Monthly Archives: April 2021

Week 3 Update – Our First Finisher!

Rod’s final Washington destination cemented his Finisher status!

Rod has done a lot of riding over the last week and finished Washington with a stop at Boggan’s Oasis. Great job, Rod!

So far we have 92 different riders with at least one visit and a total of 193 visits by all riders. Pretty good start to the year! Washington destinations lead the way with 193 stops so far. The only locations without a visit are in Nevada (Wild Horse Dam), Montana (Big Sky), Idaho (Driggs, Ketchum and Craters of the Moon) and Oregon (Little Alps and Dee Wright Observatory). I am sure some of those will fall soon.

Just a reminder for those who don’t use Facebook.

  • Read the destination listing and take the picture described in the notes.
  • Just because a rider posts a picture on the Facebook Group page doesn’t mean it is a good picture or that they got credit for it.
  • Each rider is responsible for understanding the destination requirements as described in the notes of each location in the guide. Don’t have the guide? Go to the website, download it and read it. A good practice to make sure you don’t forget what was written when you are in one of several low cell signal areas – print out the guide and take a copy of the sample image with you.
  • The most common offender is the Ilwaco location. Read the note for that location – it says to “Take a picture of the runway from the east end …”. Each location describes what we want in the picture. Read the notes.
  • Finally, we DO NOT score anything posted on Facebook. If you want credit for a visit, send the picture to us using the e-mail as described on the website and in the handout I mailed in your package. No e-mail, no credit.
Here’s a great example of a picture that satisfies the notes from the WA-5 (Ilwaco) location (Submitted by Wayne Horner).
Chad found one of Washington’s great riding areas!

Week 2 Update

We have 334 riders signed up right now, and 63 of you have visited at least 1 destination so far. There have been a total of 107 visits sent in to us. For the most part, the pictures have been great! There have been a few misses.

Please read the description of the destination before taking your picture to make sure you capture the object described in the guide. As I have said before, your picture does not have to be an exact match to the sample provided, but it does have to at least include the object described in the guide. Also, if you are riding at night and plan to submit a nighttime picture, take a few practice pictures and make sure your flag is legible enough for us to be able to see it. Nighttime pictures are probably the most challenging that you will take during this rally.

We have seen visits to almost every destination so far. The only exceptions are either not currently available (Dee Wright Observatory, for example) or are very difficult to get to (Wild Horse Dam in Nevada, for example). The Stonehenge replica in Washington along the Columbia River has been the most popular so far with 18 visits.

Rider 293 has been the only visitor to OR6 so far.
Rider 003 has been the only visitor to WA2 so far.
A visit to the Lochsa Lodge along US-12 in Idaho is never a bad day!
A nighttime picture is challenging. Make sure we can read your flag number. We were able to give credit on this one. The rider’s flag is hanging on the sign.

We expect more activity this week as the weather is forecast to be excellent all the way through the weekend. I might even be able to get out for a day!

Good First Week!

It was a lot of fun seeing several riders get out and visit some of our destinations the first few days of April. Take a look at the Rally Stats page to see a full summary, and look at the Rider Stats page for individual results.

  • 37 Riders visited 52 sites.
  • WA-5 in Ilwaco was the most popular with 9 visits, followed closely by WA-7 in Maryhill and OR-4 in Days Creek with 7 each.
  • Rider 293 (Russell Studebaker) visited 4 destinations in Oregon and California.
  • Riders have visited destinations in every state already!

Rider 293 made the trip up to Trinity Dam in Northern California on a nice day for riding. This is a great example of a picture that was easy to score – bike and flag clearly visible, no question that he visited the correct location!

Rider 293 visited Trinity Dam in Northern California.

Rider 222 was the only person to visit a Montana destination, and he picked one of my favorite destination to grab a quick bite. He lives nearby and didn’t stop for lunch on this trip. This picture is another great example of a solid submission – bike and flag clearly visible, obvious he was at the correct location! Notice that his picture doesn’t exactly match the provided sample image? That’s OK, the sign is the same and let’s us know he found the right place.

Rider 222 at Tamarack Brewing Company in Lakeside, Montana.

Now here’s an example of a picture that could be improved. The issue with this picture is that the flag numbers cannot be read, even when zooming in. To ensure success, make sure your flag is clearly readable by the scoring team. It does look like this group had a good time yesterday!

Lots of flags, not too many of them were readable by the scoring team 🙁

We are looking forward to a great week of riding! The weather can only get better from here, right???