|
|
||||
|
Long Distance Reporter |
||||
|
Volume 2, Number 1 May 2001 =============
Get the Rollin' Dude Wallpaper Special for Rollin' readers
|
Once
Again, B2 Goes
I can’t stop my feet! I can’t stop my feet! I can’t stop my feet! As I sit to type this, there’s barely 60 hours until I will depart Westward (again?-well, from Florida, most everywhere is Westward) for the Great State of Texas and already my adrenaline is starting that Maxwell House “buppaduppa boopboop, baduppa boop boop” within me. I absolutely, positively can’t wait! We LDR’s talk about rallies like this, butt unfortunately for you, you have no idea what it’s like unless you’ve ridden in one. The best analogy I’ve ever been able to come up with is Christmas morning when you were about 7 or 8, multiplied by about 10. You find it difficult to sleep the night before, you look forward to the unknown butt an unknown that no matter how it goes, what “presents you find under your very own tree”, you know will leave you with a smile from ear to ear. This Christmas morning however, is different from that one so many years ago in that there’s also a test of one’s inner self involved, a very hard test that you have actually paid money to have made of you, a test that if you apply yourself as you should, will leave you totally physically and mentally exhausted, a test that will have even the best of riders wondering how they will fare in the end. Yes, loyal Rollin’ Mag readers, it’s Waltzin’ time again! The Saturday prior to this issue going on-line will commence the running of the 4th annual Waltz Across Texas Long Distance Rider Rally organized and held each year by Jack Tollett and his lovely wife Paula from Ft. Worth, Texas. The WATR has become one of the most respected and anticipated rallies held each year within the LDR community. To me personally, to say I anticipate and look forward to this rally is an understatement. The WATR seriously borders on an addiction with me. I’m really not sure why, butt I think it is for a combination of reasons. First being that it is held in the Great State of Texas which I have come to love almost as much as my original birth state of Georgia. (I am only being held prisoner of war in Florida.) Then there is the most gracious display of hospitality and rally organization put on by Jack and Paula and last, hell, not even last, you can move this one right back up there to first, is the great work this rally does for it’s charity, the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. Last year, the rally donated almost $10,000 (almost TRIPLE the amount raised in the first rally of ’98) to the hospital that provides medical care free of charge to (just) children within Texas regardless of their income or ability to pay for it themselves. Jack and Paula spend an unbelievable amount of time, effort and personal expense each year organizing and putting on this rally, and even with the enjoyment and respect it has brought to and from their fellow LDR’s, I can assure you the end result of that check going to the TSRHC is foremost in their minds. (And most rightfully so, I might add.) Authors
note; Every year at the rally banquet, Jack and Paula arrange for a
representative from the hospital to attend the banquet and to be handed
the check from the rider’s contributions. More than that, they also bring a few of the children from the
hospital to meet the riders and check out their bikes.
I myself look forward to this each year as a most fantastic way to
end each successful rally.) We may have some newer readers who are not familiar with what constitutes a "Long Distance Riders Rally." (You readers that have been with us for a while have time now to run to the fridge for a cool one.) These rallies can perhaps best be described as a riding time/ rate/ distance test in combination with a scavenger hunt. Riders ride a base route prescribed by “RallyBastard” Jack and use that base route along with the additional miles ridden to arrive at various bonus locations, to comprise their own personal rally routes. Riders are issued their own numbered rally towel prior to the start of the rally and must take a Polaroid photo at each of their bonus stops that contains the bonus subject itself along with their towels. In general, the further away from the base route the bonus is, the more points it is worth. The “trick” to a winning route is to score (obtain) the most bonus points, while riding the least number of miles to do so, and still arrive back at the start/finish line within the (EXACT) 24 hr. span of time the rally is actually "running." Hopefully by now, our “Fridge Raiders” have returned… This year’s rally will be held in Longview, TX., deep in the piney woods of East Central Texas. This is a drastic change from the past two years when the rally was based in the “back 40”, extremely rural locations of Fredericksburg and Ft. Davis, and will present challenges much different from these past rallies. First the base route will be only 700 miles butt the bugging devices I have arraigned to have placed within the Tollett residence reveal these 700 miles to be quite time consuming in and of themselves. I suspect we will be using quite a bit of both sides of our tires, not just the center strip we’ve abused in each of the past two years rallies. Secondly, Jack has waxed up a nice new piece of rope for each of us to slip around our necks as that bike rides out from under each of us.
He has greatly enlarged the list of bonus locations from prior
years, all the more to feed the raging cases of “Bonus Fever” known to
attack the riders while running an LDR rally.
