aciurczak
slower would be backwards
I want to thank Budman (and BARF!) for sponsoring two folks on the Cal24 this year (June 14th/15th), myself and Silversvs. (more info here and here) The Cal24 is a motorcycle rally that has been going on for some time now, at least 15 years or so. I believe 1993 may have been the first running of the event. Participation is open to everybody, but no more than 50 or 60 folks tend to show up at the start line each year. In my view, the point of the event is pretty simple. Ride hard, ride swiftly, ride long, ride smart, but most of all ride safe. Considering the millions (yes, millions) of miles the competitors have traveled during the event over its lifespan, the phenomenally low incident rate speaks for itself.
Each year the rules change significantly enough that planning for next year's rally using last year's winning strategy is a waste of time. Something will be different, whether it is the number of checkpoints, the amount of time they are open, the thread bonus, whatever. All we can be sure of is that it isn't going to be the same as any prior event. Every year. One thing that has been reasonably consistent the past few years is the start point; the rallies have started and finished in King City or Dunnigan (alternating), for the past few years. This year it is up in Dunnigan.
Riders don't know anything about the route until we receive the instructions early Saturday morning, typically 1 hour before we are allowed to leave the parking lot. But what we can count on is that the base route will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 miles, and as little as possible of the route will be on the interstates. To have a chance at finishing on time, a rider must be comfortable moving quickly through twisty roads, hundreds of miles at a time. One good example is Highway 36; known to many northern california motorcyclists. We were on 36 at dark two years back, needing to make great time all the way from the coast to Red Bluff, while looking for a variety of bonuses both near and far from the main road.
Folks can bring just about any type of bike they like on the rally, as long as it is street-legal. Fuel capacity is important, and a bike with less than 150 mile range will be a limiting factor. I did one Cal24 rally on a ZX-12R, with a range of right around 150 miles, so I carried some spare gas cans in my luggage in case. So while there certainly are some folks on sportbikes, more and more of the field has gravitated to some type of sport-touring mount. FJR's are popular, BMW GS's are popular, and to a lesser extent the rest of the BMW line (K-bikes, RT's, LT's etc). Honda's ST1100 was very popular for many years, but there are less of those and many fewer ST1300's than FJR's, for whatever reason. And there are always a few Gold Wings thrown in for good measure. Without going into great detail, my body didn't feel, uh, normal, for several days after the 24-hr rally on the ZX-12R, even considering the corbin seat and helibars I had on that machine. Since then I've had a much easier time of it on an 1100RT, and now a 1200RT.
So here's the bike I'll be taking, for the 3rd time (on this bike, this will be my 5th Cal24), on this year's rally:
It's a 2005 R1200RT. I picked it up new as a leftover in 2006. It has just about every option BMW offered at the time, save for heated seats. While the bike would be reasonably comfortable and likely competitive in the rally right off of the showroom floor, what fun would that be. So I've added a few gadgets and farkles along the way to make it just a little more capable.
From a comfort standpoint, I've got a Rick Mayer seat, which is truly all-day and all-night comfortable, compared to the stock seat that can't claim as much. The bike has a Gerbing heated clothing controller installed on the dash, with the pigtail for my heated jacket liner coming out right at the front of the seat. I can dial up anything from a little extra heat to nuclear. Between the Gerbing and the heated grips, cold simply isn't an issue. I've installed a Cee Bailey windscreen, which is significantly taller and wider than the stock BMW screen. The screen is electrically adjustable, so when it is in the all the way down position I can easily see over it, and am never looking through it in the twisty bits.
