LEG 1: MONDAY, 20 AUGUST TO FRIDAY, 24 AUGUST
RALLY DAYS 1 AND 2: MONDAY, 20 AND TUESDAY, 21 AUGUST: ST LOUIS, MISSOURI TO GRAND FALLS,QUEBEC, CANADA: 1,797 MILES – 13,276 POINTS
Fill the water container. Zero the GPS. Check the straps – again. Check the map. Watch, wallet, etc. The clock was ticking down towards 10:00 and the off. Riders were beside their bikes. Supporters were watching anxiously. A lot of people were getting quite anxious-looking. They obviously knew what the next 10 or 11 days would be like. I was still smiling – on the outside. I fought to control my nerves. I fought to not show panic. I fought to keep smiling. I fought to keep breathing. The clock ticked on. When would it ever reach 10:00? The weather was overcast and the ground damp from recent rain.
Dale called all the riders together for a final few words of instruction. He started with a question: “How many of you have brand new Metzler ME990s fitted?”. Lots of hands went up, to a cheer. “Watch the road surface in the hotel car park. It has just been resurfaced and is slippery”. We were all gassed up and fully loaded, on new, slippery tyres. He didn’t want anyone to drop their bikes in the car park. Metzler ME990 tyres are a favourite in the long-distance community. They provide a good balance between grip and mileage, they last well but they can be slippery when new, due to a release agent applied during the manufacturing process. The clock ticked on.
Two rows of bikes faced each other. It wasn’t clear which end of the line would be released first. Dale walked up and down the lines, adding to the tension. It was like the results section of a reality game show, waiting to hear who was going to be first out. He changed direction at 09.50. He reached ‘my’ end of the line at exactly 10.00. He pointed to the first two guys and said, “Go”. The Rally had started. I was in the 10th pair of bikes to be released. Homer was already away. Release the clutch, turn her towards the entrance. Over the manhole cover, no accidents. Out of the hotel car park, onto the feeder road and the dream was alive – I was riding in the Iron Butt Rally. Time to concentrate. Concentrate in a way I had never concentrated before.
The first bonus was the Gateway Arch in St Louis. Dean Tanji would be there with a camera crew capturing the start of the event. We had visited the Arch earlier, so I knew how to get there. I also knew that there would be a serious security delay as all the riders were checked into the site. Time to make progress. The Arch was about 18 miles from the hotel with an Interstate between the two. By the time I got to the Arch, I was comfortable on the bike and ready for the first bonus. Homer was there already with his camera, his personal Rally identification flag and bonus sheet. We marched down to the entrance, passing a couple of other riders on the way down. We got through the security check OK and got our photos at the Builder Memorial under the Arch. Homer took my photo with my Polaroid camera and I took his photo with his camera. He gave me back my camera and I rested it on top of a waste bin while I filled in the necessary data on the photo. We left post-haste and got back to the bikes. “Where is my camera?”. I had left it behind me on the waste bin. Remember that the Iron Butt Rally is a photo Rally, based on Polaroid-type cameras to capture the bonus locations and I had just left my camera behind me at the first bonus location. Homer asked whether I wanted to go back and retrieve it. By this time, the rest of the Rally riders had arrived at the Arch and the queue through security was stretching out. “No”, I said. I was carrying a 35mm camera as a back-up and I reckoned that we would lose an hour for the camera for no real advantage for a $25 camera. We packed up and got going. Photos of my camera later appeared on the Internet. It caused some laughter among the LD (long-distance) community as an example of a newbie mistake. I still reckon that the real newbie mistake would have been to queue up to collect the camera! As we left St Louis, it was clear to me that I was not concentrating enough … .
Bonus 1: Under the Arch, St Louis.
Just outside St Louis, the rain started. Not normal rain, but heavy downpour-type rain. The temperature was well up in the 90s so, for the first few miles, it was a relief. But it became a little wearing very quickly.
