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Our first shot at the Alphabet City Rally was a fun ride. The promoter, Howard Entman, visited MTR at the last meeting and gave a short talk about the upcoming rally and all the do's and don'ts. It seemed like a lot of fun and since we didn't have a ride scheduled that weekend, we figured why not give it a whirl. And it was for a good cause too as all the proceeds went to St. Jude Children's Hospital.
We had six members and three guests show up at Southern Thunder Harley-Davidson in Horn Lake. Hildia and I signed in at 9:08 and left on our quest immediately. We had seven hours to get the job done and we chose to ride alone. But the truck driver contingent of MTR, David, Chat, Jake, Chat's brother and son all rode as a group which kinda' defeats the competitiveness of the whole thing but to each his own. I would have loved to have been a skunk in the weeds as they stood along side of some remote road pouring over maps and arguing over which way to go.
The goal of the rally was to ride from city to city in alphabetical order i.e. Arlington, Bartlett, Cordova etc. On arrival you had to place your ID number that was given to you at sign in on the city limit sign and take a photo, then log the time and mileage. Each letter you claimed paid points with the most winning the rally. Plus there were bonus points such as talking a cop into humiliating himself by holding your number and posing for a picture. That paid 400 points. Your number placed on a Fire Truck paid 150 points etc etc. You get the idea.
Sounds simple huh? Well it ain't. You have to decide where to ride for your next letter or bonus and the choices are literally endless. For instance, after Oakland do we ride to Pisgah that is only seven miles or do we ride to Piperton that's twice as far. In our case we chose Pisgah only to find that there were no identifying signs so we ended up loosing three hundred points not to mention the time wasted. Another example; we rode to the Atoka to get an officer to pose for us only to find the Atoka Police Department closed. Unbelievable. And on and on it went. I could write a book about the many, many experiences we had not to mention all the stories told by other members and we will be talking about it for years to come. It was a blast and everybody had a great time. And one of our own, Dan Randall, won on his Yamaha Venture for the most points gathered for that marque. Way to go Dan.
As fantastic as it may sound, Hildia and I logged 267 GPS miles in this rally and get this, we never got more than twenty miles from home. I'm sure there are others with even more amazing stats but this figure surprised even us. It was the most fun I've had on a bike since I spun out at Creasy Honda several years ago and broke my leg. Would we do it again? You bet.
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Tour Riders® 2009
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