Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

The IBR folk sometimes put a bonus with a large point they do this so that the new riders can learn quickly what is needed to successfully score a bonus, and so that they would be able to shoot video of the riders for a movie called Hard Miles Two.  I really think that they do it for their own amusement; they can watch the pandemonium of 101 riders trying grab the same bonus at the same time.
The first bonus in 2007 was the scene of much hullabaloo at the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis, which was less than a half hour from the start.  That bonus required parking in a parking deck, and hiking two hundred yards in 98 degree heat and 100% humidity to take a photo in the visitors’ museum under the Gateway Arch.  It also required passing through a metal detector.  I and other riders were told at the entrance to the museum (in the leg of the Arch) that we could not enter with our pocket knives, so we had to return to the parking lot to stow them away and then hike back to the Arch.  Meanwhile, almost all of the riders waited in a long line at the Arch's entrance closest to the parking lot.  Several of us figured out that the entrance at the other leg of the Arch didn't have a line and were able to get in and out in just a few minutes.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 72

[Biggles]

There was humor in the BMW bonus.  The rally theme in this year is the scene-of-the-crime and quite a few BMW riders in the past decade have been stopped hard in their tracks when the final drive that connects the transmission to the rear wheel on their motorcycle failed with no warning.  This failure seems to happen more often to long-distance riders than to folks who ride a few thousand miles a year.
Typically, a mere moment before a failure occurs the rider feels as if there is some looseness in the rear wheel and then they are sidelined by the failure of the main drive bearing as it disintegrates.  A number of riders have had this happen two, three, or even four times, and some riders think that it is a crime that BMW doesn't make a reliable motorcycle any longer.  As a matter of fact, three of the top riders who have a very real chance to win this event have taken precautions against final-drive failures on their BMWs.  Two of them are carrying a spare, thirty-five pound, $1,200 final-drive unit in their kit.  This is the equivalent of a car driver carrying a spare rear axle and differential in the back seat just-in-case.  The other rider has changed motorcycle brands from BMW to Honda.   My R60 has an older design for its final drive and failures are nearly unheard of. 
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 73

[Biggles]

In order to certify the Four Corners Tour the rider has to visit four remote corners of the U.S.  They are San Ysidro, California; Blaine, Washington; Madawaska, Maine; and Key West, Florida, and finish within three weeks.  They can do it in any order and they document the visit with a post card and photograph.   For most motorcyclists this is done in a circle around the country and is a monumental, once-in-a-lifetime achievement.  McQueeney rode from his home in California to San Ysidro and then returned home.  He changed motorcycles and rolled on to Blaine and then home again.  On a third motorcycle he went to Madawaska and home yet again.  On a fourth motorcycle he rode to Key West and then home.  He did all of this within the time limit by staying in the saddle hour- after-hour and completing sixteen 1,000 mile days in a row. I stand in awe of riders like Dave.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 103-4

[Neale]

That is excellent. And when youtubecomes up, what is also sitting there? Arlo Guthrie singing the Motorcycle song.  Takes me back to my teens in the seventies.

Neale


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[Biggles]

The ability to puzzle out the rally packet and successfully ride your plan leads to the highest point score and that is what determines the standings.  Riding a 1976 motorcycle with a top speed approaching some of the speed limits on western roads has given me an insight into making miles.   It is the ability to stay in the saddle and ride that makes miles add up.  Fast gas stops, bathroom stops, and food stops equate to more time riding.  Eric Jewell, who was riding his fourth IBR, once told me that going through the drive-thru at a burger restaurant makes for the fastest meal breaks.  I tried his tip during this rally and it worked well.  I would pull up to the serving window and get a couple of hamburgers, unwrap them, and place them in the dog-dish that rests on top of my fairing.  It was sometimes messy but always quick.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 111

[Biggles]

Every minute of every day the IBR rider is focused on time, distance, and speed.  Every bonus, every checkpoint, every rest stop is based on this focus.  I was constantly running the numbers in my mind.  Could I stay with my plan?  Would I have to drop a bonus?  Could I add a bonus?  This is not just a process of worry or uncertainty.  This is “the” process of succeeding in the IBR- constantly tweaking the plan, or not.  I just simply can't describe how this constant re- figuring can wreak havoc with one's normal way of doing every action, fuel stop, rest break, bonus confirmation, and meal revolved around the rally.  I did this constantly while awake and bet that I did it in my dreams.  It becomes second-nature to be counting down the time left for a meal break as I ate, to curse a slow gas pump, or feel great that a road could be traveled more quickly than I'd thought.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 122-3

