Ted
The pilot formerly known as Twin Engine Ted
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iFlyNothing
As requested, the GS Trophy Qualifier write-up.
One week ago today I left home to ride the 940ish miles down to South Carolina, see the above post. I didn't sleep well the night before the qualifier started, even though Thursday was supposed to be registration and then "challenge 1" which involved no riding. There was a combination of anxiousness and anxiety over what was to come, both not knowing what it would be and questioning my abilities to do the challenges I'd be faced with (and also knowing I could "nope" out of anything).
Thursday the registration started around 12:30. My friend who went down there with me and I got breakfast before heading over. It was the longest morning I'd had in a while. First I woke up way too early, but there's nothing that feels quite so long as waiting around for something you know is coming, and not much you can do in the meantime. I did some work, walked on the treadmill in the hotel (that was nice after spending 2 days on the bike), had a couple of phone calls. Everyone I talked to agreed, it was a really, really long morning.
I'd been to the BMW Performance Center a couple of times already so I was familiar with both where it was and the location where we were going to be meeting. We had to stay outside of the main building because as a group of 72 off-road motorcyclists, they didn't want us tracking mud everywhere. Fair logic, nobody complained. We got our own area with our reserved parking spots for the riders and a large tent where all the meals and gatherings were held, plus lots of other parking. BMW really does a good job with their events. They had coolers filled with ice and drinks (water, soda, Gatorade, iced tea) for everyone to grab from, and their in-house catering is very good. We were treated to delicious meals and snacks. Nothing supremely fancy, but the food there doesn't disappoint.
During the 2 hours of registration we got our jerseys, number stickers for the bike (these are important to identify who's who when doing the competitions) and some other swag. As an introvert who normally in a crowd of new people will find a corner to hide in, I was walking up and introducing myself to pretty much everyone I came across, and reconnecting with people I'd met either from the previous GS Trophy course a few weeks prior or from other events. The stress started to wane a bit, although still not knowing what was coming up was somewhat nerve-wracking.
The first exercise on Thursday was a team building exercise, actually something we'd done during the prep course, where we had to move a motorcycle across a pair of logs using only a certain number of 2x4s. It was an elimination exercise with 3 rounds, and each round those who'd advanced got mixed up into different teams. My various teams made it to the final, and then we had to do a tiebreaker because the team we were up against we tied with, the times were within milliseconds. We lost the tiebreaker, but it was still a lot of fun. That exercise resulted in some extra points for those on the winning team. It wasn't about riding, but it was about working as a team, and it was fun to meet others. Dinner went after dark and then we had under 12 hours to go back to our relative hotels or campsites, sleep, and return for breakfast.
Friday morning we arrived before the sun was up for breakfast and were divided up into our teams. With 72 competitors there were 18 teams of 4 to go around to 20 different challenges. We ended up doing 13 challenges on Friday and the remainder on Saturday.
You get no preview of what the challenges are, and in fact were specifically told not to share details of any of the challenges with others. As you'd imagine some people followed this better than others, and at a certain point we all got banned from having phones out because people were recording challenges and posting them on Instagram, which other competitors could then see and get a leg up. I don't know how much of that went on, and how much that really could've helped anyway.
The first challenge that we showed up at was a doozy, and one of the three really hard ones that people "nope"d out of the most. It's hard to describe in detail, but you started off riding up 5 steps made out of railroad ties, with a concrete culvert pipe on the other side going longways. No ramp to the steps, you just had to loft the front wheel enough to get started going up it. So it was very important to center your climb (or just go fast enough to jump over the entire thing) so that you didn't land poorly on the concrete pipe and go off the side.
I considered whether I should attempt this or not, but I figured I didn't come all this way to chicken out on the first obstacle, and did a send it. Going up the steps went very well and I was happy with how that went (and it also looked good according to others watching). But, I was not centered and went off the side of the pipe. The bike fell out from under me to the left and I went over it. Fortunately, despite it looking much worse than the fall where I broke my wrist, the only thing damaged was my skid plate and my rear brake pedal. I picked the bike back up, bent it back some, and decided I was done with the rest of the challenge, which then involved a steep hill going up a rut, over it and down/over some telephone poles, and then doing some sharp turns, back up a hill, down another hill. I'm explaining it poorly, but the point is this was a doozy of a course for the first one.
We went on from there and the courses actually mostly got easier until the end of the day, but nothing was easy. Everything was a significant challenge with a twist to make it even harder. Really steep hill with big rocks that were slippery and you couldn't get traction on? Now add in a cone weave you have to do with it. Deep water crossing? Back and forth to get within a few feet of cones. Crossing dirt piles (they call them camel humps)? Stupid sharp turn right at the bottom that you need to do a brake slide to make. Tight cone courses? Extremely tight, designed to be at the very limit of what the bike could do. Crossing more concrete pipes (smaller, only about a foot in diameter)? Add in a cone weave you have to do with those, then follow it up with deep gravel and a cone weave. Sand pit? Cone weave. Every course was set up so it was really easy to come away with 0 points from it.