But when the road straightens out and I want some peace and quiet, or at least zero wind noise, I can move it up on the fly:
There are a few gadgets on the handlebars. From the left I have a Valentine One radar detector, a Garmin 60Cx GPS, the iPod Nano, and finally another Garmin GPS, the Zumo. The V1 needs no explanation, but the reason I have two GPS's may. Initially I had meant to replace the older 60Cx with the Zumo, but it turns out that the Cx has some very useful features that were left out of the newer gadget, so I just kept it on the bike. Also, having 2 GPS's on the dash allows me to aim them at different points during the rally. I typically have one always aimed at the next checkpoint, and the other at whatever bonus location I am currently searching for. This lets me know how I'm doing on time compared to the checkpoints, so I always know when it's time to drop everything and head straight for the barn. All of the audio from these gadgets is wired to an Autocom unit installed under the seat, so a single wire coming from there to my helmet allows me to hear all of them at once. The Autocom prioritizes the devices, so for example everything else is immediately muted the second the radar detector sounds an alert. The Zumo connects to my cell phone via Bluetooth, and allows me to make and receive calls on the fly; the audio is piped right through the Autocom to my helmet speakers/microphone. The clarity is surprisingly good, it's easy to hold conversations at speeds much faster than it may be recommended to have conversations at. :teeth This does allow for decent communication during the rally, which can certainly come in handy. It's probably a good time to note that all of this is completely and thoroughly legal, there is no restriction against getting outside advice/help along the way. (EDIT: See posts below, a change has been made for this year's rally in this regard) But the rider must in all cases actually ride to the bonus location himself/herself, there is no way to do this by remote control. At each bonus, you need to record the time and mileage on your bike, which serves as a reasonable log for the rally organizers to confirm afterwards that you really were where you said you were.
From a performance standpoint, I've swapped out the BMW's ESA shocks, which had worn out by 15k miles, and replaced them with Ohlins front and rear. The spring rate is set up for a larger than average bear, who likes to ride faster than average on twistier than average roads. It remains a smooth highway cruiser, but it is also surprisingly capable when the going gets twisty. I've got a reasonably new set of Pilot Road 2's on the bike, and the way it looks I won't need to change them out prior to the rally. The RT has a 7.1 gallon fuel capacity, and rarely gets less than 38 mpg. I usually fill up between 200 & 250 miles on a tank, but if I'm in fuel-saving mode I've gotten over 315 miles at a single stretch (on last year's Cal24, in fact, the leg before the checkpoint in Lone Pine). The trip computer has a miles-to-empty feature, which comes in quite handy. When it hits zero miles, which it likely will at least once during the rally, there are still 20 miles or so of gas left. Lighting is pretty important on these 24-hr rallies, so I've made some pretty substantial upgrades. Each of the 3 H7 bulbs has been swapped out with Ultrastars, which gave a nice bump in brightness and distance. I also installed two Touratech auxiliary lights; one HID on the left and one fog on the right. The HID is absurdly bright, while the fog is actually more useful for folks to see me rather than lighting up the road.
From a safety and reliability standpoint, I've added Hyperlites to the back of the bike to augment the standard brake light, these are two banks of LED's next to the license plate that flash continually when the brake light is engaged. When the 3 bags are installed on the bike, I feel that the stock light isn't as visible as I'd like, and these help. In the glove box on the top right of the fairing, I've stashed a maglight (there will be several flashlights in different places on the bike), a reasonable set of tools for minor roadside fixes, a tire plug kit, and an electric air compressor that plugs into the BMW's auxiliary power sockets.
I've saved one of the neatest gadgets for last, the SPoT Satellite Messenger. This is a small hand-held device that communicates with the Globalstar satphone network to report position, and a few different types of alerts. It sits right inside the top of my tankbag. I will have it configured during the rally to send up my position every 10 minutes, so people here can track the bike throughout the day. Here is a link to that tracking page, the password is cal24. Each page on SPoT's site has a rather low limit of 500 hits per week, so I will set up 8 or 10 different guest pages, all with access to the same data, so we aren't likely to hit that limit during the rally.
But just in case all of the electronics get hit with a solar flare, I can always rely on some human assistance stashed in the topcase. Remind me to poke some holes in the plastic...
I've posted all of these pictures (in full 10 mp resolution) , as well as a short video, up at this smugmug gallery. During the rally, thanks to the Zumo, the SPoT, and an incredibly patient wife, this thread will be updated with my current whereabouts and how the rally is going so far.
