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Jacob & Mike Langford's
approximate route.
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In
Mike's own words:
Since it was a mini rally, I'll chime in with a mini report.
There was a little mini-rally in San Diego County, the LowCal 250. It
had a 250 mile and 8 hour limit.
After recovering from a back and neck injury I needed a little ride to
get back into shape and this seemed to be the ticket. Plus, after my
dismal rally performances in 2009, I needed see if I could just go for
fun instead of being so competitive and overreaching.
Since it was a short rally I conned my son into coming along. Even
though he is a long time biker he's not into long distances. He is
pretty critical of my LD behavior and swears he has no interest in it.
My plan was to gen up an easy route, have a nice low key tour of San
Diego county, and introduce my son to LD rallying. As it turns out my
son has been paying attention to all of my war stories and he is a bit
competitive himself.
Our route planning genned up 235 mile route and we opted to skip a high
pointer due to a "dirt road" note. Since it had rained in the
last week a slippery muddy road didn't sound appealing. Somehow in the
process of re-planning that bonus got back on the list. Our first
indication of our error was going up this mountain road seeing a sign
that says "pavement ends 300 feet". As with most LD riders we
figured "in for a penny in for a pound". Turning around would
have put us way over our mileage cap. That 25 miles of dirt was a really
good road, very reminiscent of Ancient
Bristlecone Pine forest. For the most part it was hard packed
gravel and pretty well maintained. It did have some bad spots and 2
water crossings but with only a few wet areas we both traversed it with
no problem. Weather was fantastic and we had a great day and fun
ride. My son said it was the best ride he'd had in the 10 years he's
lived out here and maybe the best since he lived in Florida (12 years or
so back).
Anyway we got scored and our mistake managed to work to our
benefit--much to my surprise my son took first place. Even though we
rode together and collected the same bonuses I managed to screw up my
paperwork (again-DOH!) and took 3rd place. Since I was just out for fun
I was very pleased and really glad my son won.
I asked him what he thought of rallying and he said, "it was
interesting and fun, but never again". If that is true, then this
will be his first and last rally and he's got a trophy! [his children
are still young and as we know this is time consuming sport--maybe he
will change his mind when the kids are gone].
Craig Chaddock and San Diego BMW put on a great little
mini-rally to the benefit of PKD Foundation (Polycystic Kidney
Disease). If you ever want to have a fun day touring San Diego county
this is definitely the way to do it. The food was good the price was
right and the company was great.
Thanks to Craig and all the volunteers that made this possible.
-- Mike Langford [aka IB Pete]
Chula Vista, CA
IBA#341
http://employees.org/~mlangfor/
The
mysteries of life? "It's faster horses, younger women, older
whiskey, and more money" -- Tom T. Hall |
| LEG
C1/CF
C1/SP
SP/TB
TB/MB
MB/BH
BH/BM
BM/PM
PM/LM
LM/LV
LV/EP
EP/SY
SY/HB
HB/PI
PI/SC
SC/C2 |
TRIP
n/a
10
3
9
6
10
9
3
19
32
19
30
40
41
5
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TIME
0:21
0:17
0:11
0:23
0:13
0:19
0:17
0:18
0:30
1:02
0:47
0:38
0:53
0:37
0:25 |
 Rally
Logistics, Volunteers, Back-Country Recovery Assistance and Bonus Location
Verification provided by
San Diego Adventure Riders 
and the Red
Hot Riders.
|
