I'm Out of the Cannonball

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jrsjr
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I'm Out of the Cannonball

Post by jrsjr »

I'm so sorry to say that I had to pull the plug on my Cannonball effort. I had sincerely hoped to join ericalm and BSFF in representing Modern Buddy on the Cannonball. It was my dream, but when my projected expenses went above $10,000, I had to call it a day. Others will be able to do it for less, but here's an honest accounting of what I was looking at and I still didn't have a dedicated support situation that I was happy with. When the expenses climbed above $10K, I knew I had to make that tough call.

(See Expense Spreadsheet Below)

Most of the amounts are exact. A couple are highly-educated guestimates. Some will claim that I'm adding things, like new gear. Unfortunately, all my old gear is a decade old and most of it is kaput. There's very little there that I didn't really need for the trip and there is plenty that I could have added, like how to make a cell phone call in backwoods BC with my Verizon 4G phone? I guess I was going to have to buy a Canadian-spec prepaid phone? Add $100 (minimum) for that little expense. I didn't price a SPOT device or service. I hadn't even talked to my insurance company about insurance yet about whether that was going to add any cost. The total cost could only go up from $10,445. Plus, after spending all that money, my travel method was almost guaranteed to get me to Hyder too late to make the rider's meeting at 3PM on Monday. GROAN!!! That's a terrible way to start a Cannonball...

I just had to take a step back and make a very difficult call. Rats...

OTOH, now I get to cheer loudly for our Modern Buddy heroes who are going to Alaska. GO!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: My wife found 2 more hard expenses for which I had not accounted, a lithium battery powered heated vest + a spare battery and a CVT tool for $10, combined totaling $250. Ouch! Now the Grand Total stands at $10,695. Gee...
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skully93
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Post by skully93 »

Curses! Sorry to hear, but that IS expensive!

on a semi-related note, a bunch of us here in CO were trying to see if we could meet the participants on June 8th in Dillon, CO.

Unfortunately, it may fall the same day as a major rally. If I'm able I still may ride down and offer moral support.
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Post by peabody99 »

such a bummer! maybe in its place you can plan an epic, more affordable ride closer to home. I have to say these things always cost more than you think. I have a 9 day Best of California ride planned for late next month and unexpected things keep coming up....but I'm still going hell or high water. :)
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Post by jrsjr »

peabody99 wrote:...I have to say these things always cost more than you think. (...)
You are, oh, so right. Those expenses are going to look padded to folks who don't know, but there is stuff that isn't clearly documented like the cost of getting home from New Orleans. Since my ride from Atlanta to Alaska and back fell through, I had to add travel expenses for an additional 3 days (minimum) to travel home. That's gas & food & hotels and incidentals. It was just one thing after another. My wonderful wonderful wife let me figure it out for myself and make the decision, but, at the end of the day, $10.5K is a lot of money that should be put to some other use. And really, short of a magic portal to transport me, my gear, and my scooter to Hyder, or the magic scooter fairy granting me a free scooter, or some other fiscal miracle, there really wasn't much way to significantly reduce my costs. :(
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Post by jrsjr »

P.S. My wife just pointed out that I forgot to add the cost of shipping my wheels/tires plus my tub of gear to my support truck because they are many hundred of miles away. Yeah, that was another expensive project. I was going to have to build a crate or something to hold those wheels plus box up the tub-a-gear. The total cost of that was bound to run me another couple hundred dollars at least. Shipping big heavy things is expensive. I really hadn't thought that through because I thought I had another situation in place to avoid this expense until that, too, fell apart. Sigh...
Last edited by jrsjr on Thu Apr 10, 2014 12:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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pugbuddy
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Post by pugbuddy »

Sorry to hear it jrsjr! You may certainly join the rest of us as we cheer on Ericalm and the rest of the MB riders!
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Syd
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Post by Syd »

Bummer. You were excited to go too.
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Post by siobhan »

For an adventure similar to that kind of money (after flights), I suggest the Postie Bike Challenge!

http://www.postiebikechallenge.org/index.htm
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OldGuy
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Post by OldGuy »

Hmm... I happen to have a Honda CT110; the true postie bike. And my daughter lives in Australia. Interesting!

By the way, yesterday she gave birth to our 2nd grandchild, a boy!

Maybe I should go!
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Post by jrsjr »

OldGuy wrote:Hmm... I happen to have a Honda CT110; the true postie bike. And my daughter lives in Australia. Interesting!

By the way, yesterday she gave birth to our 2nd grandchild, a boy!