Thanks for taking a look at the machine, and I'm really looking forward to this year's rally. I hope Silversvs and I can fly the BARF banner in a way that doesn't entirely embarrass either us or the board. :laughing Wish us luck...
Each year the rules change significantly enough that planning for next year's rally using last year's winning strategy is a waste of time. Something will be different, whether it is the number of checkpoints, the amount of time they are open, the thread bonus, whatever. All we can be sure of is that it isn't going to be the same as any prior event. Every year. One thing that has been reasonably consistent the past few years is the start point; the rallies have started and finished in King City or Dunnigan (alternating), for the past few years. This year it is up in Dunnigan.
Riders don't know anything about the route until we receive the instructions early Saturday morning, typically 1 hour before we are allowed to leave the parking lot. But what we can count on is that the base route will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 miles, and as little as possible of the route will be on the interstates. To have a chance at finishing on time, a rider must be comfortable moving quickly through twisty roads, hundreds of miles at a time. One good example is Highway 36; known to many northern california motorcyclists. We were on 36 at dark two years back, needing to make great time all the way from the coast to Red Bluff, while looking for a variety of bonuses both near and far from the main road.
Folks can bring just about any type of bike they like on the rally, as long as it is street-legal. Fuel capacity is important, and a bike with less than 150 mile range will be a limiting factor. I did one Cal24 rally on a ZX-12R, with a range of right around 150 miles, so I carried some spare gas cans in my luggage in case. So while there certainly are some folks on sportbikes, more and more of the field has gravitated to some type of sport-touring mount. FJR's are popular, BMW GS's are popular, and to a lesser extent the rest of the BMW line (K-bikes, RT's, LT's etc). Honda's ST1100 was very popular for many years, but there are less of those and many fewer ST1300's than FJR's, for whatever reason. And there are always a few Gold Wings thrown in for good measure. Without going into great detail, my body didn't feel, uh, normal, for several days after the 24-hr rally on the ZX-12R, even considering the corbin seat and helibars I had on that machine. Since then I've had a much easier time of it on an 1100RT, and now a 1200RT.
So here's the bike I'll be taking, for the 3rd time (on this bike, this will be my 5th Cal24), on this year's rally:
It's a 2005 R1200RT. I picked it up new as a leftover in 2006. It has just about every option BMW offered at the time, save for heated seats. While the bike would be reasonably comfortable and likely competitive in the rally right off of the showroom floor, what fun would that be. So I've added a few gadgets and farkles along the way to make it just a little more capable.
From a comfort standpoint, I've got a Rick Mayer seat, which is truly all-day and all-night comfortable, compared to the stock seat that can't claim as much. The bike has a Gerbing heated clothing controller installed on the dash, with the pigtail for my heated jacket liner coming out right at the front of the seat. I can dial up anything from a little extra heat to nuclear. Between the Gerbing and the heated grips, cold simply isn't an issue. I've installed a Cee Bailey windscreen, which is significantly taller and wider than the stock BMW screen. The screen is electrically adjustable, so when it is in the all the way down position I can easily see over it, and am never looking through it in the twisty bits.
