The Second Leg
The Leg 2 book was distributed at 06:00 on Friday the 5th of July.
We had until 20:00 hrs PST on Sunday July 7th to present ourselves at a Marriott hotel in Rancho Cordova, California. If you left the hotel the second you got the book and took the direct route you’d have 65 hrs to do 2,465 miles. This would require an overall rate of advance of 38 mph, which is quite sedate.
Most riders will have an anticipated mileage for each leg of the rally. The variable is the overall rate of advance or VMG (velocity made good). In my case I use 47 to 48 mph, so my potential mileage cap is right around 3100 miles. With the straight line route taking almost 80% of my potential mileage it became clear that something like a repeat of Key West would be a sucker play. Leg 2 was shaping up to be what I’d call a Squadron Run, with everyone staying mostly to the same route with timing and options making the difference. I also felt that given the nature of the leg the rally would follow tradition and there would be plenty of opportunities to gain spots on the final leg, if one was ready to go when they got the final book.
One thing I was not ready to do when I got the second leg book was go. For the first time in the rally I needed an alarm to wake up and I was a bit groggy. I tried to sleep as late as possible so the bike was not packed. Other than change the tire I didn’t do any of the housekeeping items I had planned, however none were super critical. I digitized the book and went upstairs to plan my leg.
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| Leg 2 Bonuses |
One great thing about color coding the waypoints is it can help identify strings or clusters. In this case the green flags are the Pony Express bonuses and the four red flags in Colorado represent Pike’s Peak and a few others. While the front runners were ready to go I was thinking a mid-day nap under a tree would be fantastic. I figured the Pony Express combo wasn’t for me so I headed west planning on the easy stuff with an arrival to Colorado early the next day.
Did I mention I blew the checkpoint? I did all sort of little stuff wrong and didn’t get my electronic files set up properly. I got my first few bonuses, then found myself at the Air Force museum spending almost 30 minutes for 100 points. This was no way to rally so I took another 15 minutes, got my plan back on track and continued west.
The Race is On
Now the race is on and here comes pride up the back stretch
Heartaches are going to the inside
My tears are holding back, trying not to fall
My heart’s out of the running
True love’s scratched for another’s sake
The race is on and it looks like heartaches
And the winner loses all
-lyrics by Don Rollins
Much has been written about the Iron Butt rally as being a race. I have said it’s not a race until you’re not on the bike. Since my first rally it seems people have really taken this a bit too seriously. I noticed that there were some people who were ready to sprint to their motorcycle seconds after receiving the book. Jim Owen made a quick departure the thing to do on his way to winning the IBR and the trend of using mostly time or daylight restricted bonuses makes the idea of getting going quickly appealing, so long as one knows where to go. Then there’s the business of collecting bonus points.
Most bonuses will require a photograph of a specific object. Sometimes this may be of a train at a specific stop, or a natural event such as a photo of Old Faithful. For almost every photo your rally flag must also be in the photo and to further complicate the issue some photos require you to include your motorcycle in the picture, or if not possible to take a second photo with your bike. On top of all this you may also be asked to return with a receipt or specific item too.
Like many riders I have a routine to make this process as efficient as possible. Ideally I can park the bike just so, hang the flag on the bike and get a quick photo. Log it in, close up the case and I am off to the next bonus. Where things get a little trickier is when we’re instructed to do something like ride a tram with specific open and closing hours. One of the core rules of the rally if the book says something opens at 9 and you get there at 8:45 and it’s open that you wait until 9 to take the picture. It’s also pretty clear that if the instructions state to ride a train, you must ride the train its entire length, not jump off as soon as you get your picture. Apparently both events happened on Leg 2.
This gave me a chuckle and pissed me off. If I planned a 600 to 750 mile day and I’ll need to shave a minute or two by jumping off a train my chances of success are dim. The IBR is about doing your best; at the end of the day your biggest competitor is yourself. I’ve learned from experience getting all amped up because you’re around other riders and now it’s a “race” is a great way to loose not only points but important items (like a gas cap). It pissed me off because we spend a huge amount of time explaining how we’re not racing on public roads, which is true. We set our routes based on what we feel we can accomplish and then try to execute it. People who have been too ambitious spend more time talking to Law Enforcement than getting points. People who jump off tourist trains reinforce the misconception that we race around at crazy speed for 11 days. For the record I did this years rally with no radar detector and I received no tickets. Lovely!
If you’re inclined to enjoy yourself one of the real treats of riding the Iron Butt Rally is the rally book proper. Not only does it contain the instructions but it will include a little bit of information on the location we’re to visit. The rally will have a theme, this year it was Trains, Planes and Automobiles.
Having the ability to search and read the rallybook on the tablet was a huge benefit, if not for my performance then my enjoyment of the rally. While many were scribbling “chevy dealership, photo mural inside” or such on an index card I was able to read the actual book, over and over. Here’s the listing for the “Chevy dealership”
HCD 204 points
Hare Chevrolet
2001 Stoney Creek Road
Noblesville IN
40.03023 -85.9982
Mon – Thur. 9:00 am – 8:00 pm,
Fri – Sat 9:00 am – 6:00 pm
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.
Take a photo of a portion of the 90-foot long mural inside the dealership depicting the
company’s journey.