Maybe I should go!
Hell to the yeah, you should! What are you waiting for??? :shock:
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Post by BuddyRaton »

Sorry to hear that you're out. Believe me when I say that I fully understand. I REALLY wanted to run this one but due to several things it didn't come together.

Don't sweat it! You are a CBR veteran! Not many can say that!
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Re: I'm Out of the Cannonball

Post by BootScootin'FireFighter »

Brother, I'm sorry to hear this. But at least you're being smart about this. Gotta know when to hold em', know when to fold em'.

I know exactly what you mean about how it's going to be expensive. I'm paying for it in shift trades. Seems like I'm working twice as much as normal this spring to build up my hours to take an entire month off and live out of a duffle bag. I'm pretty much set on being a homeless man on a scooter for a month. I couldn't afford the expenses, but I was able to manage the time off. This would not even be a consideration if I had to pay for shipping, flights, or my own support driver. I had to turn my own father away from being a support driver because of how expensive it would have been to fuel the car, feed the driver, and put him up each night in a hotel. I wouldn't expect him to hammock camp and rough it. He also doesn't realize the amount of responsibility involved in driving support and the need to assist other riders. He thinks its just a casual road trip that he's following me on, and believe me, I hate someone babysitting me when I ride! Anyway, I'm going on a tangent....

I axed the plans for a GoPro camera that I wanted to do timelapse video with, that's saving over $400 worth of something I don't need. Planning on maybe doing a video blog on youtube each day, take a few pictures, and just have a good time.
jrsjr wrote:....like how to make a cell phone call in backwoods BC with my Verizon 4G phone? I guess I was going to have to buy a Canadian-spec prepaid phone? Add $100 (minimum) for that little expense. I didn't price a SPOT device or service.
I am returning my SPOT device. I don't need to pay $100 a year minimum + the monthly fee for 1 event. I'll turn of cellular data, run google latitude from the GPS setting on the iphone, and stay off the voice calling for most of Canada, except for text messages which are free. If the CB hotel lobbies have WiFi, I'll hook up and facetime back home in the evenings. On the trip up, it will be limited to a few random cafe's.

Safe travels!
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Re: I'm Out of the Cannonball

Post by jrsjr »

BootScootin'FireFighter wrote:I had to turn my own father away from being a support driver because of how expensive it would have been to fuel the car, feed the driver, and put him up each night in a hotel. I wouldn't expect him to hammock camp and rough it. He also doesn't realize the amount of responsibility involved in driving support and the need to assist other riders. He thinks its just a casual road trip that he's following me on, and believe me, I hate someone babysitting me when I ride!
You did your father a huge favor. Driving Support can be more grueling than riding in the event. The support folks have to get up with everybody else to be at the morning rider's meetings, then they have to hang around until everybody leaves, which sometimes is very late in the day. Then they have to trail everybody else and arrive after everybody else has gone to dinner. And that's on a good day when they don't have to double back to find somebody who wandered off the route and broke down. I rode with one of the guys in 2008 when my tire went kablooie, so I know just how it is.

Best of luck on the ride. Riding a Buddy from the DC area to Alaska and back via new Orleans is a hell of a gutsy thing to do. My hat is off to you.

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Post by ericalm »

That spreadsheet is scaring the hell out of me. :shock:
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Post by jrsjr »

ericalm wrote:That spreadsheet is scaring the hell out of me. :shock:
It sure worked on me. Even scarier was the thought that something else could go wrong, because that spreadsheet assumes that no further unexpected expenses come up. I don't want to worry you or anybody else, it's just that I had to make an accounting to the boss lady and I was already looking at my budget ceiling in the rear view mirror. Through binoculars. Sigh...
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Post by ericalm »

And, again, sorry you won't be there. Was hoping we'd finally get to meet!

It's been a long time since I've felt like a total n00b in any environment. I'm lucky to have so many friends who've run CBR in the past and have benefitted immensely from their advice, help and planning. Scooter people continue to amaze me with their generosity.

My CBR expenses are piling up quickly. So far, the big expenditure I didn't account for was buying all-new riding gear.

I realized that while what I already own is great for my daily riding and weekend outings in the mountains, for a challenge like this, I'm going to need to be both comfortable and well-protected. It's been hours upon hours of researching gear, base layers, socks, boots, everything. Then buying.

Fortunately, not having to spend too much on the scooter, but then again, I had to buy a scooter. Too much more, I guess.
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Post by TVB »

ericalm wrote:That spreadsheet is scaring the hell out of me. :shock:
It certainly makes the spreadsheet I use each year to plan my road trips seem... non-intimidating.
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Post by skully93 »

ericalm wrote: I realized that while what I already own is great for my daily riding and weekend outings in the mountains, for a challenge like this, I'm going to need to be both comfortable and well-protected. It's been hours upon hours of researching gear, base layers, socks, boots, everything. Then buying.

