Iron Butt Rally - 2017

[Alex]

The 2017 IBR kicks off on Monday. I'm a little disappointed, as I had an entry for this one as well, but still working through some back issues, and never would have been able to power through. But - there are quite a few friends in the event, including some with accounts here. The start/finish is in Minneapolis; 2 of the checkpoints are somewhere in TX. The ride shirt pic is shown below, which might or might not give hints to the rally theme (which won't be formally announced until Sunday night, if tradition holds).

Daily reports will show up here, Day -3 and Day -2 are already posted right now. The Spotwalla page that shows the live location of all riders at once is up here.

Good luck to all in the event, especially those representing the small bikes!

19424402_10155368509367567_1512931860570798086_n.jpg

link to my 2015 thread / ride report
link to my 2013 thread / ride report

[Alex]

Link to original page on YouTube.

[Triple Jim]

A friend of mine is a semi-famous Iron Butt rider. That's as close to that event as I need to get.

[greg737]

The guy on the Water Buffalo (Suzuki GT750)... What the hell?

I love that you can hear it idling (behind the guy releasing the bikes) from about 2:15 in the video until it gets released at 3:11, lots of blue smoke!

Kurt Worden goes out at 4:37 in the video. Is that the same EX250 he rode in this event 2 years ago?

He finished pretty high up the standings in 2015, but here he is back again. I guess he's got ambition to put the EX250 even higher up in the Iron Butt records (I think the EX250's best ever finish in the Iron Butt was Leon's 15th place overall many years ago).

[Triple Jim]

I'm not sure, but the guy on the GT750 could be the friend I was talking about, Iron Butt Allen. I couldn't tell from the video, with all the gear packed on the bike, and his suit.

Allen and his wife made Motorcycle Classics a few years ago. You can read the article about halfway down this page:

http://www.suzuki2strokes.com/forum/...t=2810&start=0

[greg737]

Originally Posted by Triple Jim

I'm not sure, but the guy on the GT750 could be the friend I was talking about, Iron Butt Allen. I couldn't tell from the video, with all the gear packed on the bike, and his suit.

The IronButt diary entry from Saturday/Sunday says the guy on the GT750 is named Jerry Anderson.

[Triple Jim]

OK, then there are still multiple GT750 fans.

[VaFish]

Originally Posted by Alex

Link to original page on YouTube.

A lot of Goldwings and BMW's in that crowd.

[Alex]

Updated link in case primary is wonky: http://ibr.wvi.com/

Where they were at the end of Day 1:

[Alex]

Originally Posted by VaFish

A lot of Goldwings and BMW's in that crowd.

Yep - Full list of riders/bikes is posted in this day's write-up.

[greg737]

At the end of the first 3 days of riding Kurt Worden is doing well on his '03 Kawasaki EX250. He's sitting in 16th place overall.

Here's a link to the standings at the end of day 3, published this morning (Thursday 29th)
http://ibr.wvi.com/ibr/_2017/2017IBR...ne29-Day04.pdf

I know that 3 days out of 11 total days leaves quite a bit of the rally to go, but this is certainly a good start for Kurt.

Another rider competing in the "Hopeless Class" along with Kurt Worden is a 1977 Honda GL1000 Goldwing ridden by Dylan Spink which is in 21st place.

[ThrottleGirl]

I've done the Iron Butt SaddleSore, which is only 1,000 miles in 24 hours. I have a friend who has done ten SaddleSore rides back-to-back, which I thought was incredible (she is riding in this rally now), but I was completely floored by another friend who did ten 1,500 days in a row to set the current record (Dan Simmonds). This kind of riding absolutely and completely humbles me. I understand there is a 40 hp minimum requirement to ensure the motorcycle can handle the passes and demands of the route for this rally...which leaves my little Ninja 250 out of consideration.

