My Bonzai Route

[MikeH]

A few were wondering where I went so here it is:

I almost cut the 120 point bonus in Barron, don't remember exact score Rich & Penny got but that might have been the difference.
I had some issues with waypoints near the same location which I didn't realize until I was in Arcadia and missed the one west of town for another 125 points. At least I got there before the parade.

Going clockwise was going to be my next try but 7am was coming up fast. Doing that and cutting the two near Millville to add some more in Wisconsin would have added up to 5835 and about 630 miles.

[Essnowyt]

Mike, I hope you don't mind, but I would like to share our route. Please let me follow your lead.

Here is our GPS track, so everyone can see our mistakes. We attacked this starting with the going into the city, then working a clockwise plan into Wisconsin. Rachel and I finished with 4680 points. I had two bogus locations in the GPS, so that did not help.

Screenshot 2014-05-27 18.20.58 by Essnowyt, on Flickr

Snowy.

[Pirate Gonzo]

I thought you might want to see the route that four newbies used.



We had a ton of fun and learned a lot from the experience. I think most if not all of us will be back again.

We had no idea what we were getting into.

The fact that we ran it with a group of four seemed out of the norm but we figured it wouldn't hurt. We did consider splitting into groups of two but decided in the end to stick together even if it did slow us down.

We never made a route until after the meeting. I added all the spots to the map on Friday night, Sunday at 6:10 we made a circle out of them on my laptop, looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and loaded the GPS. We were ready to go by 6:20.

We had one bike that got about 120 miles to the tank so we made four or five gas stops. Our first gas stop was within the first hour because none of us filled up the night before.

We stopped at every site. Helmets off, drinking waters and coffee, eating food, and just stretching out.

Never even looked at what the points were worth until our routed last stop of #51 and we noticed we were close to #56 worth 250 points and went for it. It was almost the end of us too because we ended up with a gas stop in there. We arrived back with about 10 minutes to spare.

I am sure I could sit all day and point out mistakes but a couple of things I think we did do right is we didn't stop unless it was gas or a waypoint, we never got lost, and all our waypoints were correct. So we had that going for us.

3765 points and about 505 miles. We went counter clockwise. It was great running into others along the way either at the stops or passing each other along the route. You could always tell by the big wave they were part of the Bonzai... plus it was probably hard to miss our motley crew.

[LSGiant]

Here is a 3600 or so point trip. It was about 570 miles not the best scoring but it sure is beautiful up by Eagle River.

[ST Rich]

Well, since we are all givin it up for free
Penny and I had 30 stops with 2 gas stops for a total of 32. 1 was a full fill and the second was a splash and go, 585 miles.The only issues we had for the day was having to follow the detour around Arcadia due to the parade. We ran a clockwise route starting at the Capital, then to Ft Snelling, Richfield, Mpls and then out of town via Stillwater. It now makes sense why we only saw you twice Mike. It was a great day for a ride and it was great to see so many folks celebrating Memorial Day.



It was great to see everyone!

[Weatherhead]

Thanks for posting these everyone - great to see the routes! Looks like I missed some great riding, in talking to Derek he told me the big ticket route would include the Twin Cities, no doubt! It was sure fun to see everyone after the long winter! Congratulations to Mike & Rich and Penny on their monster rides and to all the other riders on their safe returns, fun and adventures had. Cool Beans!