Fortunately, not having to spend too much on the scooter, but then again, I had to buy a scooter. Too much more, I guess.
If you guys are blowing through Dillon, don't forget your O2 tank :P.
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Post by jrsjr »

It's been brought to my attention that I forgot to add the cost of air fair to Seattle into my spreadsheet. In all fairness, this oversight was the result of the fact that I was falling back onto (the more expensive) Plan B when Plan A fell apart, so that was not intentional, it was a mistake I made on the fly. So,adding $222 for airfair, plus $200 (estimated) cost for shipping my tub of gear and 2 wheels&tires to the the support brings the new Grand Total to $11,117. Whew! Here is the latest, greatest spreadsheet itemizing all the expenses and reflecting the new Grand Total. I guess I pretty much blew through $10K, huh? The fact that I had conveniently "forgotten" to include $600 worth of expenses on my initial sheet is an indicator how easy it is to fool yourself when thinking about the expenses of a project that you really want to do. :wink:
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Post by Syd »

What are the "two scooters" on your spreadsheet? I know it's only $3150, but why two? One for a spare?

Also, what are you going to do with the HD200 now? Wish you lived closer
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Post by jrsjr »

Syd wrote:What are the "two scooters" on your spreadsheet? I know it's only $3150, but why two? One for a spare?

Also, what are you going to do with the HD200 now? Wish you lived closer
I bought a second HD200 to borrow the wheels from to shod with fresh tires and take on the Cannonball. (EDIT: Earlier I forgot to mention that I also intended to take the ignition module) It's for sale along with the first one I bought. If I could beam it to you in AZ, I'd be happy to do it. If the Scoot Richmond guys were going to AmeriVespa, I'd suggest a handoff there , but they're not going this year. Hmm....

This was part of my fiscal undoing. My hope was that I would end up with brand-new unused tires on this second scooter and I would just sell it after the CBR. Now I have a spare HD200 I've only ridden twice. :roll:
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Post by JHScoot »

cut those pesky scooters out of the budget and you're good to go yet!!

:helmet:

hey syd beat me to the idea. but he only cut one out. i have both gone and in place a good set of feet
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Post by DaBinChe »

Man you are just WAY over doing it. My estimate is $3k, but I'm trying for less.

Biggest $$$ is hotel comes in at near $1k, why is yours so much? Get a roommate and ask for the cheapest rooms if you have to stay in another hotel/motel other then the "official" one then so be it; food will be $750, gas $450, everything else for the scoot is $500. These are conservative numbers. Already got riding gear...secret is use what you got. Layer up for warmth with a rain layer..why use battery powered heated jacket? Keep things simple.

I think you are just over thinking it...you ain't going to the moon and don't need to double up on stuff. It is pretty civilized along the way and you'll find internet connection everywhere.

You're treating this as if you are a movie star and wanted to be pampered with the list of half useless stuff. Keep it cheap!!!
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Post by BuddyRaton »

I don't know if the estimate is high or not. I do know that this is going to be the most brutal CBR ever. I'm expecting between 30%-50% don't finish.

There are going to be a lot of blown up bikes.
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Post by jrsjr »

DaBinChe wrote:Man you are just WAY over doing it. My estimate is $3k, but I'm trying for less.

Biggest $$$ is hotel comes in at near $1k, why is yours so much? Get a roommate and ask for the cheapest rooms if you have to stay in another hotel/motel other then the "official" one then so be it; food will be $750, gas $450, everything else for the scoot is $500. These are conservative numbers. Already got riding gear...secret is use what you got. Layer up for warmth with a rain layer..why use battery powered heated jacket? Keep things simple.

I think you are just over thinking it...you ain't going to the moon and don't need to double up on stuff. It is pretty civilized along the way and you'll find internet connection everywhere.

You're treating this as if you are a movie star and wanted to be pampered with the list of half useless stuff. Keep it cheap!!!
There's nothing in your post that is correct except the comment about the heated vest. You may be right on that. Everything else is explained in my OP and subsequent posts which you would have gotten if you had bothered to read before posting. The heated vest is the only possible nicety on there. It's $240 out of a $11,117 budget, most of which is related to travel and transportation. If you can somehow do an Alaska-New Orleans Cannonball on three thousand dollars, more power to you my friend. I'm absolutely not going to argue with you here or anywhere else. I mean it.

I hope you have a great Cannonball. Good Luck.
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