On Groundhog Day, while most fellow Pennsylvanians wait to hear Punxsutawney Phil’s forecast, I look forward to the day for another reason: registration opens for the BMW MOA Grand Coddiwomple Challenge.

For those unfamiliar with the Coddiwomple, it’s a photo-based scavenger hunt with categories centered on the location of that year’s National Rally. Each participant receives a uniquely numbered flag and earns points by photographing it alongside their motorcycle or themselves at locations that meet specific challenge categories. Each successful submission is worth 50 points, and the rider with the highest total wins.

The one challenge that caught my eye this year was “Uncover Covered Bridges.” Pennsylvania has more than 200 covered bridges, and I’ve visited many of them in the eastern half of the state. New England boasts a similar number, with over 100 of them in Vermont, the site of this year’s National Rally. To satisfy my appreciation for a good covered bridge and to earn a few points for the Coddiwomple, I thought riding to as many covered bridges as I could on my way to the MOA rally in Essex Junction would be an enjoyable use of my time. I knew I could never visit them all, but I wanted to see as many as possible. I used online resources to map most of the covered bridges throughout New England.

I gave myself six days to cover the 400 miles from my home in southeastern Pennsylvania to the Vermont rally site. That generous schedule let me prioritize bridges over efficiency. I built each day’s route in Garmin BaseCamp by linking covered-bridge waypoints until I had 300- to 400-mile days. My route would take me across Connecticut to Rhode Island, into western Massachusetts, and around large portions of Vermont and New Hampshire.

I have ridden in New England many times, but rarely ventured off-pavement to find covered bridges. To maximize the number of bridges I’d visit and explore New England more fully, I expected to spend a lot of time riding my R 1200 RT on unpaved roads. I wasn’t sure how I or my bike would fare, but I was eager to find out.

As expected, when I reached Vermont and New Hampshire, many of the covered bridges were on unpaved roads. Initially, I was a bit anxious on these roads and kept expecting the road quality to deteriorate. I rode very cautiously, but I eventually relaxed enough to enjoy them. They were well maintained and graded, and I had to deal with only a minimal amount of gravel. I ran into rain a couple of times, but the roads did not become sloppy, slippery messes. I saw some beautiful New England scenery along these roads, and they tended to bring me closer to homes and farms than the paved roads. These roads were also devoid of traffic and were often shaded by a tunnel of trees. Riding at slower speeds gave me time to look around and appreciate the rural scenery.

I turned around only twice: first when a sign warned that the road ahead was impassable—which proved accurate—and later when the route deteriorated into a two-track Jeep trail. Riding solo on a fully loaded RT, I wasn’t taking any chances.

At one bridge, I parked and walked the final tenth of a mile downhill because the road looked sketchy. At another, the level surface inside the covered bridge provided just enough room for a multi-point U-turn after I descended a rough, poorly maintained approach.

By the time I rolled into Essex Junction, I had ridden 1,800 miles and visited 125 covered bridges, yet the points I’d earned mattered less than the roads I’d discovered. The Coddiwomple had done exactly what it was designed to do: send me down roads to places I might otherwise have passed by and remind me that some of the best rides begin with nothing more than curiosity and a map full of possibilities.

Find out more about the annual Coddiwomple.