Get too burned up with “da feva” and you’ll find yourself
still miles away, out in the middle of BF Texas, when that little Mickey
Mouse hand clicks down to “your butt is SOL, outta time and DNF’d (did
not finish), you fool”. You’ll
then find yourself with a nice handful of Polaroids you have busted your
ass for 24 hours to obtain with which to show your friends and family in
some meager butt futile attempt to explain to them why you must attempt
this insanity each year. Hey honey, check this out, here’s the pic of Clay Henry,
the beer drinking goat mayor of Lajitas, and this one of the 30’ high
Pecos Pete roadrunner statue, and this one of the Barney’s Toilet Seat
Museum, and this one of the Hangin’ Judge Roy Beans bar/courtroom, and
this one here of the famous B2 BBQ
bonus at the “Where Pigs Fly BBQ” in Terlingua, and this one I stole
of John “Lightpole Slayer” Laurenson riding nekid around the parking
lot of the hotel at Pecos, OPPS! Sorry, I really didn’t mean to let that
one slip in dear. There is another change this year due to the locale of the rally site versus the past two Waltzes and that is in the speeds that I anticipate we will likely be able to maintain. Contrary to popular belief (hell, I just recently spent an hour convincing my own Mother of this!) we are running a time/ rate/ distance/ riding/ Thinking exercise here, not a damn Race, thank you very much! Spend about 30-45 minutes on the side of the road getting a performance award and that’s 30-45 minutes other riders have been scarfing boni while you’ve been cooling your heels. Not to mention, I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket on a motorcycle in about 250,000 miles of riding, and I damn sure don’t intend on starting now! If you think you are smart enough to avoid the “Blue (marked) Meanies”, well folks, in this rally, that’s just not gonna be quite good enough. You see, just to make sure his rally goes nice and safe the way he intends it too, RallyBastard Jack will have at least two of his rally volunteers (one this year being a Very Good friend of mine) stationed somewhere along the rally route where we riders least expect it, ready to microwave our asses to a crackly crunch with their very own Bo-fficial Stalker Radar guns. Getting zinged by Jack’s Radar Rangers is almost as bad as a real ticket, make their little led numbers flash too high and you’ve just got your hauling ass disqualified from the rally. I will be doing everything possible to be sure I see my “buddy” before he sees me. (When it comes to riding in a Long Distance Rider Rally, being buddies with a volunteer or the Rallymaster doesn’t matter anymore, if you the rider cook your own goose, it stays that way, Cooked, it ain’t who ya know, it’s how ya ride.) As I type the last few paragraphs here, it is nearing midnight Tuesday, 4/23 -- barely 30 or so hours before I will leave, doing my best to meet a rising sun while heading for Texas. I am more ready than I’ve been for about any rally in my short LDR career. As you will see in this month’s “Butt Wait!-There’s More” article, my bike, The BarfRocket is about as ready as she will ever be, for any ride or rally. I’ve double-checked all my stringently required rally paperwork for completeness and all my provisions are laid out, ready to be actually packed onboard my bike. I’ve casually “joked” with some of my friends that I’ve just about run out of excuses. I have no doubt that on this 2nd night before I pull out Thursday morning, sleep will come a little harder than last night, butt much easier than tomorrow and lots easier than the Friday night before the rally. (After putting in about a 1K day on Thursday, I oughta be able to snooze pretty easily that night.) There are some surprises I have purposely left out until next month’s issue. (Some of them I don’t even know about yet myself, I’m sure.) Jack has outdone himself, at least, on his selection for the site for our rally banquet, and the rally hotel site looks quite promising for our customary after rally, staggering tour of the locale. I had originally planned to do a typical “LDR expedite” routing to Longview, butt after receiving perhaps the most mind-bending sets of back road directions I’ve ever seen, through the state of Louisiana from another fellow LDR, at least my initial trip out to Texas is in for one big major change. I’ll give you one hint. Every trip I take, I try to do something I’ve never done before. For this one… can you say “take your bike on a ferry?”. Sure, I knew you could. (Y'all think, you’re pretty smart, huh? Check your maps and You tell Me were this ferry trip is gonna be between Florida and Texas.) In closing this month, I’d like to take a liberty I would not normally take. I do not normally consider myself one to be known as a solicitor for charitable causes, butt I feel constrained to make an exception. The site and routing of this year’s WATR are not the only things likely to differ from past years. As we go to “press” the nation's economy has not been percolating near nicely as in past years and that’s something every one of us has felt personally to some degree. (Don’t I Ever know That!) This years rider roster for the Waltz is not quite as extensive as in past years either, perhaps due in some part to it being an Iron Butt Rally year and/or the dip in the economy. I myself have serious doubts as to whether or not we will be able to meet the continuing pattern each year in besting the prior years contributions for the kids at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. I would like to ask each of you our readers for a special favor. To my knowledge, though we have similar hospitals here in Florida (and possibly in other states), I’m not sure we have any that serve Only children and Only children absolutely free of charge with no regard for their family's income or ability to pay themselves. Please. Take just a minute of your time and at least visit the TSRHC web site and read about the wonderful work they do.
If at all possible, I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider making a small donation to their fine cause, in your name, and in that of The Waltz Across Texas Rally. Wish me good luck; I need all of it I can get. (I always say, if there were 2 lottery tickets and I had one of them, they’d draw the other one!) J Until next month, B2-with brakes locked and engines spooling up |
|||
|
|
||||
