2005 MinuteMan 1000

June 10, 2005

http://www.minuteman1000.com/

I finished up some loose ends at work and hit the road around 1:30 PM on Friday afternoon. I covered the 190 miles to Greenfield in about 2.5 hours. Mr. Garmin and I did not agree however on what the second exit on roundabout meant so I ended up covering another 13 miles on I-91 before arriving at the Rally HQ.

I was immediately sent out to do the ODO check, which I screwed up and had to ride again. I guess the heat was getting to me. So I added about 50 miles to my ride and was hoping this was not a sign of things to come.

We got our rally books with diner, and it didn’t take long to figure out the winner would be riding “plan B”, which required you to ride to Eastport, ME, West Quaco, NB, and Houlton, ME.

I rode back to my hotel, managed to take the correct exit off the roundabout, stopping along the way to pick up some more film. I spent a few hours looking at the laptop and ingesting as many fluids as I could get down. I selected the plan B route with the planets of the solar system along the 40-mile stretch of rte 1 from Houlton to Presque Isle.

I felt that if I could pull that off, and get back to Greenfield without incurring any penalty points I would have managed a good score, and for me, a 24 hour high of 1,260 miles.

I rolled out of Greenfield at 6:00 AM, about the 20th rider. My goal was to maximize my stock fuel capacity of 6.6 gallons, which gets me from 240 – 280 miles, and minimize my gas stops. I rode within 100 feet of the Delorme bonus in Yarmouth, ME. Without stopping. My first stop was in Waterville, ME for a quick gas-up at about 260 miles.

Actually, my first stop was about 15 miles prior to that. The troopers were handing out tickets to the ball with great efficiency; they had me waiting about 5 minutes. That sucked, but then 4 other riders came cruising by. I don’t take much pride in getting traffic citations, and felt a bit embarrassed. Hope you guys appreciate me taking one for the team. Keep an eye on the sky when traveling in Maine.

From Waterville I headed north through Bangor, bypassing another bonus on Hogan road, and hit the airline. This is rte 9 east, which used to be a lot more fun. It’s been widened, and straightened to the point where it is more like an interstate highway. You can still see portions of the old road off to your right and left that used to snake through the forest.

I took a couple of side roads to cut out some miles and rolled into Eastport behind John Tomasovitch and Alex Schmitt at around 1:00 PM. I took 4 Polaroid pictures of the Coast Guard station before one developed properly.

From there it was to Calais for the border crossing. I went through at the same time as Alex with no wait. I stopped for gas about 40 miles east of the border at 250 miles. I didn’t want to push the gas situation to far in New Brunswick. From there St. Johns came up pretty quick. There is a $.25 Canadian toll here, which I think is just a ploy to get US dollars. All I had was a 20. So my focus turned from the rally to how I was going to unload all this Canadian money. Anyway, Shortly after St. John I followed the directions in the rally book towards St. Martin’s on rte 111. At the T in the road I went right. After about 20 minutes I decided I was going in the wrong direction. I scrolled up along the coast on the 2610 and found West Quaco in the opposite direction. I swung it around, rode past the T, and took a right at the second T. I lost about 40 minutes here and passed John, and Alex on their way out. They were about 40 minutes ahead of me.

I blasted into the lighthouse at West Quaco, hoping I didn’t cut a tire as I “hung it out” on a 90-degree turn on the gravel road. I think I must have forgot which bike I was on. I had less trouble getting back to 1, and was soon heading north on 7, then east on TC-2. The GPS seemed to know less about where I was, or where I was going than I did. Most of the way up to Houlton I was riding by myself on a brand new highway cut through the wilderness.

I arrived at the Houlton border crossing all alone, and got through with no wait. I bagged Pluto at about 5:30 PM, and my gas receipt with 260 miles at 5:37. They let me exchange my Canadian money back to US dollars, but for some reason I only got $13 back. So $.50 Canadian in tolls cost me $7 US?

I bagged about half of the planets on the way to Presque Isle, and the other half on the way back to Houlton. I think I was headed south on I-95 by a little after 7:00.

I was paying extra attention to the shoulders up here on I-95 looking for a moose to snap a Polaroid of for the 100 pt. wildcard bonus. About 20 miles out of Houlton I spotted him. The same Moose I had tried to get a picture of two weeks earlier with my MD 20-20 flag just for fun. I hadn’t seen another car for about 15 miles so I just hauled it off the left hand side and pulled the camera out of the top-box. About the time I laid my flag on my saddlebag and pointed the camera at the moose, I realized that he had taken as much interest in me, as I had him. As he sauntered toward me I snapped the picture, threw the camera in the top box, slammed it shut, jumped on the bike and took off. He was probably only about 30 feet from me when I jammed it into gear with my heel. I had to stop about a half mile down the road to write my mileage down, and lock my top-box. Things you’ll do for 100 measly points.

I was ready to get off the bike at the Hogan road Deli in Bangor after only 120 miles, and again at Delorme in Yarmouth in another 120. I had anticipated this and saved these bonuses for the return. I pulled into the Citgo next door, got some gas and checked my arrival time in Greenfield. I had about 1.5 hours to play with according to the fastest route.

I decided to take my rest break here and try to come up with a plan for the final push back to the HQ. This is something I never thought I would have to do. In my planning the night before I figured I would be at the gas station across the street from the HQ’s watching the penalty points adding up while I waited for my rest period to end. I never thought I’d be looking for more points.

I had a bite to eat and took a nap under an overhang. I woke up with a half hour to go before I could leave and pulled out the paper map. I liked the looks of a route over the Kancamancus highway, and southwest to I-91. I’m very familiar with the roads and thought I could still make pretty good time even though the fog had started to get pretty thick. I thought there was a chance it would lift away from the coast. I plugged the route in and still had 40 minutes to hunt for the bonuses. I thought that if I made good enough time over this section I could stop again and take a look at the bonuses that lay along rte 100 south of Brattleboro. I didn’t, so I didn’t.

The second gas receipt for .01 gallons said the two hours was finally up and I headed out.

After dispensing with a car filled with folks that looked like they had to much fun for a Saturday night, I didn’t see another set of lights for 100 miles. The fog was pretty thick so I was careful not to out-run my HID PIAA 910 lights. They have been doing some construction on the Kanc, so there was about 5 miles of dirt over two sections. I got my elbows up and was able to maintain a pretty good pace over these sections. Shortly after that I had an opportunity to get another moose picture but I decided I didn’t have the time to spare. Luckily, she stayed out of the road and ran in the right direction. The Kancamngus pass bonus, at 2,855 feet, was easy.

The water tower in North Woodstock was a little more difficult. I ended up getting the rally book out and honed in on the coordinates. I continued east on 112 to 118 which climbs up over a mountain. I was thinking to myself that I could let my guard down just a little. I might see a deer, but there shouldn’t be any moose up here. Within a half mile I see another cow. She too stayed out of the road but my guard would have to stay up.

I came down off the mountain into Warren to find out when some fool had put an ICBM in the middle of town. Continued on 25 out to I-91 and started the final 109 miles south for Greenfield. The GPS said I had two minutes to spare, and I decided not to figure out if the points on rte 100 were worth the penalty points. So, kicking myself for loosing that 40 minutes in NB, I headed for the barn.

I rolled in at 5:58 with 1331 miles on the clock, quite pleased with myself.

Big thanks to the MM1K organizers, I had a blast, and explored some new limits riding to a third place finish. I also rode the most flawless rally I’ve done. That is, if you don’t count my ride to the start of the rally, and that wrong turn…oh, nevermind.

See you next year.