2023 Grand Tour General Discussion

[Lapchik]

***UPDATE***
2023 will be the Alvin Bertram Memorial Mural Grand Tour

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Feel free to make suggestions on new themes and discuss the ideas I have had so far for the 2023 Grand Tour.

---Libraries. Book it? Like read and haul a**.

---Scavenger hunt. A list of general items to get a picture with, possibly with a G-L-M-C town name requirement and/or only one list item per town. Bonus points for getting one of everything on the list.

---Capitols. 1 point for county courthouse, 2 points for state [or territory] capitol building, 3 points for the Whitehouse [or your country's national capitol building].

---Larger than life. G-L-M-C town names and pictures with statues of people/animals/objects that are sized obviously larger than they would have been in real life.

---Showtime. Local live performance theaters, radio stations, and drive in movie theaters. I ran a switchboard and did a little on-air stuff for 1410 KLEM LeMars / 99.5 KKMA Sioux City for a while [almost 20 years ago].

---Itty Bitty. Pictures of things that are much smaller than they should be, like tiny 1-4 person roadside churches, mini golf, miniatures museums, small statues or artworks of normally very large things.

---Alvin Bertram memorial GT. Pictures of murals in strange places [side of liquor store building, down alleyways, etc.] as that was the theme of the last rally he created.

---Parks. 1 point for a town park, 2 for a county/rural park, 3 for a state park, 4 for a national park. I know that national parks is an Ironbutt ride too, but maybe you want to do both?

---Geology class. We did one way back with water themed names, but how about one with landform themed names? Mission Hill, Valley Forge, Pine Island, Angle Inlet, etc.

---Sugar rush. Candy stores, ice cream/snow cone/frozen treat places. Mobile carts and box trucks ok also. No major chains like Dairy Queen, Cold Stone, or Baskin Robbins. Could probably add in the major manufacturing plants for the candy, as some give factory tours with samples.

---Farm to table. Orchards, farmers markets, vineyards, community gardens, pick your own berry farms. Would discourage/not allow industrial farming as they don't like people snooping around for food security and sanitation reasons [especially with poultry]. On the other end local mom and pop restaurants. Probably just one per town and likely the G-L-M-C requirement for the restaurants only. Farm stuff would not be limited to the G-L-M-C towns.

---Living in the past. Museums, native population heritage sites, historical town preservation sites [everyone there pretends it's 1880 or whenever for education and amusement].

[DownUnder]

A very interesting list.

Some would be great categories for a Grand Tour ( Scavenger Hunt, Alvin Bertram Memorial, Libraries and Living in the Past ).

My only suggestion would be to include Painted Grain Silos and Water Tanks, but perhaps they already fall under the AB Memorial group as they are "murals on a building" ??

[Willie]

If parks is the one that is selected, there are only 63 National Parks, however the IBA expands the definition for the National Park Tour to any location you can get a cancellation stamp. This includes National Battlefields, National Recreation Parks, National Memorials, National Historic Parks, National Historic Sites, etc etc. Some states sites in cooperation with NPS have cancellation stamps as well, such Drake Well Museum in Titusville PA.



With that said the GTM will have to decide which definition for National Park is in effect.


Parks. 1 point for a town park, 2 for a county/rural park, 3 for a state park, 4 for a national park. I know that national parks is an Ironbutt ride too, but maybe you want to do both?

Willie

[Lapchik]

(09-30-2022 11:51 PM)DownUnder Wrote:  A very interesting list.

Some would be great categories for a Grand Tour ( Scavenger Hunt, Alvin Bertram Memorial, Libraries and Living in the Past ).

My only suggestion would be to include Painted Grain Silos and Water Tanks, but perhaps they already fall under the AB Memorial group as they are "murals on a building" ??

Yeah, it would be any large mural regardless of where or upon what. The general guideline would be around 10x the size of a motorcycle. Easy to visualize: park near it, and if it's around 3 motorcycles long and 3 motorcycles tall or 4 motorcycles long and a bit over 2 motorcycles tall it counts.

[Lapchik]

With the other categories available, I would probably just say national parks only. Like Yellowstone national park, Grand Teton NP, etc. Things like Buffalo Gap national grasslands wouldn't count. Plenty of town and country parks so points won't be a concern.