By the end of the day on Friday we got to the other two really hard courses - a very steep dirt hill climb with an immediate left turn, and another one that was a steep climb followed by an immediate right, another immediate left U-turn, crossing a rock river (with big boulders), and another U-turn. The latter one was called "The Australian Terror" after the 5-time national motocross champion who designed it. Those two I "nope"d out of. Although I wanted to do them both, as tired as I was by then and how I was feeling about my abilities (not exactly 100%) left me thinking it was best to not do those.
It was extremely hard, as you'd expect. I have no idea how many points I got, since I didn't make it to the semi-finals. But I definitely was not close to making it to the semi-finals, I also know there were people who did worse than I did or "nope"d out of more courses.
The top 16 men and 5 women when the 20 challenges were done (lunchtime Saturday) moved onto the semi finals, which included that first course that I started on as part of it, but with additional twists. One of the semi-finalists had a perfectly clean run (well, -1 point, but that's effectively perfectly clean) and from there you had a couple who were close and it went downhill from there. The top 6 men and 4 women went to the finals.
The final course was actually all in a big dirt lot, but essentially amounted to a combination of some precise cone work and also some power/brake slides and elephant turns, plus trial stops on a cone. It was a hard course and not a single rider had a clean run at the end of it, speaking both to the challenge of the course and also to the fatigue everyone was experiencing after 2 hard days.
To my eye, there were no bad choices in the finalists. Any of the three were good and could've made the team. But in the end they had to eliminate some, and the team was announced. Unfortunately one of the men who I really wanted to see make the team didn't, he came in 4th place with the top 3 being selected. But, that's how a competition works. We all enjoyed a well-deserved dinner and then went back to our hotels to make our way home the next day, except for those who decided to stay and do "Redemption Sunday", an opportunity to go over the courses again with instruction. I might've wanted to do that but I had to get home so my wife could go back to work today, and not being back to 100% yet post-surgery I didn't see as much of a point. I still have a lot I can do here on my property and locally before I do something like that.
Sunday and Monday I rode the 940ish miles back home. It was a much calmer ride mentally than the ride out, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the qualifier and the path over the past years that got me there. (my post is too long apparently, so see the next post for the rest)
One week ago today I left home to ride the 940ish miles down to South Carolina, see the above post. I didn't sleep well the night before the qualifier started, even though Thursday was supposed to be registration and then "challenge 1" which involved no riding. There was a combination of anxiousness and anxiety over what was to come, both not knowing what it would be and questioning my abilities to do the challenges I'd be faced with (and also knowing I could "nope" out of anything).
Thursday the registration started around 12:30. My friend who went down there with me and I got breakfast before heading over. It was the longest morning I'd had in a while. First I woke up way too early, but there's nothing that feels quite so long as waiting around for something you know is coming, and not much you can do in the meantime. I did some work, walked on the treadmill in the hotel (that was nice after spending 2 days on the bike), had a couple of phone calls. Everyone I talked to agreed, it was a really, really long morning.
I'd been to the BMW Performance Center a couple of times already so I was familiar with both where it was and the location where we were going to be meeting. We had to stay outside of the main building because as a group of 72 off-road motorcyclists, they didn't want us tracking mud everywhere. Fair logic, nobody complained. We got our own area with our reserved parking spots for the riders and a large tent where all the meals and gatherings were held, plus lots of other parking. BMW really does a good job with their events. They had coolers filled with ice and drinks (water, soda, Gatorade, iced tea) for everyone to grab from, and their in-house catering is very good. We were treated to delicious meals and snacks. Nothing supremely fancy, but the food there doesn't disappoint.
During the 2 hours of registration we got our jerseys, number stickers for the bike (these are important to identify who's who when doing the competitions) and some other swag. As an introvert who normally in a crowd of new people will find a corner to hide in, I was walking up and introducing myself to pretty much everyone I came across, and reconnecting with people I'd met either from the previous GS Trophy course a few weeks prior or from other events. The stress started to wane a bit, although still not knowing what was coming up was somewhat nerve-wracking.
The first exercise on Thursday was a team building exercise, actually something we'd done during the prep course, where we had to move a motorcycle across a pair of logs using only a certain number of 2x4s. It was an elimination exercise with 3 rounds, and each round those who'd advanced got mixed up into different teams. My various teams made it to the final, and then we had to do a tiebreaker because the team we were up against we tied with, the times were within milliseconds. We lost the tiebreaker, but it was still a lot of fun. That exercise resulted in some extra points for those on the winning team. It wasn't about riding, but it was about working as a team, and it was fun to meet others. Dinner went after dark and then we had under 12 hours to go back to our relative hotels or campsites, sleep, and return for breakfast.