[Biggles]

As I rode I remembered one of the reasons for my DNF in 2007 was dehydration and I was making sure that I was sucking down water.  I carried a gallon water jug which I filled at each stop.  I made it a point to drink a few long pulls on the bite-valve every ten minutes whether I felt like drinking or not. 
At the next stop I followed the advice I'd been given by quite a few long-distance riders and sealed up my riding suit.  Yes, it's counter-intuitive to close all the openings on clothing in the desert heat, but it worked very well.  I zipped up the jacket and closed all of the vents in the jacket and pants except for a small one on my back.  I even closed the sleeve vents and my helmet visor and this made the ride considerably more bearable. Not pleasant by any means, but tolerable.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 133-4

[Biggles]

I can fall asleep on a picnic table or on the sidewalk.  However, I do sleep lightly and every time that I would hear a noise I would wake up.  I guess that is a good survival trait but it's lousy when it comes to getting several hours of needed sleep.  I made up my mind that for the 2009 IBR I would spend the money to stay at motels every day for sleeping.  While this led to better, uninterrupted sleep, it did chew a bit into the rally clock.  It also chapped me to spend $85.00 for a four hour stay.  Motels and hotels make a lot of noise about their amenities.  Cable TV, Wi-Fi, great bedding, sterilized TV remote controls, and continental breakfasts to name but a few.  Usually all I wanted was to stumble into a quiet room and sleep for four hours.  Once I didn't even get out of my riding suit before falling asleep.  Every second in the room not spent sleeping was a second that I would regret the next day.  I had a bag on the bike that I would carry into the room.  It had the chargers for my cell phone and laptop, alarm clock, sticky notes, and a pen.   I would write myself a note on my location and wake-up time, plug in the chargers, and be asleep within five minutes.  This night, I grabbed a full, five hours of sleep.  It may not sound like much, but I was thankful for every minute of it.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 170-1

[Biggles]

My goal here was to get my photo and leave before one of the unhappy denizens next door realized that there was a lone biker out front.  Conversely, I was laughing quietly to myself because I was trying to be incognito while standing in the middle of a deserted street taking flash photos of a post office building in order to get one that I thought would satisfy the IBR scoring staff.  I finally got a photo exposure that showed the information I needed and rode back out of town.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 178-9

[Biggles]

This was a cool stop for me. It combined hard-to-find gravel roads and strange roads, mystery, fear, and one heck of a challenge to get to and from. This one bonus emotionally paid for the entire rally.  I was standing at an interesting place that I would never have visited if it were not for the Iron Butt Rally.  There was a strange-but-true story attached to the bonus that was both frightening and bizarre.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 184

[STeveo]

Well, what's the strange but true story?   

 

[Biggles]

You've got to buy the book, but I might take pity on you...   

[STeveo]

That's cruel, you get me interested and to an interesting part then shut the book!   


 

[Biggles]

OK- just for STeveo!

I had read about the biological attack when it was in the news, and even though the cult was long gone, it was an interesting feeling knowing that I was standing where the plan was hatched.  I asked the other rider to take a picture of me holding my rally flag, and then entered the bonus information in the rally packet.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 184-5

To put it in context, the Bonus Point Location was the site of a cult in Oregon in 1981.  The members introduced salmonella into local restaurant dishes poisoning over 750 people.  They were trying to reduce voter turn-out in a local election.   

[STeveo]

Thank you Biggles. Makes me think of how easily it could be done in this country and how vunerable we all are. 