[Alex]

There are a number of 250's who have run the IBR, in fact there is one in it right now as listed in the post above (Kurt Worden). The 40 hp is a guideline, but the rules have a more specific intent to make sure that the bike can handle reasonable highway speeds in all conditions. The 250 makes the cut.

It sounds like there have been quite a few instances of gravity attacks in Leg 2. All seem relatively OK, though some rallies are prematurely over.

Latest update

Main IBR17 page

[ThrottleGirl]

Incredible. Truly.

[NevadaWolf]

Ah! Was hoping all was well given your prestigious mention in th daily report.


The folks on the FB page going "is that an EX250?!?" are making my day. Hehehe

[SmithSwede]

Kurt Worden on a 2003 Ninja two-fiddy is now in 10th place, heading out of Texas.

[ThrottleGirl]

This makes me giddy happy - what a cool accomplishment for both him and the bike. 250's are so underrated.

[greg737]

Wow, Kurt's doing well, I think this is the highest he's ever been in the rankings. It looks like he might have a chance at beating Leon's best-ever Iron Butt EX250 finish (which was 15th place overall)

[greg737]

Noticed that in yesterday's Ironbutt write-up Kurt Worden was mentioned as still being in the top 10.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by greg737

Noticed that in yesterday's Ironbutt write-up Kurt Worden was mentioned as still being in the top 10.

The scores don't change during the legs; no scoring happens until the checkpoint. That's where all of the paperwork is collected, bonuses are confirmed, and the ranking occurs. He was in 10th place (fantastic!) at the end of Leg 2. The next time we hear of any rankings/scores, it will be at the end of the rally. Go Kurt!

[greg737]

Originally Posted by Alex

The scores don't change during the legs; no scoring happens until the checkpoint. That's where all of the paperwork is collected, bonuses are confirmed, and the ranking occurs. He was in 10th place (fantastic!) at the end of Leg 2. The next time we hear of any rankings/scores, it will be at the end of the rally. Go Kurt!

My comment was meant to point toward the thought process of the writer of the rally blog who is intimately involved in the ongoing process of the event and who would therefore have insight to Kurt's performance since the last check point, taking the mention of Kurt being still in the top 10 (a couple of days after the last check poin)t as a good sign that Kurt was still hanging in there, and, in the opinion of the people running the event, still in the top 10.

[Apex]

If I ever get another bike, I totally want to do this.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by greg737

My comment was meant to point toward the thought process of the writer of the rally blog who is intimately involved in the ongoing process of the event and who would therefore have insight to Kurt's performance since the last check point, taking the mention of Kurt being still in the top 10 (a couple of days after the last check poin)t as a good sign that Kurt was still hanging in there, and, in the opinion of the people running the event, still in the top 10.

I understood your comment, but I wouldn't read as much into that daily report. There will be some understanding of how things are going by looking at the trackers, but the routing and bonus choosing is complicated enough that it would be quite hard for someone to accurately score people on a hunch in the interim, especially with how close it was at the end of the second leg. Traditionally, the points available in the 3rd leg will double the scores of what people had in the prior two combined, so it's still all to play for. The rumblings now are about a handful of riders on that ferry coming back from Newfoundland, rumored to be at least 3 of the current top 5 (Leg 2). I imagine there must have been quite a bit of points available out there, for them to undertake at least 2 multiple hour ferry rides.



Leg 3 animation in progress

[Alex]

Hmmm.....

Some SPOT trackers look further out than I would have expected at this point. The one in Montreal is 20 hrs away (says google), with less than 20 hrs left in the rally, right?

[Alex]

The full rally book has just been posted up at: http://ibr.wvi.com/

[Alex]

Kurt in at the finish:

[greg737]

Any questions about the durability or quality of the EX250 engine should be referred to Kurt Worden.

[SmithSwede]

Well, it's official. Kurt Worden clinched 21st place riding his near stock Ninja 250. His bike had more than 100,000 miles on it.

Very well done!

[CaliGrrl]

Nice!

