Iron Butt Rally - 2013

[Jiggles]

Lawl

[Trailerboy531]

Congrats Alex! Looking forward to the cliff notes of your recap!

[JeffM]

Congratulations Alex.

[NevadaWolf]

56th! Alex finished 56!

[BlueRaven]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

Alex, you are a true motorcyclist. I hope you have fun despite all the agony of the daily demands.

I'm planning a ride from FL to Maine in July on a GSXR1000. My schedule depends on weather, restaurants, friends, health (in other words, no rush, meaning no stress). I use no electronics and carry as little as possible. I used to do it every summer but I haven't done a long trip, on a bike, in years.

Should we cross paths I'll wave as I go by.

Hey CC have you started the trip yet?

[BlueRaven]

Congrats Alex on your first Iron Butt Rally. That is amazing. I wish I would of known about this earlier looks like a part of the race was just 30 minutes away from where i live.

[CC Cowboy]

I just got paroled, did I miss anything?

I heard something about Alex doing great and jiggles getting lost (in every bar across America).

[CC Cowboy]

Originally Posted by BlueRaven

Hey CC have you started the trip yet?

Gone and back. Hope to go again in September.

[250rr]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'm back to the hotel safe and sound. Hit my goal for this third leg, and scored enough points to be considered a finisher for the event (which gets you a 3-digit IBA #). I'm tired. More details to come over the next few days...

You know what they say, Alex, the third leg is always the hardest.

[Lychee]

@Alex

ride report... ride report... ride report!!! ...ride report???

[Alex]

Still on the road. Expect to be home tomorrow, but a ride report is going to have to wait. I'm off to MotoGP in Monterey on Thursday.

In the meantime, there have been some great daily writeups of the entire event up here:

http://www.ironbuttrally.com/IBR/2013.cfm

The daily reports are on the left, and some interesting other links are on the right.

[ally99]

Bad friggin A$$ Alex!!!!!!!!!! Congrats!

[choneofakind]

Big Alex: ballaaaaaaa!

[Gregg_VA]

@Alex,

I can't believe I didn't run into you and introduce myself before or after the IBR. Guess I was just too focused on getting started and returning safely. I had a good ride, could have been better, but I managed to pull off 40th place, the last place as a Finisher. Sal T in 39th started the bronze level. Oh well, there is still 2015 and I am STRONGLY considering doing it on my Ninjette.

Gregg
IBA 485

[Alex]

OK, it's time for a write-up. I should be lucid enough to remember most of the trip at this point, and tomorrow I go back to work trying to catch up on a month of playtime, so this might be the best and only time to put these thoughts to virtual paper. Before I go any further, I'd want to share some links to the official write-ups of this event:

Iron Butt Rally Event Main Page
Iron Butt History

2013 Iron Butt Rally Daily Reports, Bonus Listings, and other miscellaneous docs

Fun video of the satellite trackers on each bike.

Pre-rally

As many folks here might know, I destroyed my intended rally bike on January 1st of this year. It took me a month or two to make sure I was going to be OK in time to compete in this year's IBR. By March I was feeling like it was a possibility, so I bought a new bike and frantically started to get it ready for this type of long-distance event. I bought a 2013 R1200RT, as I found I was more comfortable on that type of bike compared to my short time on the K1600GT. The RT, with the current model being little changed for 8 years, also would be much easier to find off-the-shelf parts to quickly turn into a rally bike. Details on the bike build itself are up in this thread.

Time got very tight as the rally approached, and I had the bike in to have an aux fuel cell installed 4 weeks before the rally. The shop promised it in a week, but sat on their hands and got nothing done. They took another week, and I got it back 2 weeks before the rally. Unfortunately, the cell leaked like a sieve from a number of fittings, which was quite worrisome with so little slack time left. The shop also broke all of my audio equipment when reinstalling my fairings, and ended up installing my heated gear controller incorrectly, so it broke on the ride home from the shop. Not fun with so little time left! I fixed up the fuel cell myself with a bunch of trial and error, but had my local shop then fix the problems on an emergency basis that the first shop caused, and they were able to get everything done. I had some last minute ordering to do to complete the hydration system, and a friend helped me find a great mount on Amazon that would hold a half-gallon jug. The mount arrived the day before I planned to leave for the rally start, and luckily everything came together. I packed everything I thought I needed on June 22nd, and left on Sunday, June 23rd.

Ready to go!



In packing the bike, I realized I couldn't find my oil filler tool in the bike toolkit, so the first stop on the trip was at a friend's to pick up his. He left it in his mailbox along with an nice note.



Traveling eastbound, I went at a reasonable clip, covering 600 - 700 miles per day. Nothing much to report, other than the weather was a-ok all the way across. I made it to Cleveland by Wednesday evening, to be ready for a Thursday morning appointment for new tires and an oil change at the local BMW dealership. The shop was ready for me as planned, and mounted the new set of Pilot Road 3's I had shipped them a week prior. They also filled up the bike with some fresh 15-50 synthetic BMW oil. I hadn't run synth before, but on their recommendation it seemed like a reasonable idea as the bike might not get another change for 15k+ miles. I was on my way to Pittsburgh before lunchtime, and pulled into the lot that Thursday afternoon.

Bikes were starting to arrive at the Marriott, each more heavily farkled than the next. One thing I noticed that I hadn't thought to bring was a bike cover. I never cover the bike, as it's almost always garaged, so it hadn't occurred to me. Over the next few days it was good to meet some of the other participants. Some of them I had met at prior rallies, and others I had known of online. There was a mandatory session for rookies to this event, where Jeff Earls walked through some important topics on what to expect and how to stay safe. Getting through all of the registration checkpoints was not a quick process, but the organizers were quite thorough, and by Saturday evening most folks were completely sorted. Here's a pic of many of us pre-rally:



Sunday was the calm before the storm. Not much left to do on the bike or anything else, until the mandatory riders meeting late that afternoon. At that meeting, Tom Austin and others walked through the rules and procedures for the event in great detail. There was plenty of time for clarifying questions, and overall I thought it was an incredibly useful session. One huge win (in my opinion) was that Tom clarified that those running SPOT satellite trackers, not only didn't have to keep a fuel log, but they didn't need to keep any fuel receipts at all. The printed rules made it seem as if we might still need those receipts, so that clarification was welcomed. Fuel logs can be such a pain, and knowing that we just needed to have the satellite tracker restarted once per day was going to be so much easier. The initial Leg 1 packets and the USB sticks with electronic waypoints were handed out during the dinner right after the riders meeting, and the room was practically vibrating from the built-up stress and excitement from the 102 competitors (90 single riders, 6 2-up couples). We were given the go-ahead to open the packets, and started to review the bonus listings for leg 1. Rookies were given the option to stick around in that dinner room, to have any routing questions answered by Lisa or Tom. I didn't have that many questions after looking through the packet, so headed up to my room to plan in short order. Getting the packet the night before seem like such a luxury, as the clock really didn't start until 10 AM the next morning.

I had practiced my routing a few times in the days leading up to this point, so I had a numbered checklist of how to take these bonus listings and translate them into a usable route that could be then loaded to my GPS units. I had found that my install of mapsource kept crashing on my laptop when I was calculating routes, so I had a friend help me understand how to use BaseCamp. I needed to make that conversion at some point anyway, so this time was as good as any. I doubt this will be helpful for many (any?), but in the spirit of completeness, here's my procedure:

1. Create new EZ-Bake spreadsheet for leg. Enable macros.
2. Paste txt file info from waypoints into ezbake spreadsheet.
3. Enter points into EZ-Bake. Enter time restrictions. Adjust point ranges.
4. Press trim spaces from name.
5. Generate Garmin CSV file.
6. Run G7ToWin to convert Garmin CSV file to .gpx file.
7. Load gpx file into BaseCamp.
8. Load gpx file into Streets and Trips (S&T).
9. Include all pushpins in 1 route in S&T.
10. In S&T, create temp route by including high point value bonii, and deleting low point value bonii.
11. Hit button in S&T to Optimize route.
12. Continue to adjust route by adjusting route preferences, until it seems reasonable.
13. Go back to BaseCamp, create new route to mirror the route you liked in S&T.
14. Add back in bonii that look close to optimal route.
15. Recalculate route to make sure it all still seems doable.
16. Export to both GPS's. (waypoints and route). (route might fail if too long, but waypoints are most important)
17. Write out bonus order in notepad / 3.5 cards.