Indianapolis, 250 miles later, and it was still raining. The thunder and lightning moving closer together. I started counting. Flash, 1, 2, 3, thunder-roll. We kept riding. The lightning was a mixture of sheet and fork. The type of fork lightning that you see on TV showing extreme weather. There is that word again: extreme. The winds were not high, so the riding was not too difficult, though the surface frequently was awash with water. The cars were holding a good pace and the trucks were going as if it was a lovely sunny day. Road-positioning became very important, with lots of care being taken when overtaking or when being overtaken. The tyres were biting through the rain and gripping well on the road surface. We kept riding. The traffic was heavy but moving. As evening approached, the rain still continued. Maybe we were getting used to it but it didn’t seem too bad. Then we began to hit sections of road that had been heavily repaired, with long winding tar-snakes filling cracks in the road surface. Every so often, we came to a section that seemed to be more tar-snake than concrete. With the heavy rain on the surface, these tar-snakes made for interesting riding. We rode on. The temperature was in or near 100˚F all day.
From Indianapolis, we continued east. Our target was the Honda factory in Marysville, Ohio – the very same place we had visited on our way to St Louis from Toronto. The GPS sent us cross-country to the plant, down between cornfields and through a very rural and beautiful part of Ohio. It was a real picture-postcard part of America. There were even covered bridges. I had spent a day riding in the area when I waited for Homer to visit the Honda factory. But, beautiful, rural, picture-postcard America, in heavy rain, is not the best type of road to be on as evening was moving to night and when you are ‘on the clock’ in the Iron Butt Rally. We rode on and, true to form, the GPS brought us directly to the second bonus location, the Honda factory in Marysville, Ohio. We were supposed to take a photo of one of the Honda buildings, showing our Rally flags in the photo. About three other Rally participants were there before us. The only problem was that the security guard would not allow anyone to take pictures of the facility. At this point, I was getting seriously concerned with the Rally format. Remember I had left my Polaroid camera behind at the first bonus location. Now, at the second location, I couldn’t fulfil even the simple instructions on the bonus sheet. We got lucky. One of the riders had checked in with Rally HQ and we were told that getting a business card from the security guard would meet the requirements of the bonus. The security guard had to sign each card so I reckon he had a busy few days. The rain was everywhere. Once you took off your gloves, they were very difficult to get back on with their liners pulled out of place and with wet hands. The paperwork also was a worry. How to keep the receipts and bonus items dry, along with the petrol log sheets? These details, so small now as I write about them, assumed mammoth proportions as I tried to find workable solutions, on the road, in the Rally.
I had prepared a fold-over clipboard before leaving Ireland. The clipboard held the petrol log sheet and I had taped two ziplock bags to the fold-over cover, on the inside. I took great care numbering each receipt and immediately entering all the necessary information into the log. If even one piece of information was missing, points would be lost. I reckoned that, as a newbie, I would probably need all the points I could capture. So I took great care with the data.
On the road again and we were closing on Columbus, Ohio. We had been keeping intermittent company for the past 420 miles with a touring Victory bike, ridden by Andrew Mills. It was a lovely-looking machine and appeared very steady on the road in the atrocious conditions. Still it rained.
Bonus 2: The Longaberger Basket, Ohio.
East of Columbus, we got to our next bonus location, the Longaberger Basket in Newark, Ohio. Many of the bonus locations were interesting in their own right and the Longaberger Basket was one of those. The company had built its office building to look like an old-style wicker basket, complete with twin
carry handles and wicker effects on the walls. The windows appeared within the weave, lovely and unusual. The rain continued. Once again, the work and challenge of getting the suitable proof – a good Polaroid photograph showing the bonus location and my Rally flag – took over. Over here? Over there? Fiddling with gloves, cameras, flags and photographs. Is all the information on the photo? Is the photo clear? Did I read the bonus sheet correctly?