 

[Biggles]

However, this was a good gravel road and I eventually got up to a whopping forty-five miles an hour.  This is painfully slow by most standards of riding but light-speed fast for me, until I had to make a sharp left curve and the bike wanted to go straight.  The handlebars started to slam back- and-forth from one steering lock to the other in what is referred to as a tank-slapper and I was headed for the two foot deep ditch on the right side of the road.  At the last possible, second I remembered some advice I’d been offered about riding in gravel.   I’d been told to stay off of the brakes and give the bike full throttle in order to power through the bad stuff.  I desperately opened the throttle wide and as the R60's fifty horsepower came on-line the front wheel snapped to the straight forward position and I just motored to the left and around that curve.   I was now absolutely wide-awake and full of adrenalin.  By the way, that curve had a bright yellow motorcycle fender resting at the bottom of the ditch.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 186

[Biggles]

The first things Roger looked over were my receipts and he compared them to what I'd entered on my gas-log.  On the third receipt he said that I had entered an eight on my log, whereas I should have entered a zero.  I broke out in a cold sweat as I assured him that the number he was looking at on the computer generated receipt was an eight and not a zero with a bar through the center.  To my absolute freaking horror Roger then  pulled  out a magnifying glass.   Not a little pocket magnifying glass, but a large round glass with a large black handle.  The IBR folk take scoring seriously.  The rules for scoring have been explained again and again to the riders.  No matter what happens, the rider must not get upset or be disrespectful to the scoring staff.  The staff volunteers their time and they are tasked with scoring black and white basis.   The bonus meets all requirements exactly or it is denied. Being rude to a scorer is grounds for disqualification from the rally.  I began to seriously wonder if it would be considered disrespectful if I became violently ill.
Roger held the receipt up to the light as he looked at it with the magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes studying a fragment of bone and said "No, look at this eight here and this zero over here and you can see that there is a slight angle to the zero cross bar but no angle at alI on the crossbar on the eight.”  I looked through the magnifying glass and he was right.  By a few ten-thousandths of an inch there was a difference.  It was definitely a zero when studied on the subatomic level and one hundred and twenty-five points disappeared in a mist of cheap dot-matrix ink.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 197

[Biggles]

When he got to 60th place and read my name he added that I had finished with over 523,000 miles on the R60 and there was a standing ovation that lasted until I got back to my seat.
This reaction to my finish from this group of hard-riders stunned me.  I shook Bob's hand and Mike Kneebone's hand as I received my plaque and license plate-back which states "Iron Butt Rally 11 Days 11,000 miles".
I had officially covered 10,554 miles in the eleven days and had done it on a motorcycle that was a third of a century old and a half-million miles worn.  My final score was 81,106 points.  I was also realizing that this rally had been fun.  Other than the glitches with the side-stand and saddlebag I had a good time.  Sure, I was relentlessly weary at times, but in 2007 there were several times each day that I wondered why I was doing what I was doing, and that sense of despair never happened during this rally.  Not once!
Instead of cursing the rain or the traffic or the clock or the heat or the distance, I had looked at these things as challenges and I was digging the ride.  It was fun.  I certainly wasn't as good at figuring out the bonus puzzle as the fifty-nine riders who finished ahead of me, but I did remarkably better than I had in 2007.  I was a happy camper!
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 201

[Biggles]

At 5:30 a.m. we left the hotel parking lot and stopped at a gas station a few block away.  The station was closed but the pumps were powered up and we filled up at different islands.  After I put the nozzle back on the pump I realized that the printer on the pump was out of paper and I wasn't going to get a receipt.  I started fussing loudly about the damned receipt and having to take a picture and document the station.  I was irate and cussing like a sailor as in a split second I had tripped from happy-go-lucky to pissed-off.
Then, from the other gas island I heard Bill yell "The rally is over."  "It's over."  "You - don't - need - a - receipt."
He was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out.  He was right of course.   But, after years of training, setting a regular routine for fuelling, and just ending the IBR where a receipt can make or break you, it is truly hard to return to the everyday.   I grinned at Bill, climbed on the R60, and we headed east.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 203-4

[Biggles]

Getting over the rally took time.  Just like the angst I felt when I didn't get a receipt for gas in Spokane, I had tuned myself for the rally and the training took quite a while to wear off.   It was over a month before I stopped waking up in the middle of the night in a panic thinking that I had overslept and needed to get to a bonus.  Several times I was out of bed and half-dressed before I realized that Susie was telling me that "The rally is over and you are home."   Sometimes she had to say it a few times because I was busy dressing, trying to remember where I was back down to go to sleep again while still convincing myself that I really was at home and not having a dream during the rally.
I was worried about everyday things like how long it took me to eat lunch since I was used to a three-minute-meal.  Sitting in a restaurant to eat was a long luxury that made me flat-out nervous.  It was December before life returned to normal.
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 207