I quickly found out that the optimization in S&T was more of a theoretical step rather than a practical one; with enough waypoints it just takes too long to be useful. I eventually ended up skipping the S&T steps (8 through 12) and just doing everything within BaseCamp. I also had to add some steps in the beginning to get the right waypoints into the process in the first place. The waypoint files we were provided had the entire rally's waypoints all in one file with no differentiation, so the first step was to first categorize each leg 1 waypoint. I started with a separate file, but then realized I'd need to do this same process at each checkpoint, so I ended up using a single excel file with one column set as the Leg. I could then filter by leg and quickly copy the waypoints just from the current leg into the next step in the process. This made it slightly quicker on Leg 2, and much quicker on Leg 3.

The route for the first leg came to me pretty quickly. I found that the high value bonii to the very northeast in Canada looked like some very high miles as well. The farthest ones didn't look doable, and the doable ones didn't look valuable enough for the required miles. I plotted out a clockwise route, heading to Michigan first, then up into Canada, back around the Great Lakes to Niagara Falls, down and out to the eastern end of the PA turnpike, and back to Checkpoint 1 at the same Pittsburgh Marriott. I was feeling good about the route, and had enough time to even tentatively plan where each of my stops for the night would be. The large daylight only bonii I was chasing (Mackinaw Bridge, Aero Car at Niagara Falls), meant that getting there at night equalled sleep. The timing looked to work out great for both of those stops, so I hoped everything would go to plan. My GPS's were locked and loaded by about midnight, I got the bike packed and ready to go, and went to sleep.

On Monday morning, I had breakfast with Ken Meese, and was ready for the final check-in at the bike at 8:00.00 AM. We had to have our rider cards, and the means to show the odometer reading on the bike, and it was recorded in our starting paperwork as the inspection team quickly went from bike to bike. We were then free until the official start at 10:00 AM. The time passed quickly, and I was soon back at my bike, fully geared up and ready to go a little before 10. It was of course raining, as that would add to the nervousness and excitement. At 10 AM the winners of the FROTG contest (details in Bob's daily writeups), were flagged off by Warchild (Dale Wilson), and the rest of us were quickly flushed out of the parking lot one by one. It looks like we were all out of the lot in less than five minutes. (video of the IBR start). It was fun leaving the lot with so many eyes and cameras on the bike, and I had to be careful to make sure I was heading in the right direction as I started the rally. There were no slip-ups by me or anyone else, and the 2013 IBR was officially underway.

Pre-Rally pictures.

[Alex]

Day 1



Start: Cranberry Township, PA at 10:02 AM (all times Eastern throughout this write-up)
End: Mackinaw City, MI at 11:59 PM
Length: 748 miles / 53 mph average

The notation on the maps are as follows: colors represent point values, and shapes represent time restrictions. Purple/Red/Blue/Green range from very high to low. A circle is available any time, a square is available during daytime, and a triangle has specific hours (usually 9-5 or similar business hours, but there are some exceptions). This is the data entry I needed to do at the beginning of each leg, getting each bonus appropriately categorized before plotting them all on the map at once. One of the largest benefits of that EZ-Bake process is that all of the bonus names now have that data attached to them, so instead of just bonus "ABC" as delivered in the initial data, they are named things like "ABC182D", meaning that the bonus is worth 182 points and it is good for Daylight only. It makes it easy to then be able to play with them while underway, when considering route changes or shortcuts along the way, without having to always go back and refer to the rally documentation.

My first stop for the rally was at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit. It was going to be a lengthy one, as we needed to take 25 separate pictures inside the museum. But the points made it a no-brainer, and it looked like a large portion of the competitors were heading in the same direction. Looking at the pictures, it appears I took my first one (of the Rosa Parks bus) at 2:39 PM.



Only one of our pics in the museum had to have our flag in it, so I included it in that bus pic. 24 pics later, and I was on the last one, the wienermobile:



There were some smaller bonuses near the museum in Detroit, so I headed to them right after the museum. It was quite wet out, but fortunately it wasn't very cold. Here is the anchor of the Edmund Fitzgerald, found on Belle Isle:



Here is the International Underground Railroad Memorial, also in downtown Detroit:



I chose not to chase the bonii on the Canada side of the river, as crossing the border twice could add a significant amount of unknown time depending on uncontrollable factors. I hadn't been able to get a Nexus card prior to the rally, so with only a passport the lines could be long. Leaving Detroit, I had first intended to head southwest to pick up some lower-point bonuses before starting to head north. But, I started to get worried that I wouldn't make some of these in daylight anyway, making them pointless (truly). I realized that I didn't really know when daylight was over, but I assumed 7 or so at the time. I headed due west to UR1, the Underground Railroad Monument in Battle Creek, MI:



I was at that monument at 6:18 PM, and it was still quite light out. I was now questioning whether I should have shortcut my route. My next bonus was north to Flint, where the Buick Gallery & Research Center is located:



I took that pic a few minutes after 8, and it was also still light out. I realized at this point that I probably could have picked up those few other bonuses before heading in this direction, so I cost myself a couple hundred points. At this point of the day, there were no longer any bonuses within range, so I headed north to the Mackinaw Bridge. It was going to be a couple hour ride, and I planned to grab a hotel just on this side of the bridge, to head over the next morning at daybreak. I pulled into a reasonable looking hotel in Mackinaw City at midnight, took a quick shower, and got some sleep.

[Alex]

Day 2



Start: Mackinaw City, MI at 7:01 AM
End: Niagara Falls, Canada at 11:00 PM
Length: 744 miles / 47 mph average

I got a bit of a late start on Day 2, intending to leave by 6, but what can you do. I left the hotel parking lot at 7, and took this picture of the Mackinaw Bridge at 7:30:



That bridge has one lane that is cement and another that is just a metal grating. I was able to travel in the cement lane most of the way, but right at the end that lane was coned off, so had to use the wet metal grate for a short while. Mildly butt-puckering, but no major issues.

My next bonus was the Bush Plane Museum in Sault Ste. Marie. I was there at 8:38 AM, so it wasn't too far from the bridge:



Next up was a plaque celebrating the Transcontinental Highway. It was a fun ride up, on an interesting and scenic road. Some of the highways you need to take on long-distance events like this are completely featureless and boring. This wasn't one of them, and I really enjoyed the ride. When I arrived at the location, I found out that plaque no longer existed. I contemplated calling rally HQ to let them know, but I knew I was in the right place so I just took enough pictures to make sure it still would be counted:



At this point, I was hundreds of miles from my next bonus, so there was nothing to do other than point the GPS and have some fun. Riding in Canada was quite enjoyable. The speed limits are low, but the drivers are reasonably polite, and the roads are quite nice. I had many hours to play with the GPS's en route, and started to get a bit concerned that they were taking me on an unpaved route to get to the next bonus. They both said "turn onto unpaved road, go 8 miles" right before that next location. I am not an experienced dirt rider, and while it can do it, a fully-loaded RT with an ultra-high seat is not the best dirt weapon. It also started to rain when I got within an hour of the bonus, adding to my worry. I psyched myself up to not be a wuss, and planned to at least try the road to see how bad it might get. It turned out to be nothing more than a GPS glitch, as the windy road up to the Big Chute was in fact paved the whole way. This bonus was quite cool, with a huge contraption to move boats between two lakes at different elevations. It took me quite awhile to find the specific marker that the picture required, so I was able to see the Chute actually transport boats and jetskis in both directions. The pictures don't do it justice, the machine is huge.



Leaving the Chute, I had about an hour ride to get the next bonus at the Kirkfield Lift Lock. This bonus only required a picture of the sign, so to be honest I didn't even take a look at the Lock itself, and just quickly grabbed the sign pic and was on my way.



I found the Canadian Canoe Museum after another ride of a little over an hour, and grabbed a picture of it with my motorcycle:



I took a few here, to make sure that my flag was visible in the pics. With the mandated 640 by 480 resolution, it was always a worry that enough detail was visible:



The last bonus that would be available to me that day was the Robert McLaughlin Memorial Plaque. This was a low-point bonus, but it was not very far out of the way, and it wouldn't impede me from hitting anything else, so I kept it on the route. Some of the roads near this bonus were quite entertaining, and I was having a ball on the RT. I found myself accelerating harder and braking harder than I had for much of the rally, really treating it more like the sportbike she can be if handled correctly. I was braking for a downhill left when the brake lever came back to the bar and a bunch of warning lights went crazy on my dash. ABS failure, brake failure, etc. Fun! I pumped the brakes and the power returned, so I was happy that I hadn't completely lost them. I was only within a few miles of the bonus, so I figured I'd stop there to figure out my next move. I found the plaque, put the bike up on the centerstand, took the bonus picture, and then started troubleshooting. When I put the bike on its stand, I noticed that my rally flag was still attached to the back of the bike from the Canoe Museum. The silly thing had stayed attached the entire way at speed, against all odds. It was careless of me to leave without stashing it, but the rally gods were apparently on my side, at least for the moment.



