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2013 Iron Butt Rally Official Thread

5K views 38 replies 4 participants last post by  bill 
#1 · (Edited)
The Rally starts Monday in Pittsburgh, PA

The Rally's checkpoint schedule is as follows:

This year the Start, Checkpoint 1 and Finish are at the same location in
Cranberry Township, just north of Pittsburgh.

START INFORMATION

Monday, July 1, 10am
Pittsburgh Marriott North at Cranberry Woods
100 Cranberry Woods Drive
Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania 16066 USA


CHECKPOINT 1 INFORMATION
July 4, 8pm - 10pm
Penalty points accrue at 8:00:01pm
Scoring opens at 5pm
Leg 2 Bonuses distributed at 6am, July 5

CHECKPOINT 2 INFORMATION

Sunday July 7, 8pm - 10pm
Sacramento area, CA
Scoring opens at 5pm
Leg 2 Bonuses distributed at 6am July 8

Sacramento Marriott Rancho Cordova
11211 Point East Drive
Rancho Cordova, CA 95742

FINISH INFORMATION

Finish Friday, July 12, 10 am
Penalty points accrue at 8:00:01am
Scoring opens at 5am
Pittsburgh Marriott North at Cranberry Woods
100 Cranberry Woods Drive
Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania 16066 USA

For those of you who have followed the Rally in the past, you will be pleased to know that the Rally Scribe of all Rally Scribes has returned, Bob Higdon is the Spiritual, Moral and Ecclesiastical Leader of the Iron Butt Association has returned to write the daily repot. Bob rode around the world and wrote about it here

http://www.ironbutt.org/higdon/96hig02.html

Bob also wrote a fantastic series on attending MMI

Robert Higdon's Making a Mechanic Series

The following series of articles details Iron Butt Journalist Bob "do I hit the screw with a hammer to make it go in"

Higdon's training at American Motorcycle Institute in Daytona Beach, Florida. Before AMI, Bob had never so much as changed the oil in his motorcycle.

http://www.ironbutt.org/higdon/higami0.html



So back to the IBR.

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

I will try and post up the daily report as soon as it comes up on the forum.

THis is the first time in 10 years I won't be at the start finish and all the checkpoints. A few members of this forum have participated in and finished the IBR. I am flying in for the finish, no I am not riding all the way to Pittsburgh and back, I have already ridden A -P over 30 times

The FJR Forum often has the best commentary on the Rally

http://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php/topic/153132-2013-iron-butt-rally-the-inside-view/
 
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#2 ·
The 2013 Iron Butt Rally: Day -1

And so it begins . . .

At the conclusion of the 2005 Iron Butt Rally I retired from writing daily reports of the rally’s progress. I'd been in the business of covering the biennial event since Mike Kneebone and Jan Cutler revived it from the ashes in 1991. After seven rallies (I was a participant myself in 2001) I had reached the point of repeating myself, a wall that no writer ever wants to face. Worse, it was taking me all day merely to crank out 500 words. So I walked away.

In the three Iron Butts since my departure as rally scribe, Tom Austin graciously took over my scribbling chores and did an exemplary job. As he was in 2011, Tom is this year's routemaster, but unlike 2011 he has also assumed the duties of chief scorer. Thus have I been conscripted.

The eyes of the endurance riding community now focus upon Cranberry Township, a town just north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ninety individual riders and six two-up teams will set out Monday morning at 10:00 a.m. EDT on the 16th running of what must surely be the most demanding motorcycle tour ever imagined, essentially a scavenger hunt that has at one time or another covered every navigable highway in North America. More people have escaped the Earth’s orbit than have finished the Iron Butt Rally.

The pre-rally drills are well-organized. The riders receive a package of instructions at the outset. They’ll then run their bikes through a technical inspection, sign waivers in front of video cameras, have photo IDs taken, and submit their camera cards for approval. Almost all of the rally staff have finished at least one IBR.

The 45 rookie pilots sat through an hour-long lecture by Jeff Earls, one of the game’s most successful players. He patiently explained to them that they are about to embark upon a life-altering experience. I hope they were listening. The attrition rate in the rally always approaches 25%, but first-time riders are invariably over-represented in the list of non-finishers. He saved the best advice for last: get a good night’s sleep tonight. Tomorrow, after the riders’ meeting in the late afternoon, the traditional opening night banquet will raise the curtain. The first list of bonuses will be handed out, at which point the cost of sleep will have risen dramatically.

