would make you think that four horseman of the apocolypse had arrived at their front door, whilst people like your goodself John expressed their distaste for the idea. I've already argued the point that there is and has never been a 'classic' version of the long distance rally, it changes. GPS's were embraced whole heartedly, as were digital cameras, so there is no precedent for staying in one place. The one thing that I was not sure of was, would it work in practice, was the phone coverage good enough to make this feasible?

Since the rally I have taken a look at the winner's data. Robert picked up 35 bonus locations in the north of England and Scotland. He sent an email to start and finish his rally, plus there were the three supplementary bonuses (X1, X2, X3). In total Robert sent 40 emails, of which 37 arrived without any timelag from what was entered in the subject line. In between all of this mindless facebooking and snapchatting Robert was able to ride for 1554 miles. One email (Ribblehead) experienced a 7 minute delay, another (St Drostans, Aberdeenshire) had a three minute delay, and at Carlisle there was a one minute delay. By my reckoning we have a 'within one minute' transmission success rate of 92.5%. Other users may have experienced better or worse rates. I haven't, and I'm not sure that I will, checked every riders email record to see what the success rate averages out at.

So by any measurable terms the 2018 rally was a success. What I can't change however is opinion. You like Triumph's, I don't. You like green, I prefer red; you can see where I'm going with this I'm sure. What is now unarguable, and not a matter of opinion, is the fact that running a rally on smartphones works in this country. So a big thankyou from me to everyone who took part in the experiment.
 

GSears

Dambuster... Bouncing panniers...
Premier Member
IBA Member
Let's be honest, riders have been taking the piss for years. Appalling photographs, sloppy paperwork, in your face intimidation of the scorers, no consistency, it had to come to an end.
So far I've kept my head below the parapet BUT a bit of a generalisation I think. Unless the last two rallies were completely different to the previous 4.
 
Last edited:

Quill4

Brit Butt Rallymaster
IBA Member
IBR Finisher
Gordon, why don't you actually pin your colours to the mast and say what you think, rather than come out with snidey remarks.
 

GSears

Dambuster... Bouncing panniers...
Premier Member
IBA Member
I have never seen a rider intimidate/attempt to intimidate a scorer. The rally master is god. What they decide is final. How do you argue with/intimidate the Rally Master? Your other points are part of rallying and the riders ability to cope. One can always slip up on paperwork or take a poor photograph. Emailing photos in did not prevent poor photos, clerical errors or omissions.

Sat Navs aid a riders ability compete. They can make progress between points quicker.

Digital cameras are cheaper and quicker than polaroids. They can aid a riders ability to check their photo and move on.

Both of these were choices for the rider. Until recently you could still compete with a map if you chose to (not very effectively). I suppose if you turned up with polaroids they would have been scored.

I have yet to hear from experienced rally riders who state their rally experience was improved by the use of a 'smart' phone.
I have read that the rally masters was.

I appreciate technology moves on and I suppose I will have to come round to your way of rallying, eventually.
 

Quill4

Brit Butt Rallymaster
IBA Member
IBR Finisher
I did not say that the Rallymaster was intimidated, just the scorers. The miscreant was referred to me, and did not get the points being argued over. The Rallymasters divine status remained intact.
 
Last edited:
Personally I preferred using my phone this year to my camera in previous rallies.

Initially I had reservations over image quality and signal strength but in actual fact I had no problems whatsoever.

I chose to upgrade my phone to a more up to date model. I was due an upgrade in any case. Image quality was now not an issue.

In terms of signal, not once did I need wifi. My phone provider is '3' and my emails, without exception went on 3g and 4g.
Occasionally in rural spots of the South West I had no immediate signal but within a few miles and back into a village or classified road the email sent automatically.

In these circumstances I did waste time stopping and digging out my phone from my tank bag to check but this was more than off set by the lack of faffing at fuel stops not having to complete a mileage and fuel log.
I just splashed and dashed.

In previous years I did not especially enjoy queuing at the end of the rally to be scored. This year I simply parked, locked the bike, had a chat with other riders, changed and went to the bar.

I do appreciate others may like this element but I can do without it.

One negative is if I had lost points I would not have known until the presentation of certificates that the final score did not tally with my anticipated score.
In this case I would like feedback on what I did wrong.
The staff did say that they would make themselves available if this was required.
I do not know whether anyone availed themselves of this offer.

All my emails were cc'd to me and I also had a sent report so had two methods of checking delivery.

I chose not to carry a spare phone so if I smashed or lost it I would have had to make a decision whether to dive into a shop and buy a new one or bin the rally.
I was fortunate not to be in that position.

I enjoyed it this year just as I have enjoyed all the previous ones.
Actually I enjoyed it more this year because for me it was less of a faff.

There were new guys who don't know any different and may not enter if we now revert back to using cameras and being scored at the end.

Conversely there are experienced riders who don't like it and won't compete.

Ultimately how these events are run is decided by those who run and organise them. As participants we have personal choice whether we want to enter given the format and rules published.
 

Ziggy

Just Another Rider
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
Don't have too much time to go through every word but Ref ..

Since the rally I have taken a look at the winner's data. Robert picked up 35 bonus locations in the north of England and Scotland. He sent an email to start and finish his rally, plus there were the three supplementary bonuses (X1, X2, X3). In total Robert sent 40 emails, of which 37 arrived without any timelag from what was entered in the subject line. In between all of this mindless facebooking and snapchatting Robert was able to ride for 1554 miles. One email (Ribblehead) experienced a 7 minute delay, another (St Drostans, Aberdeenshire) had a three minute delay, and at Carlisle there was a one minute delay. By my reckoning we have a 'within one minute' transmission success rate of 92.5%. Other users may have experienced better or worse rates. I haven't, and I'm not sure that I will, checked every riders email record to see what the success rate averages out at.
On a tech side Robert would have been on a Non UK Phone and set to roaming which means he is able to connect to any service available ..
Parts of the UK suffer and Scotland being some of the worse for example O2 which the likes of Tesco and others work off .. Vodafone works well ...
This being the case riders not on a roaming system would have had difficulty on sending within a time limit if imposed.. and would not have been able to check if a successful send had been achieved until either stopping to check or at the next bonus location ...

So Roberts example is or could be a bad example to prove the technical side...

Having wanted to get into short day & 36 hour rallies since 2015 I was let down having asked for guidance from a few IBA UK riders ...
Completing my European Tour in 2016 which was my first rally in which I practised for the IBR 2017 again the UK riders offered nothing on the tour ...
This year I looked at doing short to 36 hour rallies but was put off from this due to changes and lack of information so have opted for my first Short day rally to be on the German one ....

I hope that future rally in the UK continues without too much tech to potentially screw up the riders main enjoyment ... RIDING
 

Rick UK

Brit Butt Light Rally Master
Premier Member
IBA Member
Hi Ziggy,
I hope that future rally in the UK continues without too much tech to potentially screw up the riders main enjoyment ... RIDING
Brit Butt Light - 21st July, 12-hour rally, "traditional" format, with cameras and paper. Over to you!

Cheers

Rick