[Biggles]

A comparison that comes up when explaining the IBR is that more people have climbed to the top of Mount Everest in a single year than have finished the Iron Butt Rally in its entire history.  Four hundred and twenty-three climbers made it to the summit of Mount Everest in 2009.  Four hundred and three riders have finished the IBR since its inception in 1984.
The first day I was at work after the Rally I was talking about the ride to several folks and one asked me how I had done. I told him that I had finished.  He asked where I had finished in the standings  and I said 59th to which he exclaimed, "You spent all of that money and time just to finish 59th?"
I was going to explain that a person climbing Everest didn’t care whether they were the first person at the summit that season or the last as they were standing on the top of the world.  I was going to emphasize the grand adventure I had been on.  I was going to speak to the challenge of covering eleven thousand miles in eleven days.  Instead, I just looked at him, grinned, and said "Yes."  Bill Thweatt was correct when he said "Some people just don't get it!"
Hopeless Class  Joel Rappoport p 208

[Biggles]

I remember only too well my first two trips to Alaska in 1977 and 1981:
I took both trips with the same 1977 Suzuki - a reliable road machine, but it didn't handle well on any kind gravel or other loose surface, especially the way I had it loaded.  But on each of those trips I managed to ride on more than 200 miles of dirt and loose gravel, and sometimes through quagmires of mud for more than 20 miles at a time. There were other times during the trip that I rode through many miles of snow, and I still managed to do a fair amount of exploring.  I certainly had my hands full on both of those trips, and I'm not anxious to take on that kind of challenge again very soon, especially at my age.
Keep Going!  Piet Boonstra p 16

[Biggles]

It also brought back memories of my fifth trip to Alaska in 1992, which was the 50th anniversary year of the Alaska Highway.  In spite of its being paved for its entire length, I rode my 1986 Honda Gold Wing on more than 2,000 miles of gravel roads to get to Anchorage and back while purposely avoiding as much of the main highway as I could, due to the heavy RV traffic that was expected to be using it that year - and also to satisfy a passion for exploring some of the most remote areas.  I carried extra gas in Prestone bottles on the back seat of the Gold Wing through the longest gaps in gas availability.  I met my objective of avoiding the heavy RV traffic though, in that I saw practically no vehicles at all for days, and I was in my glory, riding all by myself in the far reaches of the Canadian wilderness, where I saw bear, bison, caribou, fox, lynx, and many other animals in their natural habitat.
Keep Going!  Piet Boonstra p 18-19

[Biggles]

I was finally ready to leave on a four-week, 11,000 mile trip to Alaska with a dirt bike, a patched-up pair of rain boots, no saddlebags and a windshield that wouldn't keep the weather off of me.  But I had a lot of confidence in the bike, and I was anxious to get underway on what I figured would be a great ride.
Needless to say, without the saddlebags I brought a lot less gear than usual and I packed exceptionally light; and I was well aware before leaving that it would be a rough trip for my 79-year-old body.  But I called Jim and told him I was ready to go.
Keep Going!  Piet Boonstra p 23

[Biggles]

I had stopped in the middle of the scarcely-travelled gravel road for a nature break.  We hadn't seen another vehicle or sign of civilization for at least an hour, and we left Flin Flon before any breakfast places were open.  Bud naturally asked, "Where are we stopping for breakfast?"
I said, "I was thinking of right here," as I reached in the trunk of the Gold Wing for a tin of sardines that I was carrying.  Bud, who always looked forward to and treasured his sunny-side-up eggs with several strips of crisp lean bacon and a nice hot cup of coffee in the morning, said with an attitude, "You've got to be kidding!" refused to partake of the sardines and dug somewhat be grudgingly into his own bag for some beef jerky while Jake and I shared a can of the fish, and the three of us stood there having breakfast in the middle of the road in a light drizzle with the temperature in the mid 40s [F].  It's certainly not the classiest of breakfast places, but I think it worked out well enough under the circumstances.
Keep Going!  Piet Boonstra p 29-30