Bob Higdon
 
#3 ·
One of the riders, who should be resting not playing on the internet posted a link with some photos

http://selil.com/archives/3957

Everyone is speculating that the Rally Theme is Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.

The Rally poster is in the photo log.
 
#5 ·
Official photos site from IBR Staff photographer

Go to tobie.smugmug.com for daily photos of the 2013 Iron Butt Rally.

Check out the motorcycle category, then choose the Iron Butt Rally 2013 gallery.
will update daily with new photos.

Also go to Iron Butt magazine for more photos too.
 
#6 ·
Howard's End - Robert Higdon Daily Report - Day-0a

http://ironbuttrally.com/IBR/2013/day-0a.pdf


There will be a "Day-0b" report from Bob Higdon later on this evening after the Rider's receive their Leg One Bonus Listings
 
#7 ·
News from the Rider's Banquet


The packets are out.... very very tough decisions to be made. Thus far, this is shaping up to be a more traditional Iron Butt Rally where it is crucial you don't dick up a single aspect of your bonus decision-making... because your peers aren't going to dick it up.

The Leg One listing appeared to be heavy with Canadian bonuses... extremely heavy.


:thewave :popcorn :thewave
 
#10 ·
The Hounds have been released, so to speak

Starter's notes

All 96 riders were released within 4min, 20 secs.... we've been faster, but only when it was dry out. No spills in the lot despite the rain and cold tires.... one Gold Wing did wobble a bit, but but managed to stay upright.

So how best can you follow the Rally ?

The IBR Daily Reports that will be available here

Here is the spot tracker that the IBR is making public as long as people don't identify who the riders are publicly.

https://spotwalla.com/locationViewer.php?id=168
 
#11 ·
Start video in the rain, as in past years the IBR riders get a police escort to the nearest interstate. In my experience the local Police have always been big supporters and have been glad to help out with traffic management at the start.

A safe egress from the parking lot to the nearest interstate maximizes rider safety and minimizes the Rally Start's effect on traffic. The 10 a.m. start also gets the riders out afterRush Hour.


 
#12 ·
The wobbling Gold Wing rider has a story

We are referring to the near "legend" on the Gold Wing, it is considered very bad form to drop your bike at the start. Now since most bikes have new tires less than 25 miles on the, are loaded, it was raining and there is a certain amount of Adrenaline running through one's veins the only thing you want to do is have a clean exit.

The rider in question was Dennis Powell , and his Wing burned up in his garage a week before the rally.

His new Wing was in a crate a week ago and had 970 miles on it when he left the parking lot. Atl east he didn't have to buy tires for the Rally :)
 
#13 ·
The 2013 Iron Butt Rally: Day 1

On Your Mark

Iron Butt Rally starts are in two stages: 1) At 0800 the rider's I.D. card and starting odometer are recorded by the tech crew; and 2) At 1000 the first rider departs. Since 1999 Dale Wilson’s instructions to the troops at the riders' meeting on the afternoon before the start of the rally have never varied: "Be at your bike at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning with your rider I.D. card and the keys to the bike. We will record your odometer. Remember: your card and your keys."

Four years ago Mark Crane was by his bike, keys in hand, at the appointed time. Wilson asked for Crane’s I.D. card. "Yes," Mark replied, "that would be in my hotel room." For that abridgement of the rules Mark was placed in the penalty box, which meant that he was not permitted to leave the start until five minutes after the last rider had departed.

This year he sailed through Step #1 without a hitch, but when the riders were warming up their bikes at 0955, Mark's machine was still covered and he was nowhere to be seen. Dale Wilson wasn't about to interrupt his starting drill. He turned to seven bikes that sat in a column in the middle of the hotel's parking lot. They would be the first riders out of the gate. To achieve that honor the seven men had agreed a few days ago to have their heads shaved in varying horrific designs by Wilson and his staff. The two . . . er, winners --- each with reverse Mohawks and other spectacularly ugly touches --- were Matt Watkins and Rex LeGalley.

Precisely at 10:00 a.m. Wilson pointed at Watkins and motioned him forward. Ira Agins, one of the IBR staff, took a video of Wilson dancing around the wet lot like a Filipino traffic cop during the next 260 seconds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lh2piuQg9U&feature=youtu.be

A few minutes after the last rider had left the flight deck, Mark Crane sauntered out of the hotel, helmet in hand. Where have you been? "Well, I had a choice," he admitted with a smile. "I could be five minutes late or I could have a divorce." He's used to adversity. Two years ago one of the few requirements for being considered a finisher of the rally was to get a gas receipt from each of the 48 contiguous states. Inexplicably, Crane came within 100 yards of entering Mississippi but somehow managed to miss it altogether. The mistake turned what would have been a third overall finish into a did not finish at all.