I restarted the bike to see if that would reset the warning lights, but no such luck; it was an actual failure. Quick checks of both brake reservoirs showed no leaks or problems, and the calipers didn't appear problematic. Plenty of brake pad left everywhere. Oh, crap. The ABS sensor wire is touching the front brake disc. I ran my fingers along it, and realized that the disc had nicked the wire, cutting it partway but not all the way through. At this point I realized I'd like a second opinion. My cell phone wouldn't get any service in Canada, so I first started playing with it. I forced it to register on the local Rogers network, and then it did let me start calling (likely at some exorbitant rate, but that wasn't the chief concern). I spoke to SJBMW, and they confirmed that even if the ABS sensor fails completely, I'd still have full braking performance, just no ABS. I then called Roger Sinclair, who I had first met in the Marriott parking lot, and had offered to help with any mechanical needs or advice during the rally. He also confirmed that my brakes would likely still work fine other than those nasty warning lights and no ABS, but when he heard the wire hadn't actually been cut all the way through, he suggested re-routing it and wrapping it with electrical tape to see if it might still function. I thanked him for the help, and went to work. A little tape, a little re-routing, and I suited up to get back on the road with fingers crossed. When I refired the bike, the warning lights came on like always, but a few feet down the road they all went off like normal, showing full ABS and braking functionality had returned. Was smiling from ear to ear in my helmet, and was very grateful for Roger's help.

The last thing to do on Day 2 was to locate the AeroCar near Niagara Falls, and find someplace to sleep nearby. I pulled into the AeroCar parking lot just before 11 PM, got back on the road and saw a Super 8 motel just a few hundred feet down the road. They had a room available, and I happily brought my stuff inside. This was going to be my rest bonus for this leg, so I got a timed/dated receipt from the front desk for a bottle of soda before midnight. I would need to get another one after 8 AM in order to score the full 8 hours available for that bonus. Feeling quite happy about my good fortune with the brake issue, I went to sleep and looked forward to the next day.

[ally99]

Awesome write-up, pictures, and descriptions Alex! Glad the brakes didn't turn out to be a major issue! Damn, what a badass accomplishment! Now you need to take another month off to rest!

[Alex]

Day 3



Start: Niagara Falls, ON at 9:39 AM
End: Bristol Twp, PA at 3:57 AM
Length: 870 miles / 48 mph average

I woke up before my alarm that Wednesday morning, ready to go before 8. The AeroCar wasn't available until 9 AM, so there was nothing to be gained by rushing. I had a leisurely breakfast, packed some of the bike, but then just walked over to the parking lot in street clothes rather than riding over. There were several riders there, including at least one that had stayed in the same Super 8. We bought our tickets, and were on the first car when the ride opened at 9 AM. Our instructions were to have a picture taken of ourselves while we were riding the car.



It was a quick trip across the river and back, and I was soon walking to the bike to head out for the day. The GPS track looks like I was moving around 9:39. The first problem was getting back across the border. Up in northern Michigan, the line for the border was short and quick. No such luck here near Niagara, and I was stuck in the border line for what felt like hours (but was probably 45 minutes). It was baking hot, so I took off my jacket and helmet, turned off the bike, and just walked it forward every few minutes when the next car would move. When I finally got to the front of the line, the border agent asked if I had run out of gas. Even though I had put a hat on and was drinking like crazy while waiting, it still felt great to finally get back on the road and get some airflow through the gear. My first stop back in the states was the Erie Maritime Museum, which would have a tall ship docked behind it. It did!



It wasn't a particularly high point bonus, but it wasn't that out of the way either, so I didn't mind going to it. The bad news was that my reading comprehension was sub-par. While I knew this was a timed bonus, I hadn't recorded or realized that it was only good for July 4th. I was there on July 3rd, so this picture and bonus recording turned out to be denied at the scoring table. Foiled again.

My next target was Drake's Oil Well, about an hour and a half away. This was a high point bonus, so I was highly incented to keep this in the route. The nice ladies at the front of the museum didn't charge me an entrance fee when I let them know I just needed a quick picture of the well building just inside the gate, so I ended up buying a few bottles of water from them anyway.



Next on the agenda was the Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, NY. This turned out to be a bit of a ride from the oil well, and took me about 3 hours. There is a large plane parked right out front, and we needed to take a picture of it:



Next on the agenda was the National Soaring Museum in Elmira, NY. This location is smack on the top of a hill, with a fun twisty road to get to the top of it. I pulled into the lot right next to another motorcycle that I had seen at the Glenn Curtiss Museum. It was windy on the top of this hill, so it took a couple tries to get a picture where my flag wasn't folded:



At this point there was only one daylight bonus within reach, but it looked pretty doable. It was about 2 hours away, and the ETA was somewhere around 8:30 PM. I aimed the bike where the GPS was coaxing me, and hit the gas. This lasted about 3 minutes from the National Soaring Museum before I missed a very tight turn and instead went straight down a steep downhill gravel trail. Wonderful. And it kept going downhill, so I tried to make a slow u-turn on a grassy field right next to it. Which turned out to be wet and muddy, and the bike started to sink in and fishtail as I turned. Wonderful! I caught my breath, balanced the bike, and very slowly gave it a little throttle until I made it back to the gravel, went back up the hill, and rejoined the road. I took extra care the rest of the way down, and made it to the main road without any further excitement. This part of the leg turned out to be one more of the memorable roads I found on the rally. The last part was on Highway 97 in Pennsylvania, heading to the bonus in Shohola. This was a hilly, twisty, two-lane road through the forest and it was a hoot. It was starting to get dark, and I did have a few deer sightings, though none so close to require evasive maneuvers. I pulled into the bonus (the Civil War Prison Train Wreck Marker) at 8:33, and it was just starting to get dark. The rider that was at the Soaring Museum had just made it to this one as well, and while we were there Dave Legnosky pulled in as well. We all took pictures of the marker, and I also took some pictures of the area to show that it was still light enough.



Now there was no daylight left, and no daylight bonuses close enough to worry about anyway. But the night before, I had noticed that there were two any-time bonuses available in New York City and Long Island. My initial plan had me going straight to the east end of the PA Turnpike and going to sleep, but those two 500 point bonii were too hard to resist, so I pointed the bike to NYC, and expected to get there around 11 PM.

As I got closer to the city, traffic picked up, even though it was so late in the day. When I was only 20 or 25 miles away, my GPS's started to disagree with eachother about the best way into the city. I grew up in NJ, and even worked in NYC occasionally, but I usually took public transit in and out, so I am not very experienced in the best ways to drive in and around NYC. Eventually I found myself on the George Washington Bridge. Traffic was incredibly erratic, with some cars zipping from one lane to the next at 100+ mph on the bridge, with two almost clipping me. My GPS's were still fighting with eachother, so I wasn't sure which exit to take on the other side of the bridge. I finally just picked one, and ended up all the way on the north end of Manhattan, somewhere around 185th street and Broadway. I needed to get to 64th, which looked to be about 5 miles on Broadway. Fortunately, it was so late that traffic really wasn't that bad. I did get stopped at a number of the lights, but I eventually made my way to the hotel where I needed to snap a picture. The doorman was not particularly friendly, but allowed me to take the picture from the road. This location was evidently the start of a cross-country car trip by 4 women back in 1909, who successfully made it to San Francisco in 59 days.