[Lee_0123]

What about towns with compass points in their names and the town begins with G,L,M, or C.
Examples:
East Greenville and West Lackawana would work but not East Detroit

Active specilaty airports like seaplane ports and glider ports?

Major and AAA ballparks?

[DownUnder]

(10-02-2022 01:02 PM)Lapchik Wrote:  With the other categories available, I would probably just say national parks only. Like Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton NP, etc. Things like Buffalo Gap national grasslands wouldn't count. Plenty of town and country parks so points won't be a concern.

George Bernard Shaw was quoted as saying, "England and America are two countries separated by the same language." I'd add Australia to that list.

What is the difference between a National Park and a State Park ??

Garigal National Park is near my home, so I know it well. It was established by my State's Government as a National Park.

[img] https://photos.app.goo.gl/VYiR2p66eAzPg4qg8 [/img]

It looks like the forum software won't embed an image from Google Photos, so please click on the link above to see my example.

[Lapchik]

(10-02-2022 02:19 PM)Lee_0123 Wrote:  What about towns with compass points in their names and the town begins with G,L,M, or C.
Examples:
East Greenville and West Lackawana would work but not East Detroit

Active specilaty airports like seaplane ports and glider ports?

Major and AAA ballparks?

I like the compass idea. Personally not a sports fan but I'm sure most everyone else is.

[Lapchik]

(10-02-2022 04:00 PM)DownUnder Wrote:  

(10-02-2022 01:02 PM)Lapchik Wrote:  With the other categories available, I would probably just say national parks only. Like Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton NP, etc. Things like Buffalo Gap national grasslands wouldn't count. Plenty of town and country parks so points won't be a concern.

George Bernard Shaw was quoted as saying, "England and America are two countries separated by the same language." I'd add Australia to that list.

What is the difference between a National Park and a State Park ??

Garigal National Park is near my home, so I know it well. It was established by my State's Government as a National Park.

[img] https://photos.app.goo.gl/VYiR2p66eAzPg4qg8 [/img]

It looks like the forum software won't embed an image from Google Photos, so please click on the link above to see my example.

Depends on what part of the government takes care of it mostly. State park is one operated and maintained by the state, like Stone State Park in Sioux City, Iowa. National Parks are the National Parks Service, like Yellowstone, etc.

Sioux City is a town in Woodbury county, which is in the state of Iowa containing 99 counties, and there are 50 of in the country. Probably just syntax differences to how Australia is organized.

[Frump]

States (US/Mexico) ~ Provinces (Canada) ~ Territories/States (Australia).

Can we keep the theme simple? I haven't finished (and in most cases even entered the GT) since we turned away from that principal. I really just am looking for reasons to ride without spending days planning how to do that. That may be contrary to what some people want to be doing for a theme, so it would be nice to hear other people's ideas about that?

PS - I like both the compass and mural ideas. We did state/provincial parks years ago (TASTE CRAP Grand Tour)... which I enjoyed. Spanky explained the name as him having dyslexia ... I think the jury is still out on taht. I would be willing to do a park tour again. Could use park signs with names which start with some set of letters (does't have to be GLMC since we have been to many GLMC places already).

PS to post google image get the actual image URL (drill down to just the image and then right-click on image and "Copy Image URL"
- i.e. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9...thuser=0), add ?0.jpg to end of URL with no spaces, and test it with "Preview Post" button. Make sure the image is shared first.

Code:

[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9nZEUv8DnN74QaUTQiZ7Gd8otnXQiQAnXfWk49R8EVwQPgyGU7isVI4afy_tOygl2S7QTKiJ9Bt0mC8KC2HkPbMDwhvt6JEW0FIV3LjqQLpc27DPk6xqWW3-7EmaUW6TQruTblSfi-VQ1ehR-oXmKmXpx1=w600-h450-no?authuser=0?0.jpg[/img]

[Lapchik]

Maybe combine the two? N/S/E/W in the name for one point, and two points if it's in a mural?

Something that Alvin would say is he sometimes rode rallies 100mph in the wrong direction. Compass/mural theme seems fitting.

[DownUnder]

(10-03-2022 12:48 PM)Frump Wrote:  States (US/Mexico) ~ Provinces (Canada) ~ Territories/States (Australia).

