mexican 1000

[UngaWunga]

awesome. make sure to hydrate!

[drc42]

Originally Posted by UngaWunga

awesome. make sure to hydrate!

Funny thing is dehydration was the one thing I managed to stay ahead of during the race. That was a big concern in the heat with all my gear on. Now, nutrition on the other hand I wasn't so good on. During the 4 days I think I ate about 5 cliff bars and 8 tacos total. But, I drank my full 3L hydration pack every day plus water in the morning and a cold bottle of watter at each pit.

Was getting a little sluggish by day 4, especially after I low sided on a slick off-camber downhill turn.

[HogWild]

I'm curious how it went with the roadbooks, for those who used them. It was quite a challenge getting those put together without me having a chance to prerun it. So I won't be surprised if there was an error or two. But overall, did they work well? Were the mileages reasonably accurate? How were the tulip drawings? How much is it worth to get them next time as a continuous roll rather than sheets that have to be taped together? Any other thoughts?

Also, if NORRA was to put on another (new) rally where GPS tracks were not available, would that interest you? What if the navigation was super challenging?

[Pantah]

PM roadracer or racer20 when they get back (#5). I think they'll have plenty of feedback for you. Roadracer said he only got lost once, so it must've been a pretty good roadbook. He'd never used a roadbook or tracks until the start last Sunday.

Originally Posted by HogWild

I'm curious how it went with the roadbooks, for those who used them. It was quite a challenge getting those put together without me having a chance to prerun it. So I won't be surprised if there was an error or two. But overall, did they work well? Were the mileages reasonably accurate? How were the tulip drawings? How much is it worth to get them next time as a continuous roll rather than sheets that have to be taped together? Any other thoughts?

Also, if NORRA was to put on another (new) rally where GPS tracks were not available, would that interest you? What if the navigation was super challenging?

[drc42]

Originally Posted by HogWild

I'm curious how it went with the roadbooks, for those who used them. It was quite a challenge getting those put together without me having a chance to prerun it. So I won't be surprised if there was an error or two. But overall, did they work well? Were the mileages reasonably accurate? How were the tulip drawings? How much is it worth to get them next time as a continuous roll rather than sheets that have to be taped together? Any other thoughts?

Well, this is my first roadbook race so not a lot to compare it to. One thing that frustrated me is there would be a "sweep left" or "right turn with cliff" types of things in the roadbook and there would be 5 corners that matched that on the road, seemed kind of arbitrary which ones it was refering to. Mostly this was in the area of Coco's corner.

Day 4 had a lot of nasty washes in that twisty mountain road that looked like cautions to me but were not noted. I suppose we are all sane enough to realize a road like that is going to have stuff in it anyway though. None if it surprised me, I was riding plenty slow through there.

Starting out on Day 1 I got really lost, and shockingly when I pulled over to deal with my brand new ICO that fell apart after 10 miles (the screws that hold it together fell out ) I was shocked to have c.vestal pull up from behind me (he started ahead of me and is much faster) and ask if my GPS showed me on the track. Problem is I could not read my GPS well with the angle of the sun. Turns out we (and several others) missed a turn somewhere. No clue if that was a roadbook error or we just all made the same mistake. I suspect that if I had a CAP repeater I might have done better, lots of roads there but you did a nice job of putting headings in.

Now, by day 4, I had "lost" my gps (not really lost, it is in somebody's truck but they are out of the race) so I had to do the entire thing old school style. I LOVED it, I felt like I was really on and the odo didn't need much adjustment. I did however make a couple dumb moves and lost probably 20-30 minutes. About the only real suggestion on that one would be around I think mile 75, there was a 10 mile stretch of perfectly straight road, slow down for a village, then a left at one of the CP points. I thought that turn could have used a landmark on it, there was nobody at any of the CPs except for a photog on one of them so perhaps a description of the building next to it would have helped. I wandered around that town for a while before backtracking and finding the right corner.