I aimed the GPS at the next and final bonus for the day at Grumman Memorial Park in Calverton, LI. This route placed me on the Long Island Expressway after midnight, in the rain. Traffic was still somewhat heavy, and moving fast. This road isn't pleasant in the best of conditions, but when it's dark and wet, and I'm tired and fuzzy, it makes for a stressful situation. There are no shoulders at all for parts of it; just 3 high-speed narrow lanes down a twisting route. At one point I actually thought to myself that the drivers here had to be more careful and have more skill than what I've seen elsewhere. I made it to the end of Long Island, and took a picture of the plane in the park at 1:02 in the morning:



Now I had to make my way back. Part of me wanted to find a place to sleep right there, but I knew if I was in this side of the traffic in the morning, getting through NYC and to the PA turnpike would be a nightmare in only a couple hours. So I powered through, and re-entered the expressway. Only a couple miles in, the entire night was lit up with emergency lighting on the other side of the highway. Evidently one of those drivers I was so impressed with didn't live up to expectations, and cars were littered all over the other side of the highway, right where I had just passed through not so long ago. It was a little sobering, and I remained extra careful as I made my way west. My plan was to get as close to the end of the turnpike as I could before I needed sleep, so I continued west then south until I reached Bristol Township, PA and found a Days Inn around 4 AM. The clerk was both rude and unintelligible, but I eventually found my way to a room, took a quick shower, and went to sleep. I knew I had only a short day left the next day, with only 400 - 450 miles to go to the checkpoint, with a required arrival by 8 PM. This was the first day/night of the rally that I pushed myself a bit on the sleep cycle, but it felt necessary to stay on the right side of the potential traffic.

[tnr4]

EPIC. Even though I know how the movie ends, I'm on the edge of my seat!

[Alex]

Day 4



Start: Bristol Twp, PA at 11:00 AM
End: Cranberry Twp, PA at 7:37 PM
Length: 404 miles / 45 mph average

I knew I didn't have to get up that early, but I lived up to my typical sleep-loving self and didn't get the bike moving until 11 AM on Day 4. It looks like I popped the GPS on the bike by 10:42, but was still slow about getting actually moving down the road. Luckily there wasn't much to do today, other than collect a few final bonii and make it to home base. There were a string of bonus locations at each rest stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. You needed to stop at the rest stop, run in and get a receipt showing the time and name of the town and/or rest stop. This was the first bonus I hit that morning, coded as PA15 (King of Prussia Pennsylvania Turnpike Plaza). All of these rest stops were 24/7 bonus locations, but I was there in daytime anyway. Each was worth 100 points.

My second bonus location for the day was at the American Helicopter Museum in West Chester, PA. There were a bunch of helos parked out front, and we needed a picture of them:



The next 6 bonus locations were more of those turnpike rest stops. There's nothing much to report on these, other than I had to get a couple receipts from some of them, when I realized that the ones I received first didn't have the location or time on them. I wasn't that pressed for time, but I didn't have enough time to loop around and get all of the rest stops on both sides of the Turnpike. I was only picking up the ones available on the west bound side. The way the road is set up, some of the ones on the east bound side could take as much as 20 or 30 extra miles to make it to the next exit and loop around to get back moving in the right direction.

As I got closer to the checkpoint, there was one high point value bonus left in Johnstown, called the Johnstown Inclined Plane. As I turned off the main road to head for Johnstown, the storm picked up and started to worry me a bit more. The rain got harder, and I started to see more frequent lightning strikes. It didn't look like the storm was moving that quickly, but it did look like I was heading straight toward the center of it as I approached Johnstown. It's silly to even think about now, but I found myself ducking on the bike as I crested some hills, hoping that it would make the lightning that much less likely to find me attractive. Once I made it to downtown Johnstown, I followed signs to the Incline. When I got close though, it appeared that the main road to the attraction was closed. I used the GPS machines to route me up the hill a back way, and eventually they were taking me on these tiny gravel roads up steep hills. On one, I found myself stopped on what felt like a 20 degree incline, with absolutely no way to turn around without the bike falling over on top of me. The GPS said there was an alley off to the side at the top of the road, but I couldn't see it from where I was. I didn't have much of a choice, so I gunned it up the hill and prayed, and there turned out to be an alley right where there was supposed to be. I successfully turned into that alley, which popped out on a somewhat larger and flatter road. I saw someone working in their lawn, and they gave me directions to get to the Incline from there. When I made it to the attraction, there was a Gold Wing parked across the road. I stopped the bike, and said hi to Greg Rice. He had been waiting for awhile, as the Incline operator wasn't allowed to take people on the machine while there was an active lightning storm nearby. We waited for a little bit for the storm to lessen, and then he let us know he could take us down. We rode both motorcycles onto the Incline train car, and we were on our way down. We needed to take a picture of our motorcyles while on the Incline:



We rolled the bikes off at the bottom, and made plans to head back to home base. The weather got even worse for a spell, with extremely hard rain and very close lightning strikes, with both Greg and myself down to about 35 mph as what felt to be a safe speed in these conditions. There were also some detour and closed road notifications, which made trusting our GPS units a bit chancy. After 10 or 15 miles of fun, we made our way to a more major highway, and the rain lessened as well. As I got close to Cranberry, I felt that I had time to go and grab one last Turnpike rest stop nearby, so that was the last bonus I picked up before ending the leg.

I pulled in to the Pittsburgh Marriott at 7:36 PM, 24 minutes prior to penalty time. To stop the clock, I needed to get off the bike, and walk into the scoring room with my rider card, which was just inside the hotel. Once the clock was stopped, you have a limit of one hour to present yourself for scoring. I grabbed a quick shower, organized my receipts, and brought my stuff down to be ready to be scored. I also grabbed some food that they had prepared for the riders, which was much appreciated. Scoring was taking much longer than I had expected, probably in part due to the 25 pictures that each scorer had to check on each rider who went to the Henry Ford museum. I asked where I was on the queue, and found I had at least another hour to kill before being scored. I went out to the bike, and found Roger Sinclair in the parking lot. He and his friends had come with a large trailer of parts and gear, and were ready to help riders on just about any mechanical matter. He let me know that they had a spare ABS sensor wire for my bike, and could have it installed in minutes. I accepted, and his buddy George was immediately working on the front end of my bike to remove the patched together cord, and replace it with a new one. In what felt like no time at all, my bike was good as new, and I was much appreciative of their hard work. They also offered to put on a new rear tire for me, but after all of us looked at the wear I had from the first leg, it looked like I'd be able to make it to Sacramento easily, where I already had another new tire waiting for me. This decision haunted me 3 days later, as that same rear tire was almost to the cords as I limped into Checkpoint 2.

I was finally scored by 11 PM that night, and able to ready the bike for the next morning before getting to sleep. Chris Sakala scored me, and let me know that my score for the first leg put me in good shape. The next morning I found out I was in 32nd place, in the top third of the riders (16,714 points). Here was my final score sheet for that leg:



Here's what the full leg GPS track looked like:



2,766 miles according to my GPS logs. 2,771 miles according to the calibrated miles based on my odometer check during tech inspection.

[Alex]

Day 5



Start: Cranberry Twp, PA at 8:26 AM
End: Topeka, KS at 3:10 AM
Length: 1000 miles / 53 mph average

Here's about where my rally started to go downhill. I didn't sleep particularly well, even though we were at a checkpoint. I didn't get to sleep until after 1 AM, with scoring taking me to the wee hours, then working on my bike and repacking until even later. Getting up and ready for the 6 AM breakfast wasn't easy. We got our new Leg 2 rally packs with bonus listings, and I headed back to the room to plan. This was always going to be an interesting leg of the rally. We had to get from Pittsburgh to Sacramento in less than 3 days. We were given the rally packs at 6 AM east coast time on Friday, and needed to be at the Rancho Cordova Marriott by 8 PM pacific time (11 PM east coast time) on Sunday. That leaves a total of 65 hours to go a minimum of 2,460 miles. In the iron butt world, it's quite doable, with only a 37 mph average required. But it's certainly not a walk in the park. It also means that there is a pretty hard limit on the excess fun you can have bonus chasing on this leg.

In the rally packs, there were two large bonuses available on the leg. One of them involved a string of 34 Pony Express stops. Each one was worth a small to moderate amount of points. But get them all, and you get a 10,500 point bonus. There was also a bonus at the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado. This was somewhat far off the main route, but it was worth 8,666 points by itself. I quickly discounted the Pony Express route, as I saw that all of them were daylight only bonuses. That meant that if you miscalculated the smallest amount, and didn't make it to one in daylight, you were stopped there until the next morning, or you had to decide to forfeit that 10,500 point bonus. Some of them looked like gotchas to me, with long twisty routes off the main route to reach them. I also discounted the Pikes Peak bonus, as it looked like it added too many hours to the route the few ways I calculated it. I strung together some of the medium to large bonuses in my plan, and headed out of the parking lot at 8:24 in the morning. The first bonus in that plan was the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. 403 points, and not that far from home base.