Here I am riding my motorcycle all over North America and I’m going to stop in at the “Nation’s Oldest Transportation Company.” How cool is that? As I arrive it’s just like I imagined; a big Chevy store in the heartland. I walk in and ask the receptionist if they mind if I take a few photos. As I unwind a small crowd gathers and the ladies excitedly tell me “You’re in FOURTH PLACE!”
I said it isn’t a race to which they replied that from the way the first three acted it sure seemed like one. I really felt like a tortoise at that point, with the hares racing ahead while I chatted with the son of the current owner. I asked if along the way any of the sons had six daughters before a son. This got a chuckle and the explanation that & Sons part of the company had been dropped a few generations ago but it was still family owned.
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| Hare Chevrolet |
From Hare I headed west, taking an interesting route that avoided Indianapolis and St. Louis putting me a few hours east of Colorado Springs for some quality rest.
My sleep plan for the rally was simple. Get plenty of it. Don’t make stupid routing mistakes, forget my flag or break the bike. The clock doesn’t stop for any of these issues so when they happen the first thing to go is time to sleep. More sleep = more fun.
Another concept I embraced is while you cannot bank sleep you can conserve energy so I worked on being efficient and not getting worked up over the issue of the moment. I burned a lot of unnecessary energy at the checkpoint and I didn’t want to repeat it.
Like the choice of the bike itself sleep and rest are topics that few two riders approach the same way. For some a series of short power naps broken up by the rest bonuses and time at the checkpoints is plenty, with sleep found on benches, tables and for some, even on the parked motorcycle. Having done it the hard way I decided that I was going to use hotels more often than not, get at least 5hrs in a bed and allocate the time for one mid-day power nap if necessary.
To accomplish this every evening at around sunset I’d figure out where I was going to be in a few hours. I’d select a budget priced hotel and give them a call. Once we’d get over the less than perfect connection you can expect from making a call on a bike I’d get a reservation for a ground floor room as close to the desk as possible with a promise to hold it until I arrived. I’d explain I was on a bike and couldn’t get to a credit card so they’d hold it on a verbal agreement. This worked great, I was usually off the bike and in a room quite quickly. When combined with the long days I was able to reduce my time riding in absolute darkness to a minimum which worked out to under three hours per day.
I made it to Pike’s Peak a little later than I would have liked. It was Saturday morning and everyone and their brother wanted to ride to the top. There was quite a line to the toll. Too much heat, too much incline and too much traffic meant that caring for the bike was the major concern. There was a Vespa club that was running to the top, however down here there were Vespas along the side of the road at every turn. Apparently every Vespa with a rider greater than 200lbs was having clutch issues. Go figure. While in line I got passed by a two up couple, they bullied their way to the front and I decided to drop in behind. The set a great example of how to be “from out of town.” From the que to go up the hill to getting a beer at the finish party they come from a land where they have even less tolerance for waiting than a Gingerbomb from New England. Cutting the beer line? Really?
It’s all in good fun, while their passing was limited to the parking lot I enjoyed a good ride up the hill getting to the summit while the train was unloading. 14,000 feet of elevation on day 6 was getting to me a bit so I got my second photo, closed up and headed down. I received quite a nice hello wave from a ranger along the way,then saw my new friends clutching along behind a pickup truck at about 10mph. Satisfaction indeed.
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| The train at the summit of Pike’s Peak |
I snagged the other red flags in the Denver area and went north to capture a photo of a really big locomotive. I decided I was going to maximize the rest bonus so I splurged for a room at a Hampton Inn for 7 hours of high thread count bliss.
I awoke feeling pretty darn good for the morning of day 7 of the Iron Butt Rally. It’s a reasonably direct shot to the checkpoint and I have all day to do it. Before going to sleep I decided I might add in the Golden Spike Bonus, this is the location where the transcontinental railroad was joined. It is a small National Forest Service monument with a few buildings located in the middle of nowhere, Utah. It opened at 9 and I arrived around 8:20, giving me plenty of time for a nap. Todd and Dianne LeClair rolled in a short time later so we had a nice visit before taking our photos. It was great to see them as they were doing very well and made me feel like perhaps I wasn’t being a complete dope with my routing.
As I approached the check point there were still a few bonuses to get, one being the monument on Donner Pass. I started seeing more riders and got caught up in the race mentality enough that I made a critical mistake.
One of the modifications I made to my bike was to remove the stock BMW (keyed) gas cap and replace it with a threaded cap. Both my wife and my dealer said I better tether it or carry a spare or I’d loose it. Sure enough in Tahoe I forgot to screw it in and while I heard it fall 30 minutes of searching didn’t fine it. Doh! What a dope. I was focused on getting to the CP early to avoid a repeat of Leg 1, but now I had to figure out a gas cap. Fortunately for me A&S BMW was a bonus and I was able to talk than into giving me an assembly *and* key from a new bike they had on the floor. Thanks A&S!
I also took the time between Tahoe and A&S to remind myself that it isn’t a race and I am not competing against my friends. We ride our best rides and get scored against each other’s rides. There is nothing you can do to change this, trying to shave 60 seconds or beat another rider to a bonus has no benefit, especially when it can lead to careless errors.