Can we keep the theme simple? I haven't finished (and in most cases even entered the GT) since we turned away from that principal. I really just am looking for reasons to ride without spending days planning how to do that.

PS - I like both the compass and mural ideas.

.
I am all for a simple concept, and I really like the Mural idea.

Of course you could do a "simple" Murals GT, and a parallel "complex" compass point/parks/elements/alphabetic_ town name GT.

People could choose to do one or the other or both.

[Frump]

(10-03-2022 01:08 PM)Lapchik Wrote:  Maybe combine the two? N/S/E/W in the name for one point, and two points if it's in a mural?

I would reverse that, 1 point for mural or 2 points if north, east, south and west on it (anything, not just town names).

I would stick with directions (north, east, south and west) on the mural, rather then letters, for bonus points. I like the mural idea a lot - plenty of opportunities to see some cool old depression/new deal public works art. I'm already itching to go look for some. Would the bike have to be in the photo, or could it be parked by a sign outside with the location's name on it? I don't think they are going to allow me to bring it in most places. It would be cool to post photos someplace where people could share.

Also, for folks down-under the equator, could the start date be bumped up a little?

[DownUnder]

I'm with you Frump, in that I really like the mural concept. Although, I thought it had more to do with outside "street art" than murals inside a museum/building.

I think the idea of 1 pt = mural and 2pt = mural + NSEW in the mural is fair.

Usual GT reqs in the the photo needs bike + rally flag + mural. This kind of make inside murals a hassle, although 2 photos might work bike+flag+building name outside and mural+flag inside.

The current start dates work OK for me ( 1-Mar to 30-Sept )

Would there be a limit on the number of mural per city/town ?? The problem I see is how you define "a town". In a rural setting, it is no problem, but when you get to a large metropolitan city, then it becomes difficult to define. For example, Sydney my home city covers an area of 100 km x100 km. Is that "one town" or do we count city suburbs as "towns".

As a suggestion, I would say 1 mural per location, and each location needs to be a reasonable distance from any previous photo. What is reasonable ?/ If you can push your motorcycle from one mural to the next, like across the road or around the corner, then that is the same location. If a rider would normally ride his/her motorcycle to the next mural, (say 1 km) then that is a different location and the second mural is a valid bonus.

[Lapchik]

The point of the GT is to get you out and to new places, so I would say a bike + flag pic outside a building and then a pic inside with your flag + mural would work. So would a single pic outside with bike + flag + mural.

I would say as many murals as you want in a town, as long as they are of a certain size or larger. If you want to ride around in city traffic all day, or do thousands of miles across the country, whatever makes you happy.

One of the murals on Alvin's last rally was inside a bicycle themed cafe. Most were outside, but a few were inside. Gets you more interesting places, and some of the looks you get in full motorcycle gear taking pictures can spark interesting conversations. One mural I got in that Harvest Rally was in Little Falls, along the railroad tracks by the river. I had to walk 1/2 a block down the sidewalk, then 100' down the railroad tracks along a building. There were two guys smoking back there that I really spooked. Had a good laugh while I told them what I was doing.

I think I would drop the N/S/E/W requirement if it was a more open/general GT as has been requested. Maybe compass headings next year since that's a pretty general/open idea too. Minimum pictures to be a finisher would be higher with the easier themes.

[DownUnder]

Sounds perfect. Simple & straightforward. No special "naming" requirements, just as many large murals, inside or outside, as you can find.

Sign me up . . . .

[Lapchik]

2023 will be the Alvin Bertram Memorial Mural Grand Tour

Simple rules and updated photo submission information will be posted when the main event page is updated. Keep an eye on the main page and this thread for updates.

[Willie]

Do murals include something that would be considered graffiti ??

Willie

[Lapchik]

Good point. I'll have to think on that. Maybe have to distinguish between art and general train-side type tagging if allowed.

[DownUnder]

Interesting question.
I did a quick Google search and found this definition. Graffiti art is done ad-hoc, un-paid for, and sometimes un-wanted by unknown artists on public buildings, often with spray cans and including written slogans or propaganda in graffiti genres for the community; whereas Murals are a specific work of art by an artist, generally commissioned and wanted by a building owner.

Over to RM . . .