Three Is a Magic Number

This past weekend was a glorious reason to begin the riding season. We have had a great winter, with little snow and pretty mild temps. There were days in both January and February one could ride in, however March seems to mark the beginning of riding season, at least for me. This was the weekend, taxes out of the way, refunds in, new helmets and intercom units, it was time to bring it all together.

There are 3 tours we are (or should I say I am and MeAsWe has to put up with the stops) participating in this season.

First Grand Tour is TeamStrange A Strange Election Grand Tour, which is riding to a state capitol, border or state welcome center, take a picture of your bike with the object in the picture and either a Red flag (Republican) or Blue flag (Democrat) or both (Independent) as your guess which way the state will vote in the general election in November. So of course I am taking Red pic and a Blue pic and will decide later. Whats a little difficult is what is going on the Republican side. If Trump doesn't get the Republican nomination because of a brokered convention, he could decide to run as an Independent, which really throws a curve ball into the Grand Tour. You only get credit for the state and earn points if you guess right on the election. This one started February 28th. CLICK HERE

The GLMC Americana Grand Tour is simpler. There are 2 categories of bonii, Specific and General. The General category has 4 items for each state, murals, county courthouses, racetracks and something important to you (this can be anything and does not have to be the same type of thing for each state). So if you visit 10 states, you can earn 40 points (4 items X 10 States). The specific category is just that, The Rally Bastard errr Master, has preplanned sites all over the US, generally 6 to 10 places per state you can grab as points. Up here in New England, there aren't as many per state because the states are smaller in area than the rest of the US. Pictured below is an example of a state specific location.  This one starts April 1 CLICK HERE

The National Park Tour involves visiting 50 national parks, memorials, monuments in 25 states within one year. More info CLICK HERE This one starts when you hit your first park, which we picked up last August when we went to Chicago to get the Spyder. Lots of planning and how I learned to use MapSource (GPS mapping program).

That's set's up where we are going this year. We will cover 30 states this season most of them we will hit between May 7th and May 21st. So let the games begin, actually with the next post the games have begun.

In May we will head out to capture the biggest finds of the season, putting 5500+ miles on our tires (all 3 of them). As a special treat, I will get to see some of my high school friends along the way, which I have not seen since 1969. All those icons are potential stops. The color lines are the current routes, but those are subject to change. I was waiting for the Specific bonii before I finalized the routes. The blue crosses in the white box marks those.