This was my first Rally of this kind and I knew I was in the presence of greatness when there were four finishers of the World renowned Iron Butt Rally held in the USofA in the same room as me! Fifty of us were at Rally head Quarters wondering what we had let ourselves in for.

Any of you who enter this sort of event will know the main focus is to receive your Rally Bonus Book so you can start route planning. As a member of the Motorcycle Tourers Forum (MTF) I had been told about Bob Owen's system of Bonus Location numbering and methodology to get those locations into your chosen GPS. So imediately on receipt of the book, from Rallymaster Chris McGaffin, I was off to my room to let the fun commence. Rally's are lost and won at this crucial planning stage.

Stage one scan the 60 bonus locations and get your high, mid and low points figured out - in this event I nominated below 1,000 points as low, 1,000 to 3,000 as medium and 3,000+ as high. I used square push pins in AutoRoute (same as Streets & Trips but for Europe) for bonus available 24 hours a circle to depict Daylight and a triangle for restricted access bonus locations. It was taking an age to find each location; very accurately because 1mm on a map could get your pushpin two streets away on the ground! So I decided to not bother with any bonus location South of my current position. Our Rallymaster, at the briefing, had let slip there were as many points available North of our Rally HQ as there were South so I felt confident about this startegy. Also the weather forecast was heavy rain heading in from the South.

By 11:30 I had my pushpins sorted into Autoroute, transferred to Map Source via GPSU programme and downloaded into my Garmin Zumo 550. Ready for the off, so knock out some zzzzzzzzzzzzzz's and I'd be good to go. I had not accounted for my racing mind and Morpheus was a long time a comming; I'm sure I did not sleep a wink before my 05:00 alarm call. Up and at'em; the carpark was a hive of activity.

Gerhard, an IBA Rally vet, looked cool and very Germanic and lazily said; "are you heading North Dave?", I was, so felt good he was. But then Roger Allen, the lead guy for IBA UK, casually threw in that South was the best option! Head games and in this environment not conducive to good safe focused riding. I had a plan, I had a route and my strategy was to get a good solid finish.

Get the basics right. Fill out the fuel log meticulously, after all a correct fuel log was 10,000 points in the bag. We needed 25,000 for a finish, my plan would harvest 30,000 points so I was good to go. I also needed to do 1,110 miles for a finish.

Here are my bonus locations:

So that was the route.

I entered this event with two fellow Geordie Chapter members.

Jon Ince on a CVO Fat Boy, no screen, no fairing and he came in with the highest mileage recorded at 1,703 miles on the least appropriate bike, this was a ride of epic proportions. Jon did not RTBQ (Read The Bloody Question) and planned to have his three hour rest bonus at Rally HQ. He arrived at 13:45 on the Sunday only to be advised that the rest bonus had to be taken between 10pm and 3am - RTBQ! Result DNF.

Of the three IBA Rally Vets riding got a DNF due to a Road Traffic Incident (RTI). His motorcycle was unrideable, but he was fine to make his own way home; an ironic case as he had given us all the safety lecture before we departed and he was of the opinion that in an RTI it was always your fault because you should anticipate the actions of the car drivers....mmmmm.

Richard Keegan, the Irish IBA Vet got 9th and Gerhard Memmen-Krueker was 4th.

Robert Roalfe, on a BMW, managed to win this inaugural Rally with 40,262 bonus points. Not only was he a fantastic rider and route planner but he was a friendly helpful guy who I met on the road four times, He's on the left in the pink shirt. Whilst he rode around the very top of Scotland to John O'Groats he noticed on his Garmin 2610 a location for a Round Britain Rally his doing and bagged that location for that event; what a guy!

Some other stories:

Kevin Parsons on a Firebalde, Kevin, rode with a back pack and got a DNF with 27 miles short of the distance standard.

One other rider hit a deer and was OK but his bike was not rideable.

The only female, Marion Costin-Ford, competitor, who'd been delivering a baby up to 1:00 am Saturday morning and still managed to set off at 6pm was a DNF - but in my book she did very well to get to the start line and make it back to Rally HQ.

One chain broke, one injured shoulder, one drop out because his mate dropped out etc.

The 21 DNF's is a big rate in a Rally of 50 but as it was the first some riders did not know what hit 'em when the Rally Bonus Book was handed out - for a newbie it was daunting. We all owe a hige debt of gratitude to Roger Allen and Chris McGaffin for ensuring the riders had a ball.

As for me I achieved my objective of a finish, in a credible 14th, and most importantly enjoyed the ride because I rode it like I wanted to ride it tomorrow. As an aside I since found out that measuring success as the most efficient rider (points per mile travelled) I'd have been fourth; work smarter not harder is my creed!