All done and off again, still heading east in the torrential rain. By this stage, it was getting a little cooler. What had been a pleasant cooling rain earlier was beginning to turn towards a chilling rain. By now, evening really was falling. During the day, the temperatures were so high I had only buttoned my riding jacket over, not zipped it closed. Now, as the sun set, I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Of course, the rain was still falling but we rode on to keep our appointment with a low tide and a sea-walk.
By 23.00 that night, Homer and I were huddled in a McDonald’s restaurant in Zanesville, Ohio. It was still raining, 450 miles later. Neither of us spoke as we recovered some semblance of humanity. We sat in one booth and stretched our gear out in another. Homer got some food, I got some tissues to dry off the maps, some dry clothes and my Widder electric jacket from the bike. After we had both made several visits to the toilets, we were ready to eat and think. By the way, did you know that hot air dryers are the wet bikers’ best friend?
Out came the maps. It was time for an Iron Butt re-evaluation of the plan. We had planned to head due east to New York, before turning north to Maine. This would mean at least another 300 miles of rain, in the dark. As we talked, we gradually became aware of a television playing just behind us. As we became aware of it, we realised that the TV was showing the Weather Channel. We could see the rain band moving right across the US – straddling our chosen path and defining six more hours of misery. But then we looked again. The rain belt ended 150 miles north, at Akron. There was clear weather only 150 miles away, and all the way through to Boston and Maine. The road to New York only held rain; the road to Boston held clear, dry weather. We turned left for Akron.
We hit dry roads and a clear sky, 147 miles later. This ride north was a tough one, as we were on lesser roads riding in and out of low rain clouds. We call it fog in Ireland. But the 147 miles brought us from misery to relative comfort. We stopped, refuelled, ate and rested. We were happy and relieved to be back on good, dry roads with a clear route to Boston. Boston. We needed to get past the city before the heavy traffic hit so, after our feed and rest break, we rolled on. We got an easy passage, skirting by Boston in lovely bright morning sunlight. All was well with the world. Until I needed to refuel.
On this section of upstate New York, Interstate fuel stations were few and far between. Coming up on 300 miles since the last refill, we came on a lesser-equipped fuel station in a heavily-wooded area. My credit card would not work. Mild panic hit. Thankfully, the attendant accepted cash. Plan B was successful.
I was now riding with the concern that my credit cards were no longer working. Day 2 of the Rally. This would be a problem, as very many gas pumps in the USA are fully automatic, providing fuel and automated receipts that mostly carry the information we required for the Rally. All they required was a working credit card. The time required to enter the station premises, prepay, go back, get the receipts and gear up was four to five times as long as paying for gas at the pump with a credit card. I had a lot of gas fills to go yet. The trick within the LD community is to contact your credit card provider before you travel, let them know you will be making very many small purchases in a number of states over a short period of time and ask them to counter their anti-fraud security systems. Apparently, lots of credit card thefts result in the purchase of lots of small value items in many places over a relatively short period of time. To the computer security software, the transactions are very similar to those of the long-distance rider. I had three cards with me but one was new and had not been initialised in Ireland before I left and, therefore, was useless for what I needed to do. So, I was down to the two cards that I had pre-loaded with cash before leaving home. The next fuel stop and the first card worked fine. The problem obviously had been with the gas station. But that 320-mile leg was difficult as I estimated just when I would run out of cash.
We skirted Boston without a problem. The only issue was the weather. The day had developed into a beautiful and sunny one, with temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s. Keeping cool and hydrated was the big problem. The road changed. We were no longer running on wide open stretches in farmland, we were now running through a channel of trees. Beautiful trees with just a hint of colour change coming to the leaves. Trees right to the edge of the roadside. Trees housing thousands of wild deer. Deer have no road sense. These ‘forest rats’ will dart from the side of the road into the path of an 18-wheeler heavy truck and are the cause of thousands of accidents each year. If they don’t see big trucks, what are the chances that they will see a motorbike? The main times for deer are dawn and dusk – I was on full alert. But why all of a sudden was I concerned over deer? I had come across some spots on the road surface. And a strange, sickly sweet smell. First off, I was just aware of the smell, then the spots – spots about six feet long and two feet wide. This morning, I had come across a carcass of a deer and the smell was there too. The penny had finally dropped. All these ‘spots’ and ‘smell areas’ once had been deer. I was on full alert.