As he walked unhurriedly toward his bike this morning, some people began to chant: One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. It's part of the game. When you screw the pooch on the Iron Butt, people tend to remember it for a long, long time.

Get Set

As rallymaster, Lisa Landry's principal job, once the rally is underway, is to field distress calls from anxiety-stricken riders. Three hours into the event today she had already received 18 of them. The first was from Donald Jones. He said that he assumed that Lisa was in possession of his camera and rally flag. "Why would I have them?" she asked. He replied that he had carefully loaded them into a pocket of his jacket with hook-and-loop fasteners in the hotel room last night, that they could not have come out of the pocket during the ride, and that therefore they must be in the hotel room. Lisa checked with housekeeping. Nothing was in the room. Lisa called Jones back and told him to take his coat off, lay it on the ground, and go through each pocket, one at a time. He protested that he'd already done that. Landry, who raised four children and knows something about obdurate behavior, told him to do it again. "Oh," he said a few moments later. "There they are."

The next ten calls were from Alex Schmitt. He had initially called because the ship at the Erie Maritime Museum that he was supposed to photograph was not there. Lisa reminded Alex that the object in question --- a tall ship that participates in Great Lake regattas --- would not be available until July 4th. "And today is not July 4, is it?" she asked. Alex agreed that it was not. The other nine calls from him are apparently due to some sort of Bluetooth malfunction that we hope he will be able to rectify while he waits for the ship to show up.

In mid-afternoon Steve McCaa --- pronounced "McKay" --- called Lisa to advise that one of the exhibits at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan had been placed in storage. "No worries, Steve," Lisa said brightly. "You’re in great shape as long as no one else finds it." The museum was clearly a must-do on the first leg, a bonus worth 1,666 points. More than 80% of the field seems to be heading for it. Once there the riders have to find and photograph 25 different exhibits, including such things as the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and a Douglas DC-3 airplane. The museum is roughly the size of the island of Guam. Screw up one photograph and you are docked 10% of the available points. Miss two of them and you get nothing. Seventeen minutes after his first call, McCaa called back to say that he had found the mislaid object.

I could go on, because with 96 bikes running around today like hydrogen atoms in an empty universe, there really is no appreciable end to the trouble they can unearth. But I need to save a half-dozen things for tomorrow’s report.

Go

Most of the riders are carrying Spot tracking units that reveal their locations to the rally staff. All of the riders yesterday were issued memory sticks that had the map coordinates of all the bonuses in the rally. The staff is thus able to see not only where riders are at any given time, but can guess with pretty fair certainty what bonuses they've picked up and where they will be heading next. In the worrisome case of a rider whose track suddenly stops moving, we are theoretically capable of initiating some sort of response.

During part of the afternoon I began to watch Mark Crane's bread crumb trail creeping through Pennsylvania. True, luck hasn't been too kind to him in recent rallies, but he's now on almost everyone’s list for a Top Ten finish. It seems that Tom Austin’s array of bonus locations does not include a single site in the State of Mississippi, and that can only be good news for the rider who is usually the last one out of the gate.

And the clock ticks on. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi …

Bob Higdon
 
#15 ·
And it doesn't show all 96 riders. Interesting concept, if you give the Rally Staff your spot tracking you don't have to keep a fuel log. It is the riders choice whether or not to make their Spot Tracker public. All riders with spot have to give their spot id to Rally staff in order to get the fuel log exemption.
 
#16 ·
The 2013 Iron Butt Rally: Day 2

In the Middle

How do these riders decide where to go once they leave the hotel parking lot? As you might suspect, the answer is not always immediately apparent. On the first of the rally's three legs there are 69 bonus locations. They range from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in the northwest to Rimouski, Quebec, in the north to Key West in the south. In the entire recorded history of the Iron Butt Rally, traveling to Key West to obtain a bonus has never --- let me repeat that, for it bears repeating: never --- been a good idea.

