3rd Annual CZAR Rally: Orienteering and Jousting

Another great day of riding and camaraderie here in the vicinity of the majestic Collegiate Peaks by Buena Vista, Colorado.

Tina and Indy are ready....

photo courtesy of Craig H.

By 9:30AM we had folks assigned to two-rig teams and setting off on their respective orienteering courses.  The objective being to find small metal tags which had been pre-positioned by Jay B, Tim L and yours truly along two different off-road courses.  More details here: LINK

An example of the information used by we Uralisti on our courses.
This was on Jay and Tim's Route, the last marker

Both courses would include water obstacles (two rigs would fall victim here, but were self-recovered and on the road in a timely manner), sandy whoop-de-doos which tested the traction capability of the rigs, steep inclines and descents down sandy rock-strewn hillsides with the added bonus of heavily washboarded sections and large boulders to keep things interesting.

Both the rig belonging to Steffen and Dave ingested water during their

respective water crossings.

photo courtesy Jay and Deana

Liz and Dave S's rig gets pulled out of the water to be drained
photo courtesy canoewest aka Tim L.

A video from Jay B aka mapperjay of the Northern Route

Jay B. and I rode sweep on each other's route both to get the fun of discovering the tag locations pre-positioned by the other and to police up the tags now that the course was over.

 Scenes along the way as we searched for markers. I rode with
Chris L of Gypsum, that's his Gobi in the picture.

 Best view of the day from one of the sites we rode to in search of 

those orienteering markers.

Chris and I encounter fellow Uralista Scott M with his FJ Cruiser.

Scott couldn't pilot his own rig due to a hand injury prior to the CZAR.

All rigs that went out, came back, I am happy to report.  Everyone seemed to have enjoyed this activity, we'll incorporate lessons learned and perhaps do it again next year.....or perhaps, geo-caching!

By mid-afternoon, the Sidecar Jousting event was set up and soon we every rig team had their practice run trying to use a lance to "spear" four rings along a roadside. The first ring is the largest one, then each following ring is a tad smaller.

First up was our youngest monkey....Tehya., she'd been looking forward to the 

jousting all day!  And this was after navigating for Tim, her dad, during the

orienteering course!

Tehya waves to the crowd after a successful run
photo courtesy Scott Ma.

 Steffen C and Anna aboard his Ural Retro

 Sofia with her dad, Tim
The above should give you an idea of the length of the "lance"

photo courtesy Deana

Like Father, Like Son

Nick and his dad, Steffen

photo courtesy Deana

 Deana and Jay
photo courtesy Scott Ma. 

Janet and Roy N.
photo courtesy Martha

Dan K and yours truly, we did pretty good for a couple of
broken down ex-Army guys! (Third Place)
photo courtesy Scott Mu.

Patrick, my eldest son, manned the fourth ring point, ensuring the 
wind wouldn't blow the ring off its mount.
Miles and I had 2 -3 runs at the jousting course.

Liz and Dave S.
Liz tries the "javelin" method for this run.
photo courtesy Scott Ma.

Team Beard
photo courtesy Scott Mu.

 Julie and Craig H, and Tina their dog
photo courtesy Scott Mu.

Sofia and her Dad, Tim
photo courtesy Scott Mu.

Dezso and Jay
photo courtesy Scott Mu.

Then, we decided to add a bit of competition into this event, and each subsequent run was made for time!  So, not only did you have to capture 3 of the 4 rings to qualify, you were now trying to do it in the shortest time possible.

The competitiveness of the typical Uralista came to the fore folks, rigs raced down the short course....the monkey holding the lance unwaveringly as a cloud of dust covered both the road and the spectators cheering the competitors onward..  Who knew a URAL sidecar rig could go that fast?!

The winning time was 17.62 seconds with all four rings captured.  There was a faster time but alas, they missed on ring.  The winning team of Roy N. and Scott M. were awarded the annual CZAR trophy:

Team "Beard"
photo from Scott's FB page

Conceived during the second CZAR for the Uralista who lost the most parts from his rig, this trophy has now been converted to record each CZAR's winning team.  In case you're wondering, its a muffler support bracket.  Craig H, who "won" the award last year, mounted it as shown and did the engraving.

The award was given to Roy and Scott that evening, as we dined on steak at Quincy's Restaurant in Buena Vista.  It was a fun and tasty way to finish off this year's CZAR Rally.

More photos as I get access to them, will add to this post accordingly.  If you post a comment, you'll get a notification when more photos/videos are added, if any.