As the morning wore on, the little bit of mist disappeared and the heat began to build. We were travelling north and had hit a steady pace, moving with the traffic flow. The secret of long-distance riding, as far as I know, is not to waste time in gas stations, but to keep riding at traffic pace. We would ride over 300 miles and look for a refill. The focus is on refilling the bike and hydration systems, both water and isotonic drinks. The ride continued north and the road took on a very pleasant nature, with rolling hills, turns, rock outcrops and the ever-present trees. Around Boston, the intensity of traffic had increased. As we approached Maine, the road changed from two-lane to five-lane. The traffic tempo changed, too. The traffic didn’t get any faster but cars, trucks and vans began to get active in terms of lane-changing. California is the only state in America where lane-splitting is allowed. Lane-splitting is where motorbikes can ride between cars in parallel lanes. But all the states allow lane-changing. Now, as we moved into Maine, it was a bit hard to tell whether the cars and trucks were lane-changing or lane-splitting.
At midday, we cut off the Interstate and headed up ME22 towards Reynolds Motorsports in Buxton, Maine. Reynolds Motorsports has been involved with the Iron Butt Rally for many years and has featured as a checkpoint for many rallies. This time out, it was a bonus location. But not just a ‘drop in, get a photo and go’ location. We had to sign in and could not sign out until one hour later. Reynolds had put on food, fruit and water for the Rally participants. They also had a covered passageway between two of their buildings. Out of the sun, I found a spot where I could curl up between two bikes and sleep. I was asleep only for about 45 minutes but felt as I if I had been down for a full night. It was lovely. As I fell into sleep, some of the Reynolds staff were having a chat just behind me. When I woke up the guys were still chatting; it is a relaxed sort of place. Reynolds Motorsports has a particular significance among the long-distance community. At least, it does for this ‘Internet traveller’. All the Rally stories I had read included reference to Reynolds. It was strange and wonderful to find myself asleep in the passageway, the same place and way I had read of so many other riders before me. I knew I was in the Iron Butt Rally and experiencing it fully.
I woke up and still had 10 minutes before I could leave, so it was time to eat a little and drink some water and fold the map for the next section. I was running a Garmin 2610 routing GPS, as well as a Garmin III for trip info, but I was also using a map to give me big picture information. It was time to fold the map to show me the extreme north-east of America. I was riding on roads and through place
s I had only ever read about.
The Rally does strange things to your head. We had ridden hundreds of miles to get from the Longaberger Basket bonus in Ohio to the Reynold’s bonus, a main-line mile-eating run. Now, we had to recalibrate. There were several bonus locations within 50 miles of Reynolds. The first location was the Udder Place coffee shop. The directions said, “Take a photo of the cow in the giant coffee cup on top of the drive-thru shack”. It was difficult for an Irish guy to understand this North American code, but, sure enough, when you ride into Brunswick, there it is, a cow in a giant coffee cup on top of a small kiosk. Out with the flags and cameras and two photos later and a quiet smile and we were on our way again.
Bonus 3: The Udder Place, Brunswick, Maine.
When I was in Ireland, I had planned to keep my helmet on at bonus locations to speed up the photo-taking process. In the Rally, the first thing I did at each location was remove my helmet to help me cool down.
Less than 10 miles up the road took us to Bath, Maine and a date with a life-size skeleton of a schooner. Bath is a lovely, idyllic seaside village, with wooded streets and a carefully-hidden skeleton of a schooner. After a little hunting, we found the schooner, checked with Rally HQ that the artist’s version of a schooner was the skeleton, took our photos and headed back out. We were headed for Canada.
Butt Seriously Page 2
