Our Planned Route
Plan is to do the group picture at 6:00—6:30am and then depart by 6:45am.
We were up at 5:15am, out at 5:40am, at at the group picture gathering at 6:00am.
The crowd gathered, mayber 150 of the 250 bikes. People milled around and took pictures, but I didn't see or hear any offical group picture event. Then at 6:30am, people started moving out. Armando and I were heading out at 6:38am.
We reached the offical start 002.D1.START-2 Hamlet Quick Stop Café Market & Gas at 6:57am.
It took us 2.4 minutes just to take our first official scoring picture and get back under way.
Our hotel is Motel 6 Pendleton West 620 SW Tutuilla Rd, Pendleton, 97801
Our Planned Route
Day 1, Seaside to Pendleton
13:01hrs (781 minutes) --- elapsed time from CP0 to CP4 (6:57am to 7:58pm)
672 minutes moving and 109 minutes stopped (+17%)
23 minutes for 3 fuel stops (11, 7.5, and 4.5 minutes)
about 20 minutes to repair the broken gasoline transfer line
45 minutes for 8 CP and BP photos (~5.5 min each)
and 21.5 minutes of misc break time
475 miles, 42.4 mph
Jill Taggart (jtaggart) won in 2021, took 2nd in 2023, and won again in 2025.
Her score for Day 1 was 496 points.
I got 282 and we both did all the bonuses (30+25+20+40=115)
so the segments are nominally (93+115+150+112=470) and the day is 470 miles
so I got 282 - 115 = 167 out of 470 segment points meaning I lost 303 segment points
which might mean I finished about 5 hours slower than jtaggart.
Since I finished in 13 hours, that implies jtaggart finished in 8 hours and averaged 59 mph.
Seems reasonable. To win, you need to average 60 mph and not stop at all. Take all your pics in 30 seconds, and carry enough fuel that you have maybe one, 2 minute stop to add a gallon or two at a strategically convenient spot.
We don't yet really know what mileage to be expecting. We've seen the Benelli get as little at 65 mpg × 3.8 gallons = 247 miles and as much as 95 mph → 361 miles. We chose what looked like the last possible fuel stop with about 220 miles to go. The previous town (Tygh Valley) was an uncomfortable 232 milesfrom the end and there was a crowd waiting to use the fuel pump, and this one is 220 miles. It seems like it could be close, and what if that fuel transfer line starts leaking again? Another gas station in Antelope was out of fuel. What if the next one is also out of fuel? It turned out there was a gas station in Fossil (Fossil Fill-up) where we were able to add 1 gallon to the plastic gas can we found on the road near Mt. Hood. This assuaged our fuel range anxiety enough that we could enjoy the rest of this long day.