With unlimited time, of course, each rider would soon be returning to Cranberry Township with 69 bonuses in hand. They are long-distance riders and riding long distances is what they do. But they don't have an infinite amount of time. Even our galaxy doesn't have that. No, on the first leg the riders have but 84 hours. Is it even possible, for example, to ride from Cranberry Township to Sault St. Marie, to Rimouski, to Key West, and back to Cranberry Township in 84 hours? It is. You'd have to average almost 60 mph for 3.5 days, but some of these contestants could do it. Would that be a clever strategy to employ? It would not. It would be an exceptionally poor strategy because, to name just one of many objections, it is thoroughly inefficient: you will have ridden a great many miles for very few bonus points.

So how do they do it? Given mapping software, computer spreadsheets, and a reasonable knowledge of travel conditions --- tools commonly available to the riders nowadays --- most routes will eventually optimize themselves in a fairly predictable pattern. The leg's biggest bonuses will attract the most serious attention. Many bonuses will have constraints, such as being available during daylight hours only. It's a delicate balancing act, and the tipping point is not always obvious.

Some riders are geniuses in the route plotting game. Rick Morrison was one, using a Marlboro cigarette to measure 200-mile distances on a Rand-McNally map. He seemed to be able to absorb the intricacies of a 30-page list of bonus locations the way Bobby Fischer could deconstruct chessboard positions. Jeff Earls, Eric Jewell, and Jim Owen are in that league. I once saw Don Arthur, then the surgeon general of the U.S. Navy, take the bonus listing from the first leg of the 2005 IBR and, using Street Atlas and an Excel spreadsheet, produce in less than 20 minutes a near duplicate of the winning ride that Jim Owen had taken in the event. It was like watching Michelangelo sculpt an elephant from a block of marble: he just chipped away everything that wasn't the elephant. There was really nothing to it.

Once a potential route for the leg has been constructed and allowances have been made for average speed, the time to be taken for bonus, gas, eating, and rest stops, and miscellaneous distractions, a final question remains: Is the rider physically, mentally, and emotionally capable of riding the route that he has created? Jim Owen, the winner of the 2009 IBR, says it most succinctly: Plan your ride; ride your plan. Planning a ride should not involve luck, but riding a plan always does. Still, you control the things you can, hope for the best, and expect the worst. What made people like Morrison, Earls, Jewell, Owen, and Arthur stand out from the crowd was that, when the flag dropped, they were gone and not looking back. How do you win this rally, someone once asked Morrison. He pointed to the seat and throttle. "Sit there, twist that." Nothing to it.

In the weeks leading up to the start of this year's rally a number of thoughtful posts about rally routing appeared on the Long-Distance Rider list. One of them linked to a blog by Sam Liles, today known as Rider #55. At first I thought I was looking at a variant of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg or some other intricate operations research model involving a traveling salesman making nine stops in five towns in six days that, I seemed to recall, had originally appeared in a 1916 issue of the "Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematischen und Statistik." Clearly, Mr. Liles would be someone to keep an eye on during the early stages of the event.

During the riders' meeting, routemaster Austin was not hesitant about suggesting one of his preferred bonus stops on the first leg, the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. As we noted yesterday, it appears that most of the contestants have followed, or are about to follow, his advice. Not so five riders who are making a beeline for Key West, among them none other than Sam Liles. Can it be that his analysis of the leg's bonuses has uncovered an ingeniously sophisticated route that will leave such clear contenders as Eric Jewell, Matt Watkins, Mark Crane, Ken Meese, and Derek Dickson in the dust?

Tom Austin, no slouch himself when it comes to plotting courses, doesn't think so. He told the riders at the banquet Sunday night that if they were designing a route that didn't produce at least 14,000 points on this first leg, they would find themselves behind the curve and in danger of not being able to accumulate enough points to be considered a finisher at rally's end. Sam Liles' proposed plan, even if executed as he hopes, will fall about 15% short of Austin's recommended minimum on the initial leg, but he wants to begin conservatively. We shall see how that works out.

The bell-shaped curve that describes a standard distribution of elements in a population is one of nature's great delights. Everything has its unique place under its mathematical umbrella, from Albert Einstein at the extreme of one end to Josef Stalin at the other. Most of us are more or less huddled in the middle, trying to find a way to be noticed. It isn't easy. If it were, anyone could sculpt an elephant.

Bob Higdon
 
#17 ·
PART II!

The 2013 Iron Butt Rally: Day 2 (updates)

The Attrition Begins

Neil Hejny lost the better part of a day in Ohio with a failed alternator. He wasn't two hours into the rally when the bike's troubles began. He called Lisa, depressed and ready to make a sacrificial pyre of his Gold Wing. "Neil," she snapped. "You need to get angry here. Channel your inner Lisa and get those mechanics moving!" Apparently he did. Tonight he's up and running with an alternate alternator.