I showed up a few minutes after 9, and was somewhat surprised (and worried) that there was only one other motorcycle in the lot. I had expected quite a few more, and that made me think I had been tempted by a sucker bonus. Looking at the details, I saw that the bonus wasn't open until 10. I had seen that before, but hadn't realized I'd get there so soon. I vacillated between staying and leaving, but eventually decided to stay. A few more riders then arrived, so if it was a sucker bonus at least there were a few more suckers to commiserate with. The museum opened at 10, but some employees arrived a few minutes before 10. We had to get a picture while riding the trolley between two particular points of the track, and we arranged that ride for the 9 or 10 of us that were there with the employees of the museum. We took the required pictures while riding the trolley, worried the entire time that we had wasted too much time on this particularly short leg. Here's a stressed me trying not too look overly stressed:



Once underway, the next stop for me was a 507 point marker commemorating Lindbergh landing his Spirit of St. Louis in Moundsville, WV. Easy bonus, mucho points:



There were still a handful of riders close by at this point, as we had all left the Trolley museum at the same time. Next on the agenda was the American Motorcycle Hall of Fame at AMA HQ in Pickerington, OH. This was entertaining in at least one way, as the GPS kept making me loop around an offramp and get back on the highway. I looped around twice, and came upon another competitor doing the same thing. It took me a third try to finally find the correct small street that led to the Museum rather than back to the highway. Once we made it into the museum, they informed us that the motorcycle we were instructed to take a picture of was no longer on display. They had checked with Iron Butt HQ already, and gave us a program with a note to show that we had been there at the location. This probably saved us a reasonable amount of time compared to taking even a mini-tour, so the substitution probably helped, if only in a small way. This was one of those locations where you wish you really did have more time to explore instead of needing to immediately get back up to warp speed, so I hope to find my way back there sometime.

The next bonus was probably one of the most frustrating of the entire rally. Eddie Rickenbacker was one of the most well known fighter pilots and all-around bad-ass of the 20th century. He happens to be buried in a cemetery in Columbus, OH. We were instructed to take a picture of his gravestone. The cemetery was quite large, and quite confusing. I was given a map when I entered, but was helped out by a worker there who led us by truck to get to the gravesite all the way near the back of the site:



All is well so far, but then came the fun in trying to leave the site. I kept getting myself turned around in the cemetery, finding myself in front of Rickenbacker's gravesite over and over again. It was becoming quite claustrophobic. I ran into Donald Jones, who was also looping around and around with no apparent exit. It seems the location is designed to be intentionally confusing, and it was designed well. I eventually ran into another worker, who pointed in the general location of where I needed to go, and after some more trial and error, I found the back exit. Not fun by any stretch of the imagination. It felt like tons of wasted time, and this bonus was tiny points-wise, so it felt doubly wasted. I was not in the best frame of mind at this point, and just felt like I was putting myself behind the 8-ball in this leg.

Once on the main road, I aimed the bike at Hare Chevrolet, in Noblesville, Indiana. From the rally pack:

The United States longest-lived family-owned vehicle retailer Hare Chevrolet has been in business for over 160 years, giving them the title of the “Nations Oldest Transportation Company”. The saga began in 1847 when Wesley Hare started building wagons, carriages and buggies out of his log cabin in Noblesville, Indiana. His primary market was the steady stream of Americans heading west to California to pan for gold.

There is a great mural over many of the interior walls of the dealership, and we needed to take a picture of it. The employees here were very friendly, and quite interested in this unique long-distance event that had sent a few riders in their direction.



The bonuses seemed to be spreading themselves further and further apart, as I aimed to the next one on my list, a marker commemorating a Bi-plane / Train race in Mt. Pilaski, IL. It took me a few hours to get there, and as I got close I came upon Ken Meese heading in the same direction. We pulled up to the marker together, and took the same picture of the marker below:



We both agreed that there were no more daylight bonuses available to us, as it was already 8 PM and we really were out in the middle of nowhere at that point. As we left separately, I was really starting to feel down about my route choice, my progress so far on the leg, and I wasn't sure how to fix what I felt to be the problem. When I made it back to the major highway, I stopped on the side of the road and took out the computer. I knew how many points I was supposed to meet to reach finisher status on this leg (11,000). I was afraid that my route wasn't going to get me there, and I wasn't making enough progress on it in any case. I looked again at the Pikes Peak bonus, which was 8,666 points all by its lonesome. I looked at the times it was available, and calculated how far I was from it at that point. It looked doable to make it there by early afternoon if I rode hard and didn't take that long of a rest stop. I recalculated things a number of times to make sure I wasn't mistaken, and eventually firmed up the plan. I put the computer away, plugged both GPS's to Colorado, and got the bike moving. I made it to Topeka, KS before really feeling like I needed a few hours of sleep, and checked into a Motel 6 there at 3 AM.

[Alex]

Day 6



Start: Topeka, KS at 7:50 AM
End: Price, UT at 4:07 AM
Length: 1000 miles / 53 mph average

When I got up this morning, the target was easy to keep in mind. Get to the big point Colorado bonuses, and whatever you do, don't mess them up. First thing I had to do was get a timed receipt to close off my rest period bonus, and it took me 3 tries to find one with a timestamp, but finally found one at a convenience store in Topeka, and I was on the road.

In addition to the Pikes Peak bonus, there was a 1401 point bonus only an hour from that huge bonus, and it was almost on the way. That's where I was headed first, and I pulled up to the restaurant / plane at 3:22 PM (Eastern):



From here Pikes Peak was close, and even though one GPS wanted to take me up an unpaved road straight up the mountain, the signs were easy enough to follow to get me to the entrance. Several other motorcycles were in line with me, so I clearly wasn't the only competitor to include this bonus in their plan. Unfortunately it was already pretty late in the day, so the lines were long and it was a slow slog up the twisty road behind car traffic. I had to be careful to leave enough room to the car in front, for fear that they would stop short right in a full-lock hairpin turn leaving me nowhere to go but over. When going that slow, looking over the edge can be even a little more hair-raising compared to going faster and concentrating on the road. Yes, the road is now paved all the way to the top. But yes, there are still a number of stretches with zero runoff, no guardrail, and a swift and straight drop right off the mountain if one were to make a riding or driving error. Once at the top I got off the bike and saw that the train we needed to take a picture of was in the station, so I hopped off the bike and quickly jogged to the train location to grab the pic.



Someone took the picture for me, and I immediately started feeling dizzy. A combination of the limited sleep, the 15,000 foot altitude, and probably not enough to eat that day really hit me all at once. I slowly walked back to the bike, took the required additional picture of the motorcycle, and had some food and drink.



After a bio break in the main building, I walked out to notice that a storm was just coming in. Another rider (Cliff Wall) let me know that an announcement was made that due to hail and lightning on the side of the mountain, it wasn't recommended for motorcyclists to go down the road until it cleared up. This was most unwelcome news, as we were already late by most measures. Getting trapped at the top of Pikes Peak was not in the plan, so I decided to head down. Cliff let me know that a bunch of motorcycles had left immediately right after that announcement, so whatever was happening, they were in it already anyway.

As I went down the winding road, it did start raining pretty hard. It then started hailing, as advertised. Not baseball sized chunks, but large enough to be felt and noticed bouncing off the jacket and helmet. And soon after the lightning came closer and closer, eventually striking near both sides of the road as I rode in between. Truly nerve-wracking, all the while trying not to drive off a cliff. To top it off, as the rain got even harder, I noticed a boulder rolling down the hill out of the corner of my eye. I timed where it was likely to fall, and let it roll in front of me by about 10 yards. It wasn't Indiana Jones-sized, but it was probably 2 feet in diameter, and more than large enough to knock a moving motorcycle down and perhaps off the road. I really felt the rally gods were just messing with me at this point. I persevered, and made it the rest of the way down the hill, to where it was just raining hard at the bottom, with no hail and fortunately a little less lightning. I aimed the bike at the 2nd checkpoint near Sacramento and hoped I could make good progress.

The rain continued off and on, with some particularly fun sections in the canyons, with some flash flooding and very focused lightning storms, but that was coupled with some very beautiful riding in the Vail and Breckenridge areas, where it really felt like I was on vacation for awhile. I made it to Price, UT before stopping for a quick nap at a Best Western (4:07 AM Eastern).

[NevadaWolf]

Now this is the speed most stories need to come at. Long enough in between to look at pictures, the map, and truly appreciate the sheer distances and times involved. Though I am hitting Refresh like a mad woman. :mental urging: Type ... Faster

Kidding. Loving the report so far!

