round britain Rally
Over and above the specific rallies, like the Brit Butt, Welsh etc. I also like to enter ones that you can do over the course of the year. The rides on the Grim Rider site are in this category and another is the Round Britain Rally. More details can be found on the site, but basically you have a series of locations around Britain (hence the name!) that you have to visit, photographing your bike and a placard at each. The locations are worth a varying number of points, depending on how easy they are to find or get to.
There are five categories of award at the end of the year, depending on your points total, so you can do as much or as little as you like. These are
100% All - rounder Maximum points gained. (All Landmarks no errors)
All - rounder All landmarks visited.(All Landmarks, some errors and your points total is over 1700)
Platinum over 1700
Gold 1200 - 1699
Silver 800 - 1199
Bronze 400 - 799
Standard 200 - 399
Finishers Certificate 0 - 199
I first entered in 2012, as a way of filling in the journeys to the other rallies. Rather than just head down, I could now visit a few locations on the way to break up the journey. Of course the temptation is to going too far out of your way to get a few.
The list of locations is issued around the middle of March, but as I soon found out, there’s a bit of work to be done once
you receive them. It’s not a case of punching some co-ordinates or an address into your sat nav or mapping program. First of all you have to find the place. Your only given the name of the location, the town, its county and its points value. For example:
County: Kent
Name: It got Doodlebugged !
Location: Little Chart
Points: 25
A bit of digging around and you find that in WW2, Little Chart Old Church , despite being in the middle of nowhere, had a direct hit by an off-course V1 Doodlebug Flying Bomb which demolished most of the building. Not a lot to go on in some cases, so a lot of searching on the internet before getting something that you can actually head for. But that’s part of why I like this rally. Personally, I use a combination of google to find what the location actually is, and where, then google earth to make sure that I can identify it when I get there.
2012 Rally
2013 Rally
2014 Rally
There are five categories of award at the end of the year, depending on your points total, so you can do as much or as little as you like. These are
100% All - rounder Maximum points gained. (All Landmarks no errors)
All - rounder All landmarks visited.(All Landmarks, some errors and your points total is over 1700)
Platinum over 1700
Gold 1200 - 1699
Silver 800 - 1199
Bronze 400 - 799
Standard 200 - 399
Finishers Certificate 0 - 199
I first entered in 2012, as a way of filling in the journeys to the other rallies. Rather than just head down, I could now visit a few locations on the way to break up the journey. Of course the temptation is to going too far out of your way to get a few.
The list of locations is issued around the middle of March, but as I soon found out, there’s a bit of work to be done once
you receive them. It’s not a case of punching some co-ordinates or an address into your sat nav or mapping program. First of all you have to find the place. Your only given the name of the location, the town, its county and its points value. For example:
County: Kent
Name: It got Doodlebugged !
Location: Little Chart
Points: 25
A bit of digging around and you find that in WW2, Little Chart Old Church , despite being in the middle of nowhere, had a direct hit by an off-course V1 Doodlebug Flying Bomb which demolished most of the building. Not a lot to go on in some cases, so a lot of searching on the internet before getting something that you can actually head for. But that’s part of why I like this rally. Personally, I use a combination of google to find what the location actually is, and where, then google earth to make sure that I can identify it when I get there.
2012 Rally
2013 Rally
2014 Rally