Mark Crane never seems to have a carefree ride. Late this afternoon his BMW began spitting gas where gas should never spit, not even on a legendary motorcycle of Germany. There aren't many BMW dealerships still standing in Canada these days, but by some miraculous process Mark seems to have come to a halt not far from one. We'll cross our fingers for him.

We Hear from Our Attentive Readers

A few of our followers wrote to suggest that my condemnation of Key West as a bonus locale is not always as delusional as I suggested. They say that in 2001 40% of the top ten riders visited the place and in 2011 six of the top ten finishers did so. I am a bit reluctant to put too fine a point on it, but this sort of reasoning is merely an example of the well known logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, or that because B followed A, A must have caused B. Still, as Sportin' Life said, it ain't necessarily so.

The scoring algorithm in 2001 was so aberrant that one of its unintended consequences was to permit incompetent riders like me to beat George Barnes and Eric Jewell, a result so completely contrary to all known laws of human reasoning that philosophers still cannot properly categorize it. Key West did not determine the outcome of the event; Prudhoe Bay did that.

A similar argument holds for 2011. The proper route from the outset was to avoid the Four Corners bonus and to concentrate on taking down as many capitol cities as possible. The winner, Peter Behm, was forced into riding to Key West because he lay in 13th place with one leg to go and had no alternative available. He had worked himself into that corner, and it would take one of the great rides in Iron Butt history for Peter to work himself out of it. But that didn't make it the ideal ride; it made it the only ride that he had left.

On a less contentious note Ira Agins, who knows something about the scientific method, told me this evening that my earlier note about the bell curve sounded to him like a succinct description of chaos theory. Not 30 seconds later I opened an e-mail from Derrick Sutton, a 2001 IBR finisher from Melbourne, Australia: "While the normal distribution has its place, I'd argue that a better model for the IBR would involve power laws, fat tailed distributions, fractals, Black Swans, and chaos theory."

OK, I can resonate with the idea that Chaos, thy name is Iron Butt and when butterflies flap their wings in Tokyo, clouds burst a week later in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. But in all candor I forced that bell curve trope because I really liked the photo of the decal on the bike. So once again I'll direct those who receive these reports by e-mail to the IBA web site, where the posts are much more presentable: http://www.ironbuttrally.com/IBR/2013.cfm.

Bob Higdon
 
#18 ·
I know its not possible but it would be cool if I had the list of bonuses while watching the SpotWalla ..... cause right now I am thinking "what the hell is so valuable in the Keys and did I just see someone ride over the Confederation Bridge ?"
 
#19 ·
#23 ·
From: "RenoJohn"

Joe Y created two more PDFs of pictures (checkpoint).
I've put them up with his pictures of the start.
...same link:

http://www.austinmedia.net/IBR13/

My Comments

It is a varied crew of riders.

From Neurosurgeon to US Navy Destroyer Captain (She has just be reassigned to Pentagon) and is riding two up with her husband. Red bandana series two

Best quote of the day

A Rally Vet was explaining to his friends that he will be at the Sacramento checkpoint on Sunday afternoon.

They asked when the riders are leaving Pittsburgh, he said Friday morning. They didn't understand how that was possible.:lol3
 
#24 ·
Leg One Results

Complete results of the first leg of the rally have been posted on the IBA web site. The riders are on their way to Sacramento.

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

I am off to Sacramento tonight :thewave
 
#25 ·
To quote from the FJR Forum thread

"Pretty cool to see a 15 year old and 19 year old bike in the top 5".
 
#26 ·
Today's report is up at

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

That link, for reasons I am unable to fathom, sometimes clones itself. Until this problem is resolved, please try to treat the repetition merely as blurred vision. Additionally, on occasion where I post a second installment in a single day, you may not see the update. In such a case clear your browser's cache. If you don't know how to do that, call Bill Gates. I shortly will be posting his home number on the IBA west site.

Bob Higdon
 
#27 ·
The riders have begun to arrive at the checkpoint in Rancho Cordova, California. Today's report was uploaded a few minutes ago on the IBA web site (link below). Unless something dramatic occurs this evening, the next report will be uploaded at 0900 EDT tomorrow. At that time the riders will be receiving the bonus listings for the last leg of the event and scores for the second leg will be available.

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

Bob Higdon
 
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