[Alex]

Day 7



Start: Price, UT at 7:26 AM (east)
End: Rancho Cordova, CA at 8:39 PM (east)
Length: 777 miles / 58 mph average

With both of the large bonuses bagged, all I needed to do at this point was make it back to the checkpoint. I was still feeling a bit shagged, a little down on sleep, uncomfortable with soaking wet boots, and hurting a bit all over. Getting up early was not easy, but I left while it was still dark out to try and make it to the checkpoint a bit early. Once I was riding along, I started to feel a little bit better. I was doing some route planning while on the highway, seeing if I still had it in me to chase the Gerlach bonus. I had decided against it, but did see some easier, but less lucrative bonuses directly on the route I was already taking. I stopped off at the Bonneville Speed Flats to take this picture:



While there, another rider came up to me with the most dejected look, telling me that his rally was now over, and holding a stub on a lanyard around his neck; he let me know that the lanyard used to be holding his camera, which was now missing with all of his photos for Leg 2. Not a good time in his rally, I'm sure.

An hour or two down the road, there was a 350 point Pony Express bonus in Elko, NV. This also appeared right off the side of the road, so I took the exit and grabbed it as well:



From Elko, I was only a little over 400 miles from the checkpoint. At that Pony Express bonus, I looked at my rear tire and wasn't happy with what I saw. It was completely flat-spotted, looking like a car tire, and already past the wear bars. I still had 400 miles of very hot Nevada and California highway to cover, on a Sunday with no open motorcycle shops to save me if I needed any tire help. At this point I was cursing my cheapness in not just having Roger slap on a new rear tire in Pittsburgh as he had offered to do. I got back on the road, and set the cruise at a sedate 65 mph to minimize wear. After an hour or two, I checked the wear and it looked really dicey whether I would make it all the way in. I called the tire shop in Rancho to let them know I would still be trying to make it in tonight, but might be a little late. I called a friend who was in the checkpoint parking lot, letting him know I might have tire issues as I got closer to see what help might be available if needed. I set the cruise down to 60 mph, and stayed in the right lane the rest of the way in. I sailed past a few bonus locations that I knew were right on the side of the road, but at that point I didn't want to put a single extra mile on the tire that wasn't required. After another hour I checked wear, and the slow speeds were helping quite a bit, and I didn't notice any additional wear since the last check, so I was hopeful I'd make it to the parking lot.

At 5:39 Pacific / 8:39 Eastern, I pulled into the parking lot of the Rancho Cordova Marriott, and was very happy to see some friends already there. I knew I had a few extra hours to have gotten some of the nearby bonuses, but I was just fried. Hot, uncomfortable, wet, tired, stressed, and probably a few more descriptors I'm forgetting at this point. I got myself scored quickly (by Jeff Earls!), received 17,513 points for the leg, and called my tire shop to let him know I was coming. With only 11K necessary to be a finisher, I thought I was in good shape with that 17k. I found out the next morning that in fact I had dropped quite a bit in the standings, going from 32nd down to 57th place with a total of 34,227 points. I was in good shape to be a finisher, but wasn't going to threaten anybody anywhere near the top of the leaderboard.

Two friends came along with me to the shop to help me get my tires changed, and they were a huge help. I was worried about being able to successfully check all of the bolts & spacers required for the front and rear tire change, as the shop was only able to mount the tires off the bike, and we would be providing all of the labor to get them on and off the machine itself. It's not rocket science, but it's not easy on Day 7 of the IBR. Nothing really is at that point. With both tires changed, I rode back to the Marriott parking lot, and tried to set the tire pressure to my preferences. My tire gauge broke right on the spot, so I asked other riders in the lot if I could borrow theirs for a moment. Wendy Crockett lent me hers, and I tried to read the pencil-type gauge on my front tire as I was pumping it to 38 psi. I was so fried I couldn't read the gauge, so I asked her hubby if there was any way he could help me. He was nice enough to come over and set the tire pressure correctly, and I was done for the night.

I took a quick shower, and then had time to even wash and dry the LDComfort gear in the hotel washer/dryer, which would make my next couple days just a little more pleasant. It was good seeing so many friends at the relatively local checkpoint, and it did give me that boost I needed to continue. I was asleep before midnight, and ready for the last leg of this adventure.

Here's the full track for Leg 2:



2,793 miles from GPS track, 2,805 according to the calibrated miles based on my odometer check during tech inspection.

[Alex]

Day 8

I woke up at 5:59 AM (local) in Rancho Cordova, needing to be downstairs at 6:00 AM. It was good that I had showered the night before, so it only did take about 45 seconds to throw on the LDComfort gear and run downstairs. Once downstairs, I was shuffled into a line of people who captured the Trolley museum bonus. Evidently there were some ethical questions about the actions of some riders, and each of us were brought before Kneebone & Austin individually to share what we saw while at that bonus. There were questions about what actions people took before 10 AM when it was available, whether people actually took a trolley ride and where the pictures were taken from. I was completely comfortable with the questions, and also comfortable with my own actions at that bonus, so I didn't feel that there was too much to worry about, but it was still somewhat tense that early in the morning. Due to those discussions, the breakfast and packet handouts were delayed significantly while the organizers addressed the crowd. We received the Leg 3 packets, and I headed back up to the room to plan. After the data entry and categorization, here's what my choices looked like for leg 3:



With 4 days to get back east, there was more of a chance to plan a longer route and chase bonus locations that were a little farther out, so the planning could be interesting. We knew that we needed 60,000 points to be considered a finisher, which also factored into the planning. I had 34k already, so a route that safely got me 26k points was all I needed to successfully finish the IBR on my first attempt. I tried to make the northern route work, as I thought it would be good riding and keep me out of the heat. But the miles just looked too long no matter how I calculated it, and it was chancy whether I could get the required points if I had to cut things short. I then looked at the southern route, which appeared to be the obvious choice due to the large cluster of bonuses all along the southern US. But I *really* didn't want to go that far south. The heat was really taking it out of me, and dealing with triple-digit temps all through Arizona, Texas, and even further eastward seemed like a nightmare that I just couldn't psych myself up for. So what I planned for instead was a simple route straight through the middle of the country. First I'd have to do Death Valley. Yes, this seems silly for someone avoiding the heat, but I go to Death Valley every year and I know the roads like the back of my hand. I knew the Furnace Creek bonus, and was confident I could get it and be on my way. I'd then head for the large bonus in Colorado. From there I'd zip all the way across the country to Kitty Hawk, NC to pick up the large bonus there. With those 3 large bonuses, plus a handful of small ones that were right on that route, I should get just over 60k points without too much trouble.

I called the wife to let her know the plan, took a quick shower, and loaded up the bike. In the parking lot I chatted with both Mark Crane and Jerry White, who took this pic of me leaving for Death Valley:



Both of them understood my reasoning for this last leg, though Mark did try to convince me to go west for just a little while to pick up the SF bonuses, but I had my head set on going east. So with that in mind, I set off on that plan. I had a nice ride up and over the Sierras again, and made it to 395. It was already 100 degrees, and it was still getting warmer as I continued south. I was getting more and more uncomfortable no matter how much water I was drinking, and at one point I realized that my feet were actually burning. I hadn't ever experienced that on this RT, but it was really starting to bother me. It truly reached the painful threshold, to the point where I pulled off the side of the road 30 miles or so north of Lone Pine and wondered if I would be able to continue. I called home base to let the better half know I might be in trouble. It wasn't easy to continue, both feeling so uncomfortable and also knowing how close I was to home compared to going back across the country for another 6k+ miles. I decided to make it to Lone Pine before figuring out my options. I rode the rest of the way with my ankles angled all the way back on my passenger pegs, which was quite uncomfortable, but kept my feet just a bit further from the heat of the engine and the asphalt. It was clear that highway pegs would have been a huge help, and they will be on the bike before I subject myself to any more long distance hot weather. In Lone Pine I called a few people for some confirmation that the bike wasn't in trouble, and it was just something that I could and should find a way to deal with. I received some good pep talks, and I made a plan to move forward. It was simply too hot for me to continue on to Death Valley right then. It was currently 105 in Lone Pine, and I couldn't ride safely. It was 121 degrees in Death Valley at the time. I'd get into a hotel room in Lone Pine, enjoy the air conditioning and cool myself off for a good number of hours. I would then leave for Death Valley in the middle of the night, aiming to be at the bonus location at the very minute I was legally allowed to take the picture (30 minutes prior to sunrise), and then continue my way East to escape the heat as best I could. I knew it would make for a very challenging rest of the leg, going such a short distance on Day 1. Now, instead of averaging a smidge less than 1,000 miles per day this leg, I'd need to average over 1,200 per day for the next 3 days. But it seemed as if I really didn't have much of a choice at that point. So that's how I only went 326 miles on Day 8 of the IBR.