[Alex]

Final results up here: http://ibr.wvi.com/ibr/_2017/finalstandings.pdf

Great job by Kurt! What a ride by Jim Owen! Even after dropping 6700 points at the scoring table, he still captures a clear win. He's a machine - it's terribly impressive how good he is at these puzzles.

[Alex]

Full animation of rally: Original link

Link to original page on YouTube.

[ThrottleGirl]

Forgive my lack of background here, but am I correct in understanding that Kurt Wordon came in at 21st place out of 87 finishing riders, on a bone stock Ninja 250? A friend just dropped me that note and I am tickled to hear of a little stock Ninja rider doing so well without all of the gear and technology that so many IBR riders are used to counting on.

[Alex]

Yep! But "stock" is relative. His is a bit closer to stock then some of the other bikes, for sure. What I'm most impressed with is stock seat, and no aux fuel setup. But of course he still uses GPS, he has a hydration system that he wears on his body rather than the bike, and he has enough luggage space on the bike to carry what he needs. He also meticulously maintains the bike to make sure it's not likely to fail unexpectedly.

His bike is limited in some ways compared to some of the others, but the perception that the 250 is incapable of these speeds/distances is, as we all on this site know, is a misperception. I think some in the "hopeless" class are even more unexpected (that 2-stroke 70's Suzuki triple, that single-cylinder scooter, etc.)

[greg737]

Question for you Alex,

I know you've participated in the Ironbutt (2015) and I have no experience in the long-distance riding game, just an interested spectator.

I really enjoyed keeping track of the '15 Ironbutt by way of the blog postings and pictures/videos. I was expecting to enjoy the '17 Ironbutt the same way, but that just didn't happen. The guy writing the blog was absolutely obsessed with things like participants speeding, possible enforcement actions for speeding, possible disqualification for speeding and the negative opinions of long distance riding that were apparently posted by non-participants on other forums.

This really brought the feel of the event down for me. It seemed like the "scribe" was way too concerned about outside opinion.

My question to you, Alex, is did you notice this or feel it too?

[Alex]

I've been lucky enough to enter and finish it twice, so this was a little different for me, as the first one since 2011 that I was a reader rather than a participant. But no, I didn't feel that way. John's writing was a little more matter-of-fact than some of the prior scribes, but I felt he did a reasonable job of keeping up with what was going on with the rally each day, and sharing what the participants were going through. There has a been a concern about speed in the last several, with riders penalized in 2013, and threatened with penalties in 2015 as well. There is a fear (of the organizers, participants, community at large), that if speeding is glorified, it will only take one bad public incident to take down the event and the organization entirely.

People rank that fear differently, some thinking it's silly, and others very concerned, but it's near the top of the reasons why much of the publicity is feared. The SPOT trackers make it pretty easy for the organizers to identify riders who are choosing to bomb around at supra-legal speeds, and the outliers have been called on it accordingly. Reading the daily reports, I didn't feel he was overemphasizing this, or blowing it out of proportion. There was one Sidebar near the end of the rally that focused on this specifically (http://ibr.wvi.com/ibr/_2017/2017IBR...5-Sidebar6.pdf), but that was the essentially the topic of the sidebar.

Throughout the event I was getting information from a variety of sources, forums, Facebook, email lists, etc. that certainly augmented what was put just into the reports. I did feel connected with what was going on, as much as one can as a non-participant.

There is often flak aimed at the poor scribe no matter who it is (unless it's Bob Higdon), so that's nothing new. There is a clear distinction in the feedback though, where essentially all of the negativity comes from people who have never participated in the rally. On all of the private groups, private email lists made up of people in the IBR community, the feedback to the scribe and the rally organization as a whole is universally positive. The concerns that people share on those lists often address that amount of sharing, with some leaning toward sharing less and less during the event. Some have stated that this will be the last time they run a public SPOT page based on some of that concern, but I'm hoping that it is kept as is; I find it incredibly interesting.