But when the road straightens out and I want some peace and quiet, or at least zero wind noise, I can move it up on the fly:
There are a few gadgets on the handlebars. From the left I have a Valentine One radar detector, a Garmin 60Cx GPS, the iPod Nano, and finally another Garmin GPS, the Zumo. The V1 needs no explanation, but the reason I have two GPS's may. Initially I had meant to replace the older 60Cx with the Zumo, but it turns out that the Cx has some very useful features that were left out of the newer gadget, so I just kept it on the bike. Also, having 2 GPS's on the dash allows me to aim them at different points during the rally. I typically have one always aimed at the next checkpoint, and the other at whatever bonus location I am currently searching for. This lets me know how I'm doing on time compared to the checkpoints, so I always know when it's time to drop everything and head straight for the barn. All of the audio from these gadgets is wired to an Autocom unit installed under the seat, so a single wire coming from there to my helmet allows me to hear all of them at once. The Autocom prioritizes the devices, so for example everything else is immediately muted the second the radar detector sounds an alert. The Zumo connects to my cell phone via Bluetooth, and allows me to make and receive calls on the fly; the audio is piped right through the Autocom to my helmet speakers/microphone. The clarity is surprisingly good, it's easy to hold conversations at speeds much faster than it may be recommended to have conversations at. :teeth This does allow for decent communication during the rally, which can certainly come in handy. It's probably a good time to note that all of this is completely and thoroughly legal, there is no restriction against getting outside advice/help along the way. (EDIT: See posts below, a change has been made for this year's rally in this regard) But the rider must in all cases actually ride to the bonus location himself/herself, there is no way to do this by remote control. At each bonus, you need to record the time and mileage on your bike, which serves as a reasonable log for the rally organizers to confirm afterwards that you really were where you said you were.
From a performance standpoint, I've swapped out the BMW's ESA shocks, which had worn out by 15k miles, and replaced them with Ohlins front and rear. The spring rate is set up for a larger than average bear, who likes to ride faster than average on twistier than average roads. It remains a smooth highway cruiser, but it is also surprisingly capable when the going gets twisty. I've got a reasonably new set of Pilot Road 2's on the bike, and the way it looks I won't need to change them out prior to the rally. The RT has a 7.1 gallon fuel capacity, and rarely gets less than 38 mpg. I usually fill up between 200 & 250 miles on a tank, but if I'm in fuel-saving mode I've gotten over 315 miles at a single stretch (on last year's Cal24, in fact, the leg before the checkpoint in Lone Pine). The trip computer has a miles-to-empty feature, which comes in quite handy. When it hits zero miles, which it likely will at least once during the rally, there are still 20 miles or so of gas left. Lighting is pretty important on these 24-hr rallies, so I've made some pretty substantial upgrades. Each of the 3 H7 bulbs has been swapped out with Ultrastars, which gave a nice bump in brightness and distance. I also installed two Touratech auxiliary lights; one HID on the left and one fog on the right. The HID is absurdly bright, while the fog is actually more useful for folks to see me rather than lighting up the road.
From a safety and reliability standpoint, I've added Hyperlites to the back of the bike to augment the standard brake light, these are two banks of LED's next to the license plate that flash continually when the brake light is engaged. When the 3 bags are installed on the bike, I feel that the stock light isn't as visible as I'd like, and these help. In the glove box on the top right of the fairing, I've stashed a maglight (there will be several flashlights in different places on the bike), a reasonable set of tools for minor roadside fixes, a tire plug kit, and an electric air compressor that plugs into the BMW's auxiliary power sockets.
I've saved one of the neatest gadgets for last, the SPoT Satellite Messenger. This is a small hand-held device that communicates with the Globalstar satphone network to report position, and a few different types of alerts. It sits right inside the top of my tankbag. I will have it configured during the rally to send up my position every 10 minutes, so people here can track the bike throughout the day. Here is a link to that tracking page, the password is cal24. Each page on SPoT's site has a rather low limit of 500 hits per week, so I will set up 8 or 10 different guest pages, all with access to the same data, so we aren't likely to hit that limit during the rally.
But just in case all of the electronics get hit with a solar flare, I can always rely on some human assistance stashed in the topcase. Remind me to poke some holes in the plastic...
I've posted all of these pictures (in full 10 mp resolution) , as well as a short video, up at this smugmug gallery. During the rally, thanks to the Zumo, the SPoT, and an incredibly patient wife, this thread will be updated with my current whereabouts and how the rally is going so far.
Thanks for taking a look at the machine, and I'm really looking forward to this year's rally. I hope Silversvs and I can fly the BARF banner in a way that doesn't entirely embarrass either us or the board. :laughing Wish us luck...
Last edited:
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