Start: Rancho Cordova, CA at 1:13 PM (east)
End: Lone Pine, CA at 8:52 PM (east)
Length: 326 miles / 42 mph average

[Alex]

Day 9



Start: Lone Pine, CA at 6:27 AM (east)
End: Eagle, CO at 1:32 AM (east)
Length: 1070 miles / 56 mph average

Day 9 was the day for all the marbles. I not only needed to get Death Valley, but I needed to make it to the Hanging Flume in Colorado before sunset. If I didn't capture that bonus today, there was no making up enough time to make Kitty Hawk. If I didn't make Kitty Hawk, I wouldn't be a finisher. There was quite a lot of pressure to just get things done. I left the hotel right around when I wanted to at 3:30 AM local time. Sunrise in Death Valley was at 5:37 AM, so I could take the picture at 5:07 AM to be legal. It took me just a little longer to get there than expected, and I snapped this picture at 5:14 AM local (8:14 Eastern):



It was already quite warm, even that early, but it was bearable and I was now on my way out of the valley. Step 1 was complete, and now I needed to pick up some of those small bonuses en route to my ultimate goal. First was a train station in Kingman, Arizona:



Someone else's rally flag was sitting on the ground right below that plaque at the train station. The etiquette in the rally is to leave it where it lies, as that rider might realize they left it and come back to find it. Next I needed to find my way to Delgadillo's Snow Cap Drive-In in Seligman, AZ, to take a picture of the "dead chicken" sign with me in it:



I was still on plan, moving along well, and now aiming for the Grand Canyon. It was quite warm, but in a better state of mind I was able to deal with it a bit better than the prior day. I was going through a ton of water, both internally and externally, but that's pretty much what you need to do in these conditions. Right before the Grand Canyon there was a small bonus of a Blue Angel plane:



Then I had to enter the tourist trap itself. This was the only time that the national parks card helped me out, and got me into the park without an additional charge. It occurred to me that I didn't try and use it at Pikes Peak, but I'm not sure if that is a national park or not. The bonus at the Grand Canyon was the log construction railroad terminal, which is all the way in town, and took awhile to get to even once in the park. It did have a bathroom inside, so there was a reasonable benefit to find the bonus.



I took that Grand Canyon picture at 2:43 Eastern, not sure exactly what that would be local time there. But it looked like I was still on track to make the Flume in daylight, if my GPS's were to be believed. I headed out of the Grand Canyon park by going Northeast rather than heading south out the entrance, so it was a nice trip around the canyon itself. I didn't feel I had enough time to even stop for a moment at any of the overlooks, but I did take an occasional peek while I was riding by.

The roads and sights here were magnificent. I had never ridden through Monument Valley before. It was a fun trip heading northeast, knowing that I had the bonus within my grasp. I knew I was making good time, and the roads and speed limits allowed for a good pace. The Hanging Flume itself turns out to be on one of the nicest motorcycling roads I've ever experienced. I knew it was going to be fun, zooming into it back at the checkpoint on my computer, with an incredibly long set of twisties, showing a very long fun road connecting two larger highways. If you ever have a chance to take Highway 141 in Colorado, don't pass it up. I think I will be making excuses to head in that direction on any cross-country trip. Many of the roads in this rally do nothing but chew up the center of your tires. This was one that happily chewed up my tires all the way up the side, with me smiling the entire way. At 8:49 Eastern, I pulled into the overlook for the Flume, and a bunch of dirtbikers took this picture of me in front of the required sign:





I had made it with time to spare, and felt a huge sense of accomplishment. Not only had I met my goal for the day, but I had a great ride getting there, and knew that it would be fun for a little while longer as well. While at the overlook, it was fun chatting with the dirtbikers, who were very interested in the bike, the rally, and the entire adventure. When I let them know I now had to be in Kitty Hawk, NC in less than 48 hours, they could only chuckle. I saddled back up, and pointed the bike to that Wright Brothers bonus, a mere 2200 miles away. I kept going until I started to feel unsafe, and found a hotel room in Eagle, CO. This was going to be my rest bonus, and I needed at least 6 hours worth of points based on my plan.

[Alex]

Day 10



Start: Eagle, CO at 10:41 AM (east)
End: Grayville, IL at 4:58 AM (east)
Length: 1112 miles / 61 mph average

I slept a little longer than I had planned for, and ended up taking a full 8 hour rest bonus instead of the 6 hours I had intended. This would help me in the points, but of course hurt me in the amount of time I had to get what I needed. The ETA for Kitty Hawk continued to seem doable, but was quite scary with very little slack time available. I had no bonuses on the schedule for this day, with the only goal being making time eastbound as quickly and as safe as possible. The western speed limits helped, and I was able to keep up a 61 mph average for the 18.2 hours I rode during this period. That is just slightly below BBG (BunBurnerGold) pace, so holding that on Day 10 of the IBR was taking just about everything I had left.

When I got to Grayville, I realized I needed to stop and rest. But I also knew that if I checked into a hotel, I was risking not coming out for days. So I compromised and pulled into a hotel parking lot, and then fell asleep on their lawn. It seemed to make sense at the time. I was getting bitten by something, so I put my helmet and gloves back on, and went back to sleep for a few minutes, setting my screaming meanie for 30 minutes of rest. This was at 4:58 East coast time, but it was still dark out in Illinois.

[Alex]

Day 11



Start: Grayville, IL at 5:21 AM (east)
End: Cranberry Township, PA at 8:36 AM (east)
Length: 1407 miles / 52 mph average

I didn't get to sleep that full 30 minutes. I woke back up before the screaming meanie, and got back on the road 23 minutes after I had stopped. The power nap had truly helped quite a bit, and I was again focused and intent on my goal. It also helps when the sun starts to come up, as that wakes up parts of the brain and body that sometimes can't be willed to do so otherwise. On this last day, it was still not clear whether I would or would not make Kitty Hawk in time. Sunset was 8:24 PM at that location, which means I needed to get there at 8:54 PM to take that picture. Yes, there is sometimes special dispensation if you have small errors at a single bonus that would otherwise cost you finisher status, but I didn't want to count on the charity of the organizers to push me over the top. So I needed to be at that bonus location by 8:54. Which was convenient, as that was pretty much exactly what my GPS units were telling me by the early afternoon that day. I had used up all of my slack time, and if I wanted to be a finisher, I needed to buckle down and just do the miles. Yes, it was tiring. Yes, it was raining for a good portion of the afternoon and evening. But with the goal so close in front of me, it was easier than it had been to push all distractions aside and just keep moving in the right direction.

When I made it to North Carolina, there was quite a storm going on over the Outer Banks. To nobody's surprise, the strongest lightning was happening directly over the Kitty Hawk area, and I was heading straight for it as quickly as I felt safe. At this point it was pitch black due to the storm and cloud cover, but I was still on schedule based on the published times. I pulled up to the gate at 8:54 PM, and quickly snapped the picture. It was so dark that I wasn't 100% sure I was in the right place, but the GPS waypoint had led me straight to this point, and it appeared that the strip of land could be nearby on the other side of the gate. With lightning hitting right across the street, I got back on the bike and raced to a nearby gas station for some weather cover. I also grabbed a timed receipt at that station to document the daytime status of the picture.

I had accumulated enough points to be a finisher, but that means nothing unless I can get back to the final checkpoint in time, without accruing too many penalty points. I knew that I had about an hour's cushion based on my point totals, but that still wasn't a huge comfort, as it still was going to be a challenging ride. As I left the Outer Banks, the weather had improved a bit, and I was hopeful that it would stay that way all the way home. Sadly, that was not the case.

A very strong storm was brewing all over the Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia area, and my route home was taking me directly through the strongest parts of the system. Fantastic! I was making my way up I-95 near Quantico, when it turned into a deluge. There was so much water coming down that it wasn't clearing from the highway fast enough, so there was standing water that felt an inch or two deep in some cases. Lightning was frequent, loud, and near. OK, I guess it was the thunder that was loud, but the point stands. I pulled off the highway to put on my electric gear, as it was starting to get cold, and I was soaked through every layer of gear I had on. My audio system started to flake out on the bike, cutting off any communication and much of the entertainment, due to the large rainstorm. I was crawling along to try and go slow enough to see, but also to go fast enough to not be run down by the trucks that were still going at speed. None of the lane markers were visible, so it was pretty much a free for all on the highway. My system was pretty much shocked awake by the level of attention that was necessary to keep the bike upright, pointed in the right direction, and maintaining the appropriate speed. This system didn't break for roughly two hours, making it two of the most challenging hours I've had on a bike, factoring in my mental & physical state along with the conditions.