As I said, first roadbook ride for me, c.vestal mentioned something about the tulips at the party last night but I will leave that for him to explain.

Also, if NORRA was to put on another (new) rally where GPS tracks were not available, would that interest you? What if the navigation was super challenging?

Hell yeah! As long as the challenging stuff has some good way to recover from it, like how you put printed coordinates on some pages, don't give out the roadbooks until just before so people have to take the time to manually enter the coordinates when lost, that would be the penalty for using it. Some of these areas are just so remote wouldn't want to be lost forever out here!

[drc42]

Originally Posted by drc42

Hell yeah! As long as the challenging stuff has some good way to recover from it, like how you put printed coordinates on some pages, don't give out the roadbooks until just before so people have to take the time to manually enter the coordinates when lost, that would be the penalty for using it. Some of these areas are just so remote wouldn't want to be lost forever out here!

Actually on second thought, even better, give out the roadbooks the night before or whenever, so people have time to tape the pages and highlight as they like. But then at the start hand out a page of coordinates for each tulip. So, then nobody has coordinates in time to program them in ahead of time but you still have time to deal with the roadbooks.

Taping the pages together was a bit of a pain, but not horrible. Rolls certainly would be nice. Also this was thick paper, day 2 really didn't quite fit well.

[Yellow Pig]

Originally Posted by HogWild

I'm curious how it went with the roadbooks, for those who used them. It was quite a challenge getting those put together without me having a chance to prerun it. So I won't be surprised if there was an error or two. But overall, did they work well? Were the mileages reasonably accurate? How were the tulip drawings? How much is it worth to get them next time as a continuous roll rather than sheets that have to be taped together? Any other thoughts?

Also, if NORRA was to put on another (new) rally where GPS tracks were not available, would that interest you? What if the navigation was super challenging?

I'm interested in hearing how you set this one up. Did you run the course and take notes on mileage and turns, etc... or did you do it off of someone elses track and google earth?

Thanks,

Dan

[Hayduke]

Sounds like a true roadbook Rally. I couldn't pull it off this year, but maybe next...

Thanks for the hard work on the roadbook, Scott.

[Deadly99]

I think there is a bunch of us thinking about this for next year

[Baja Dad]

Road book was good!
Needed more tulips(land marks)
No street names!!
I love to do more and get my
son involved.
This is the future of long Offroad racing
It was great meeting all the ADV guys
Hope we can do this all again next year!!!

[Pantah]

Originally Posted by Baja Dad

Road book was good!
Needed more tulips(land marks)
No street names!!
I love to do more and get my
son involved.
This is the future of long Offroad racing
It was great meeting all the ADV guys
Hope we can do this all again next year!!!

good post

[azcagiva]

Originally Posted by drc42

Funny thing is dehydration was the one thing I managed to stay ahead of during the race. That was a big concern in the heat with all my gear on. Now, nutrition on the other hand I wasn't so good on. During the 4 days I think I ate about 5 cliff bars and 8 tacos total. But, I drank my full 3L hydration pack every day plus water in the morning and a cold bottle of watter at each pit.

Was getting a little sluggish by day 4, especially after I low sided on a slick off-camber downhill turn.

I saw those tracks and wondered who they belonged to.

-John

[HogWild]

Originally Posted by Yellow Pig

I'm interested in hearing how you set this one up. Did you run the course and take notes on mileage and turns, etc... or did you do it off of someone elses track and google earth?

For all my other roadbooks, I do most work on Google Earth, then prerun to find problems.

For the Mexican 1000 it was done differently. I'm not part of NORRA. Ken Cameron is NORRA's rally master. He and others determined most of where the course would go. He drove it in an SUV and took notes which he evolved into a roadbook. When I raced the event in 2010, they published the roadbook way ahead of time. When I saw it I found that it would not work for the bikes bacause it would not fit in a standard roadbook holder. So I offered to copy the information over into the standard rally format. I did that that last two years, including printing them as well.