Friday morning we arrived before the sun was up for breakfast and were divided up into our teams. With 72 competitors there were 18 teams of 4 to go around to 20 different challenges. We ended up doing 13 challenges on Friday and the remainder on Saturday.
You get no preview of what the challenges are, and in fact were specifically told not to share details of any of the challenges with others. As you'd imagine some people followed this better than others, and at a certain point we all got banned from having phones out because people were recording challenges and posting them on Instagram, which other competitors could then see and get a leg up. I don't know how much of that went on, and how much that really could've helped anyway.
The first challenge that we showed up at was a doozy, and one of the three really hard ones that people "nope"d out of the most. It's hard to describe in detail, but you started off riding up 5 steps made out of railroad ties, with a concrete culvert pipe on the other side going longways. No ramp to the steps, you just had to loft the front wheel enough to get started going up it. So it was very important to center your climb (or just go fast enough to jump over the entire thing) so that you didn't land poorly on the concrete pipe and go off the side.
I considered whether I should attempt this or not, but I figured I didn't come all this way to chicken out on the first obstacle, and did a send it. Going up the steps went very well and I was happy with how that went (and it also looked good according to others watching). But, I was not centered and went off the side of the pipe. The bike fell out from under me to the left and I went over it. Fortunately, despite it looking much worse than the fall where I broke my wrist, the only thing damaged was my skid plate and my rear brake pedal. I picked the bike back up, bent it back some, and decided I was done with the rest of the challenge, which then involved a steep hill going up a rut, over it and down/over some telephone poles, and then doing some sharp turns, back up a hill, down another hill. I'm explaining it poorly, but the point is this was a doozy of a course for the first one.
We went on from there and the courses actually mostly got easier until the end of the day, but nothing was easy. Everything was a significant challenge with a twist to make it even harder. Really steep hill with big rocks that were slippery and you couldn't get traction on? Now add in a cone weave you have to do with it. Deep water crossing? Back and forth to get within a few feet of cones. Crossing dirt piles (they call them camel humps)? Stupid sharp turn right at the bottom that you need to do a brake slide to make. Tight cone courses? Extremely tight, designed to be at the very limit of what the bike could do. Crossing more concrete pipes (smaller, only about a foot in diameter)? Add in a cone weave you have to do with those, then follow it up with deep gravel and a cone weave. Sand pit? Cone weave. Every course was set up so it was really easy to come away with 0 points from it.
By the end of the day on Friday we got to the other two really hard courses - a very steep dirt hill climb with an immediate left turn, and another one that was a steep climb followed by an immediate right, another immediate left U-turn, crossing a rock river (with big boulders), and another U-turn. The latter one was called "The Australian Terror" after the 5-time national motocross champion who designed it. Those two I "nope"d out of. Although I wanted to do them both, as tired as I was by then and how I was feeling about my abilities (not exactly 100%) left me thinking it was best to not do those.
It was extremely hard, as you'd expect. I have no idea how many points I got, since I didn't make it to the semi-finals. But I definitely was not close to making it to the semi-finals, I also know there were people who did worse than I did or "nope"d out of more courses.
The top 16 men and 5 women when the 20 challenges were done (lunchtime Saturday) moved onto the semi finals, which included that first course that I started on as part of it, but with additional twists. One of the semi-finalists had a perfectly clean run (well, -1 point, but that's effectively perfectly clean) and from there you had a couple who were close and it went downhill from there. The top 6 men and 4 women went to the finals.
The final course was actually all in a big dirt lot, but essentially amounted to a combination of some precise cone work and also some power/brake slides and elephant turns, plus trial stops on a cone. It was a hard course and not a single rider had a clean run at the end of it, speaking both to the challenge of the course and also to the fatigue everyone was experiencing after 2 hard days.
To my eye, there were no bad choices in the finalists. Any of the three were good and could've made the team. But in the end they had to eliminate some, and the team was announced. Unfortunately one of the men who I really wanted to see make the team didn't, he came in 4th place with the top 3 being selected. But, that's how a competition works. We all enjoyed a well-deserved dinner and then went back to our hotels to make our way home the next day, except for those who decided to stay and do "Redemption Sunday", an opportunity to go over the courses again with instruction. I might've wanted to do that but I had to get home so my wife could go back to work today, and not being back to 100% yet post-surgery I didn't see as much of a point. I still have a lot I can do here on my property and locally before I do something like that.
Sunday and Monday I rode the 940ish miles back home. It was a much calmer ride mentally than the ride out, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the qualifier and the path over the past years that got me there. (my post is too long apparently, so see the next post for the rest)