My ETA for home base kept creeping up, due to my relatively slow pace going through the storm system. It was at 6:30 AM when I left Kitty Hawk, but it crept up to 7, then 7:15, then 7:30, and eventually reached 8 AM; the cutoff time before penalty points. I knew that I was risking a DNF after all of this effort if I didn't make it in before roughly 9 AM, so I pulled together every internal resource I had to make my goal. By the time I reached the Turnpike weather was not as much of a factor, and the chief rival was instead fatigue. I did have to pull over a few times to catch my bearings, shut my eyes for a short while, and refocus before pulling back out into traffic. After a long, hard night, I found myself in Cranberry Township around 8:30 AM, and pulled into the Marriott parking lot at 8:36. There was a large crowd at the entrance waiting for the riders, and one of the volunteers quickly shoo'd me inside to the scoring table to stop the clock as quickly as possible. This is what I looked like right after that moment when I was back at my bike, removing my earplugs and getting ready to move the bike to a more suitable parting spot:



I now had 1 hour to get myself sorted before presenting all of my information for scoring. I had so few bonuses and receipts this leg that I was pretty much ready immediately, so this gave me time to check in, and go up to my room to take a quick shower. I changed into some clean clothes, downloaded my pics to the computer, and got in line for scoring. Nancy Oswald scored this last leg for me, and I was on pins and needles to find out whether my efforts would take me over the finisher hurdle:





In short, it did. Even with the 36 minutes of penalty points, my final score for the 2013 IBR was 60,659. When I walked back out to unload the bike, I physically couldn't keep from smiling, I'm sure I looked goofy as all heck at the moment, but to be fair all my fellow riders probably looked a little strange after 11 days on the road.

I locked up the bike, went back to my room, set the alarm for the banquet, and fell fast asleep. At 5 PM, I noticed that my cell phone kept ringing. This was both strange and welcome, as I had planned to be downstairs by 5 PM, and yet I was still fast asleep. A big thanks to my wife, who accurately predicted that without her forcefully waking me up via annoying cell phone ringtones, I'd sleep right through the banquet and likely the rest of the night as well. I cleaned myself up, and made it down in time to get in line for the buffet and find a seat in the main hall. I sat next to a fellow bay area LD rider, Mark Starrett. We had run into each other a number of times during the rally at various bonuses, and had finished at right about the same time. During the finishers presentation, we were informed that the official finisher level would start at 55,000 points, which did save 5 riders who had run very successful and challenging routes, yet were just under the initially suggested finisher threshold of 60K. With Kitty Hawk being worth 7,500 points, it wouldn't have made a difference to me either way; I needed that bonus to be a finisher no matter which of the thresholds applied. My point total landed me a 56th place finish in this year's Iron Butt Rally (link to final results). I'm happy I persevered at the beginning of Leg 3, I'm happy that I rescued a crappy Leg 2 by at least salvaging the Pikes Peak bonus, and I'm happy most of all that I had the chance to test myself for almost two weeks of LD silliness on a motorcycle, and I came out the other side no worse for wear.



Here's my full track for Leg 3:



3,915 miles from GPS track, 3,859 according to the calibrated miles based on my odometer check during tech inspection. (this does seem somewhat quirky as the GPS was lower than the calibrated miles in each prior leg, but who knows.)

[Alex]

Wrap-up / More links

Full track of the event, Day 1 through Day 11: (~9500 miles)



Here's a similar map, that also includes the trips out to PA for the start, then back home after the event. The lines don't change much, as much of those trips were just on I-80. I started recognizing landmarks very easily on that road.



So, the obvious question is would I do it again. I'd like to say yes, but I doubt it will be at the next one in 2015. Now that I have the finisher status under my belt, along with that 3-digit IBA number that comes with it, I might feel more comfortable taking more routing risks and other chances to try and place higher in the standings, knowing that if it backfired and I DNF'd, I'd already have the 2013 results in my pocket. It took a huge toll on my wife taking care of the two little monsters for almost an entire month, as the logistics of this east coast based rally were quite hard for us west coast folks. If there were to be an IBR that started and finished closer to home base, it could slice off as much as a week or two off of the commitment I had to put in to compete in this year's event.

All of my pictures of the event are up in this gallery. I didn't take many extra or unnecessary pictures during the event, as honestly it just doesn't seem like there is enough time to dilly-dally while collecting the appropriate bonuses and moving on to the next one. Some of the sights that I saw during this year's rally were truly incredible, and I hope I'm fortunate enough to be able to visit some of them when I don't have a time clock hanging over me.

Thanks for reading what could truly be labelled a TL;DR thread, and I'll try and answer any questions or comments that are raised from this ride report, about the IBR, or even the IBA in general.

[KawiKid860]

That sounds so cruelly awesome. Congrats on finishing! That's some pretty hard core stuff you went through

[tnr4]

Fantastic write-up. Well done to you. And Annie is a CHAMP. What a thing she did for you, holding down the fort so that you could have this adventure. What a great team you two must be!

[broken neck]

Wow...

Great write-up and what an accomplishment...

It brought back memories to my collegue... Minus the GPS...

Thanks for taking the time to write that and sharing it with us...

[ChaoSS]

Ok, so here's my question... I want to do one, but it will be some time before life lets me take that kind of time off. So the question is, how did you really get into it? If I were to knock out a few IBA rides, compete in a few rallies like the Cal24 (Is that coming back next year?) do I just kind of stumble into an invite eventually?

Or am I going to have to promise to do it on a ninjette and get into the impossible category?

[Panda]

Amazing ride report!

[Alex]

Tim - best way is to start running rallies. Only way to figure out whether it's for you is to actually do 'em, and see what you like about them. There are a number of 24-hr rallies, including the Cal, which will hopefully be back next year. Yes, it doesn't hurt to start collecting a bunch of documented IBA rides along the way, but it's not a necessity. I've done 9 Cal24's, but only submitted the very first to get my SaddleSore 1000 cert, and as far as I know that's my only certified IBA ride prior to this year's IBR.

If you really want to run the IBR, the first requirement is to join the IBA. There will be an open call for applications for the 2015 IBR event sometime later this year. It is a lottery draw for those that meet the requirements, and there are different categories of that draw depending on the type of entrant (as you mention, Hopeless class is one of them). There's a $100 application fee, but it gets refunded if you are not drawn. If you are drawn, then if you choose not to enter you do forfeit that application fee. You can also win your spot into the IBR by performing very well in some of the related 24-hr or multi-day rallies that are loosely affiliated with the IBR. Personally, I had never intended on competing in it myself, but things worked out this year and I'm glad I did it.

[NevadaWolf]

Originally Posted by Alex

If you really want to run the IBR, the first requirement is to join the IBA. There will be an open call for applications for the 2015 IBR event sometime later this year. It is a lottery draw for those that meet the requirements, and there are different categories of that draw depending on the type of entrant (as you mention, Hopeless class is one of them). There's a $100 application fee, but it gets refunded if you are not drawn. If you are drawn, then if you choose not to enter you do forfeit that application fee. You can also win your spot into the IBR by performing very well in some of the related 24-hr or multi-day rallies that are loosely affiliated with the IBR. Personally, I had never intended on competing in it myself, but things worked out this year and I'm glad I did it.

Having a ride verified gets you a membership, right? So like the SaddleSore or anything else you can properly document and send in?

Is there a list of the rallies that can be used for practice or training? I asked a few IBA members here about some Nevada #### rides, but they answered those were in the days before cops had radar.

I was just looking at the list of rides on the web page and trying to figure out which to tackle next as I want one of those Mile Eater shirts. LOL

[Alex]

Yes, I think that's right. Check out the Cal24 site, in the Other Rallies section there is a reasonable list. The LD-Riders email list is very busy with information about rallies and everything else related to long distance riding. But - it's usually manageable for me if I keep it in daily digest mode.

[BlueRaven]

What an adventure!!! It made me tired just reading about you being tired. Kind of reminded me of the long runs on the road with the big rig when i barely got much sleep. Must of been really tough driving through the fatigue. You are truly an amazing rider.

[Alex]

It's funny; at times I felt more like a long-haul trucker than a motorcyclist. The long highway drones are monotonous no matter what the vehicle, but I do think I find it easier to stay engaged on a bike compared to a car or truck.