How not to win a Rally

JON12A

IBAUK's retired Shop Keeper
Premier Member
IBA Member
#1
Having previously taken part in 2 Brit Butt Rallies a Brit Butt Light Rally and intending to take part in three more events this year including the Scandinavian Rally and the 5 day European Rally I thought I would spend a little time practicing with the Brit butt tour bonus locations to improve my chances of not finishing in the bottom group again !.
My new toy is a Spot 3 tracker that i've actually had a year but just got to grips with.
So armed with this new source of information I plotted a route from Bristol through Exeter down to Plymouth , Penzance , and aimed to finish at the Devon rte.
6 locations in total.
Garmin base camp had my arrival at the RTE at 16:20 and in time for most of the rugby.
However as seems to be the fate that befalls me on every rally, base camp timings started to look increasingly optimistic despite my adjustment of the settings to village idiot.
A 9:00 am start at the first location in Bristol then saw me in Yeovil just about on time but i spent ages looking for the bonus .
Exeter and im 15 mins behind, by Plymouth 1 hour has been lost to refueling and traffic along with poor choices as I will explain a little later.
As this is only a trial run i decide to forget the last two locations as i didn't want to miss the game and Garmin was now giving me a 17:36 finish if i was to go for the 2 locations further down. No !
I arrived at the RTE at 14:30 having managed to drop 1hr 20 mins according to base camps new figures taking into account dropping the last two bonus points and collecting just 4 bonus locations including riding to the rte hotel
In a 36 hour rally this could equate to a 7 hour loss of time and a place at my customary table of shame. How can you loose 7 hours in a 36 hour Rally ?.
Having been forced to drown my sorrows in the pub with the stalwarts of the IBA drinking squad i chose to review through spot walla and base camp my ride .
I know its a short time and distance by which to judge your ride but looking at the Garmin figures and then looking at spot traker it suprised me how easy it is to fall way behind very quickly.
Most are blindingly obvious and i might have performed better in a real rally situation but these are the mistakes i made and my lessons learned.

1 I set of from my hotel to get to the first bonus location and beat the traffic without breakfast or a drink.
This resulted in me stopping for food and drink before fuel was needed. I chose to have a coffee that was too hot to drink straight away and had to cool before i could drink it. I should have carried water and snacks .
Its only 10 mins for the coffee to cool ! yea but do it 3 times in a 36 hour rally and its a full half hour .


2 I didn't fill up with fuel the night before but had enough for 160 miles so thought this would be ok.
I even have an auxiliary fuel tank fitted that is still new to me and im not sure yet of the range and im still playing with filling levels and when to transfer the fuel. The rule is don't fit anything to the bike just before the event.
Take time to find out how it all works beforehand.

3 I rely to much on the Sat Nav and realize now that twice I would have been better taking a longer way around some of the west country towns and ignoring the Garmins advice. Read the map look at where Garmin is taking you.

4 I'm told its a bloke thing but we are a bit slow asking for help when lost.
It took me 10 Mins on foot before asking someone where the Wood Carving bonus was, then had to go back the other way to find it. Ask early !. Some riders even google the location prior to visiting but this might not be possible on the night before a rally.

5 It got warm early this Saturday and i was geared up for northern climates ( its grim up north ) I again had to stop to change.
Removing the heated clothing and then struggling to find my lighter kit hidden away in a zippered bag.
Know where everything is and make it accessible

6 Read the rally book and check out the picture before setting of for the next bonus. Seems obvious but its easy to just look at the bonus number, pump the sat nav and away you go. I went past the first bonus as the sat nav took me 200 yds further up the road. I might have seen it earlier if i had looked at the book or better still had it open in my map case.

7 Country roads in garmin are often judged as unclassified and therefore they are given at 60 miles per hour, speeds that most often cant be achieved with grass growing in the middle of the road without risking your neck or that of a duck or both.
My spot tracker route saw me taking more rural back roads than would be advised when planning a rally.
Look at your map.

Anyway that's it for what its worth and i would just say that arming yourself with the facts from a trip like this is well worth the effort. The spot walla proved to me that some of my slow progress was down to my choise of location and the way I rode to them ie (through tiny country roads ) but much of it was down to messing about with slow fueling and bad planning.
So make way and prepare a spot at the winners table i'm coming through .
 
#2
Sounds like some pennies have dropped there Jon, which is good as not finding those answers would be frustrating.

It's amazing how small amounts of time can add up really quickly, and it's incredibly hard to get that time back. On the Brit Butt especially you should try and streamline the time you need at the locations - make getting your camera and flag out, photographed and (safely) away again a fluid and routine process. I used to allow 10 minutes but find now that 5 is more generous enough, unless you have to go wandering to find the thing your looking for of course, though sometimes that stretch of the legs is therapeutic.

Keep up the practicing.

L
 

FJRPilot

Brit Butt Rallymaster RBLR1000 routemaster
Premier Member
IBA Member
#3
Excellent report John :)

This has stirred a lot of similar experiences for me in predominantly Brit Butt Rallies.

I think as Lee has stated adding 5 minutes at every location is worth doing. Some stops will take less than this but some will take far longer so this hopefully helps to smooth things out. I also think planning a route and noting down your ETA then riding and comparing is a very worthwhile exercise. Every time I plan a day's ride, whether it's to go to a RTE or to check out Iceni Rally locations I always plan my route and add in stop times and after many years this is now starting to pay off as my riding times often match what I planned.

Adding in all the other issues you experienced such as food/drink stops, traffic, fuel stops etc all compounds the time running away from you. If anything it's sometimes better to lower your speed settings to help take account of these issues. Then when you're ahead of what Miss Garmin tells you you'll feel so much more relaxed and happy.

I would go so far as to say though that the coordinates for some rallies are shall we say 'not exactly spot on'. This doesn't help when you're trying to find something odd and have to keep searching about looking for it. I know it's hard on a national scale event but making the effort to visit and adjust location coordinates goes a long way - or is that their cunning plan?

The other trick up my sleeve is to convert the gpx file to a KML file (as I sent out to Iceni rally entrants last year). Once imported into Google Earth you can quickly fly round the country and see if the coordinates match where you're looking for and what the place looks like. It's like Google Streetview but quicker. I've lost count of the number of rally locations I've been to only to find I'm riding down some 'grass in the middle' A road in Scotland somewhere.

Auxiliary tank - when I ran my FJR with one I found the best way was to fill both tanks to the brim then open the tap on the auxiliary tank from the off. Because the main tank creates a draw as fuel is used this pulls fuel from the auxiliary tank into the main tank as fuel is burnt by the engine. Effectively this means that the main tank is initially always topped up so your fuel gauge keeps reading full for the first 100 miles or so.

Then as the gauge starts to go down you know the auxiliary tank is now empty and can close the tap. If I tried running the main tank down then opening the tap for the auxiliary tank it would only trickle in as there was too much air in the main tank to overcome. It might be worth trying this out John :)
 
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FazerPhil

President IBA UK
Staff member
Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#4
Great write up there John. Lessons for all rally riders and for Iron Butt Rides where it's equally important to keep the wheels turning.