Fun diversion if you still wanna get out some

I recently bought TMJ some heated gear as a gift, and it works so well for her that I decided to pony up the fundage and get myself some too (a jacket liner and some e-gloves). Well, I must have a lucky horse shoe up my derriere or something, because this has been the fall to have heated gear. (knock on exotic woods). Although with the vagaries of the seasonal weather it's pretty hard to coordinate any sort of a planned or group ride at this time of year, the weather has been great for slipping away for a few hours here and there, and the heated gear makes it much more comfy. Fred W recco!

Anyway, I've found a neat little excuse for getting out on the bike these cold days and exercising the new gear: Over on ADVriders.com, in the "Northeast" section there (called "Greater Flugistan and home of the carpet baggers" :huh: ) there are several concurrent threads running called "Tag 'O Ramas" or "TORs". They are all regional in nature, but the idea is that you post up a photo of a particular interesting location with a few clues as to the tag location (of varying difficulty). After someone "claims" the tag, they have to post up another one for everyone else to chase. There's one running in MA, NH, VT, ME, and even a wide ranging one covering all of the Northern New England states, as well as others for many other areas of the country.

For some totally inexplicable reason, I find this kind of completely pointless, time wasting game, extremely appealing!! Last week I went out and nabbed the New Hampshire tag my new one hasn't been claimed yet (just got claimed) and today I rode up to Biddeford to grab the Maine tag and placed a new one on the way home.

At least one of us FJRForum-ites is already active in these games (Bill in the MA TOR), but I thought that maybe some of you other NERDs would like to join in the fun.

Sounds like a great excuse(aside from food that is LOL)to get out and about. Fred didn't some one sugest this as a possible NERDSII activity?? It may be a cool idea to have the tags = swag of some sort, with the degree of difficulty bumping you up the swag ladder?? Great to hear your still out! I'm looking at Thurs in the 50's as a quick Merideth run.LYK?

I ride with a guy that grabs/drops tags from that website. He has a pretty good time with it.

Glad to hear you're still out there. We've got too much road salt spread here, so my bike is resting quietly in the garage. I've been getting my 2 wheel fix on my dirt bike. It's been nice riding on frozen ground with minimal snow!

Joe

bluejag said:

Sounds like a great excuse(aside from food that is LOL)to get out and about. Fred didn't some one sugest this as a possible NERDSII activity?? It may be a cool idea to have the tags = swag of some sort, with the degree of difficulty bumping you up the swag ladder?? Great to hear your still out! I'm looking at Thurs in the 50's as a quick Merideth run.LYK?

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Yeah. The NERDS thing will be more like a rally though, with lots of possible tag locations listed. More than one can possibly get to in a single day. Then it will be up to the player to decide which ones to go for.

Keep me posted on Meredith. It's supposed to be downright balmy on Thursday. :thumbsup:

joebiodiesel said:

I ride with a guy that grabs/drops tags from that website. He has a pretty good time with it.

Glad to hear you're still out there. We've got too much road salt spread here, so my bike is resting quietly in the garage. I've been getting my 2 wheel fix on my dirt bike. It's been nice riding on frozen ground with minimal snow!

Joe

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I'm surprised you have bare ground still, Joe. Being right in the path of the Ontario "lake effect" I'd have expected you to have a couple of feet standing by now.

Must be all that global warming... :blink:

I played around in the L.I. TOR for a while. I got to tag Jordan's bridge:



And I got sassed for losing the tagbar (local kids 'found' it):



TheAxeman helped me recover the tagbar from the local kids. I opted out for a while because I think I was annoying the current crowd of participants - I like placing the tag far (e.g., East End of L.I. - at least an hour long ride), and the crowd currently playing seems to like keeping it local to the west end of L.I. (closer to where I live so it is hardly worth getting the bike out of the garage). I should probably jump back in to annoy again though...

Apparently the game is played differently in different regions. There is no actual "tag" item here in New England, and people seem to encourage the tag to be moved a lot and not kept in the same region. The whole point of the game is to encourage folx to get out and ride around, maybe seeing some new things along the way. As much as I enjoy riding with all of you kule kids, I also find I like to ride alone sometimes almost as much. And this time o' year when the thermometer is dipping so low, it makes things a lot easier. I only have to ask myself: "Do you feel like riding today?"

There always seems to be a lot of concern in these games over being "Bruced", which means that you ride out to some distant tag location, take your ob-photo, only to find that somebody else beat you to posting it up in the thread, which makes your efforts invalid. :glare: To me, a day out on the road (especially in December, or, dare I say, January?) looking for some trivial thing and mischievously taking another photo on the way home (for the new location) is entertainment enough on its own. If I do not get the "tag", ah well... C'est La Vie.

I haven't been "Bruced" yet, but when I do, I think it won't bother me too much.

Local (or loco) nuances. The idea to keep it moving to new, further territory is the rule for TOR's in general - just some folks around here don't care for that. The tag was intended to let the first to the tag win (vs. first to post, so it avoided being bruced by later arrivals to the tag site). Apparently some folks didn't care for that either, so shortly after I recovered the tag and put it back in the game it dissappeared forever. Like you I see it as an opportunity to ride, regardless of outcome.