This year the course and other things changed. Early on I had agreed to make all the roadbooks in the proper format for bikes and cars. In the stages that stayed the same, I pretty much duplicated what was in last years bike roadbooks. For the new sections, they provided GPS tracks to me, and nothing more. I put the tracks into Google Earth and used my standard process for making a roadbook, which is basically panning along the course and marking intersections and other places where a roadbook entry might be needed (such as a wash crossing or other hazard). Then I use Google Earth to measure the distance between each roadbook point, and write the text (left, right, cross wash, etc.). And I hand drew the tulips based on the Google Earth view. That all was put into an Excel spreadsheet which forms the final roadbook. Once I finished ALL the roadbooks, I sent them to Ken Cameron. He took them to Baja and preran the whole course, verifying the roadbooks were correct. He made a million markups and corrections on my roadbooks, which I later rolled into the final roadbooks. I sent them a PDF file for each final roadbook, which they sent to a printer for printing. Somewhere in there someone missed the concept that the car roadbooks should have a binding, but the bike roadbooks should not. The bike guys ended up having to rip the pages out of the binding before taping them together. And apparently the printer decided to use somewhat heavy paper, which made for a thick roadbook for the bikes. Despite a number of goof ups, it seems it all worked out ok. But I want to learn from the mistakes, and understand what problems the competitors experienced so we can improve for next year.

One other thing that happend was someone decided at the last minute that the original course that went straight through town in Todos Santos was too dangerous. Ken asked me to find a way around the town and change the roadbook to match that new course. I did that without ever having been there. When Ken preran that, he said the route I mapped out worked great, so they stuck with it.

What I described in a couple of paragraphs above, skipping many imprtant details, was probaly 80 to 100 hours of work on my part, plus all the time NORRA people put in to support the roadbook effort. There is nothing quick or easy about making a good long roadbook!

If you want to understand my normal roadbook making process, see post #61 here:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showt...=695886&page=5

Originally Posted by Baja Dad

Road book was good!
Needed more tulips(land marks)
No street names!!
I love to do more and get my
son involved.

Thanks for that feedback!

I did include many street names (see start leaving Mexicali, finish in Cabo, and a handfull of other places), but definatley more street names could have been included. But it's a bit risky doing that using the messed up process we used for this event because what's shown for a street name on Google Earth or some map may not match what the actual street sign says. I did read a few street signs via Google Earth, but that's a pretty sketchy way to go! I'll try to do better next time!

If you want to get some rally practice and learn more, try these:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=746910
http://jimmylewisoffroad.com/class/r...ng-with-jimmy/
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=695886
And watch for a possible new thing I'm working on, maybe in association with NORRA, tentatively called the Diabolical Rally. There won't be street names in that one, because it won't go on any streets. Actually, much of it won't even be on dirt roads or trails! When is the last time you picked a compass heading and rode 50 miles in a straight line across wide open desert and never saw a single road or trail? Diabolical ! ! !

[drc42]

Originally Posted by HogWild

One other thing that happend was someone decided at the last minute that the original course that went straight through town in Todos Santos was too dangerous. Ken asked me to find a way around the town and change the roadbook to match that new course. I did that without ever having been there. When Ken preran that, he said the route I mapped out worked great, so they stuck with it.

I assume this is why Mag 7 set up pits someplace that wasn't even on the course. They were supposed to be near Todos Santos but we never saw them. Several of us are going to be asking for refunds, pretty inexcusable to not have the pits on the actual course, even if there was a change.

[Yellow Pig]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm curious because I'm setting up a Roadbook for the guys in the Rockies section. Just a simple 100 mile +/- loop so guys who have never done one can try and see if they like it.

Here is what I'm working on: Rockies Roadbook


One more question: how do you get accurate distances off Google Earth if the road is windy and climbs and drops. Seems like GE will only give you as the crow flies?

Thanks,

Dan