Jeff Earls
Well-known member
Sorry for the late chime-in here. I had a new-rider motorcycle training class (TEAM OREGON BRT) to teach today. Yeah, kind of at the other end of the motorcycling spectrum from this discussion, eh?
Speaking of "eh?". Look at all those riders that ran through Canada to get Madawaska! Tom Austin looked at me funny (nothing new there) when I told him my initial impression for leg 1 was to look at going to Hyder. Why? Because anybody who's playing this game to take home the crystal is going include 4-corners in their route and I needed to look for the "what else can I do" factor. I later decided Hyder was more than I wanted to chew off. (I crafted a route plan that had more miles and capitals than Mr. Meese logged, which is why I said "that route sucks" and went to bed.) I see that many are opting for 4-Corners. That means the winner will need more than 4-Corners in addition to a healthy serving of capital cities.
So the short summary is that Mr. Meese and Mr. Peek are sitting pretty in the standings; not likely so pretty on their bikes. The states they missed are not far out of the way on potential leg 3 routes. I don't think that will slow them down much. I'll play with the routing on that tomorrow.
What may slow them down is if they try for 4-Corners as well. Getting Hyder, Madawaska, and a minimally feasible number of states on leg 1 was not possible. Madawaska and KW on leg 2 is a chancy thing and will likely cause the rider that attempts it to bypass more states for later collection. So that leaves KW for leg 3 and as I mapped out previously, that is not going to play well with potential high value capitals in the west. Ya pays your money, ya takes yer chances. Who will try it?
What about Roger Sinclair? He's in a solid third place; trailing Meese by 1,291 points and ahead of Jewell by a similar margin. Barring errors by Meese or Peek, I don't see how he can advance past them. Roger's problem is Oregon; he skipped it on leg 1. There are very few places to get a computer time-dated receipt anywhere in southeastern Oregon and possibly none after 9 or 10pm. Maybe he'll luck into an open tavern in Denio or Rome and find an ATM that works. In any case, he will need to bypass potential big point opportunities just to reclaim that missing state. He'll still need to get back down for Arizona too. As I see it, Roger is facing a significant risk of DNF let alone maintaining or improving his position in the standings.
The riders in 4th to 20th place all had solid rides with good collection of capitols and the rest bonus. Presume that many of these riders collected the corner at Blaine, WA and are adding Madawaska on this leg.
Here's the public field as of 8:05pm PDT on June 25th; 19 hours into the 61 hour leg to Jacksonville.
https://picasaweb.google.com/KGTpilot/IBR11?authkey=Gv1sRgCIa_xZSzi-CZkAE#5622359172331682674
The rallymaster must be going soft. It is a luxury that the timing works for riding the Boston/NYC corridor overnight instead of at peak rush.
You can clearly see a string of riders that made a choice to add Madawaska to their dance card.
The riders that bagged two corners on Leg 1? They're buried in the standings. For now.
Speaking of "eh?". Look at all those riders that ran through Canada to get Madawaska! Tom Austin looked at me funny (nothing new there) when I told him my initial impression for leg 1 was to look at going to Hyder. Why? Because anybody who's playing this game to take home the crystal is going include 4-corners in their route and I needed to look for the "what else can I do" factor. I later decided Hyder was more than I wanted to chew off. (I crafted a route plan that had more miles and capitals than Mr. Meese logged, which is why I said "that route sucks" and went to bed.) I see that many are opting for 4-Corners. That means the winner will need more than 4-Corners in addition to a healthy serving of capital cities.
So the short summary is that Mr. Meese and Mr. Peek are sitting pretty in the standings; not likely so pretty on their bikes. The states they missed are not far out of the way on potential leg 3 routes. I don't think that will slow them down much. I'll play with the routing on that tomorrow.
What may slow them down is if they try for 4-Corners as well. Getting Hyder, Madawaska, and a minimally feasible number of states on leg 1 was not possible. Madawaska and KW on leg 2 is a chancy thing and will likely cause the rider that attempts it to bypass more states for later collection. So that leaves KW for leg 3 and as I mapped out previously, that is not going to play well with potential high value capitals in the west. Ya pays your money, ya takes yer chances. Who will try it?
What about Roger Sinclair? He's in a solid third place; trailing Meese by 1,291 points and ahead of Jewell by a similar margin. Barring errors by Meese or Peek, I don't see how he can advance past them. Roger's problem is Oregon; he skipped it on leg 1. There are very few places to get a computer time-dated receipt anywhere in southeastern Oregon and possibly none after 9 or 10pm. Maybe he'll luck into an open tavern in Denio or Rome and find an ATM that works. In any case, he will need to bypass potential big point opportunities just to reclaim that missing state. He'll still need to get back down for Arizona too. As I see it, Roger is facing a significant risk of DNF let alone maintaining or improving his position in the standings.
The riders in 4th to 20th place all had solid rides with good collection of capitols and the rest bonus. Presume that many of these riders collected the corner at Blaine, WA and are adding Madawaska on this leg.
Here's the public field as of 8:05pm PDT on June 25th; 19 hours into the 61 hour leg to Jacksonville.
https://picasaweb.google.com/KGTpilot/IBR11?authkey=Gv1sRgCIa_xZSzi-CZkAE#5622359172331682674
The rallymaster must be going soft. It is a luxury that the timing works for riding the Boston/NYC corridor overnight instead of at peak rush.
You can clearly see a string of riders that made a choice to add Madawaska to their dance card.
The riders that bagged two corners on Leg 1? They're buried in the standings. For now.
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