The Iron Butt Rally (11,000 miles/11 days)

All good

OK, I finally got through to Rob and he's all good.

He was in Utah, outside Moab when he went down on an oil spill in the road. He lowsided on the left side and as he went down let go of the bike. The bike came to rest against a mile marker by the side of the road and Rob was able to get up and wander over to inspect it. His 'Stich is fairly shredded but still usable.

The bike, however, needs some TLC. All the lights and stuff on the left side are trashed and there's some pretty good road rash on the bike. The biggest hurdle is a hole ground through the valve cover. When I talked to to him, he was in a 4x4 shop and they were TIG welding the hole shut so he could ride it.

The plot thickens a little here, though, if that's somehow possible. The welder told Rob that up the road at Jiffy Lube a guy was in there with a siezed engine. Apparently, his oil filter fell off and the car puked all its oil out on the ground. Right about where Rob was. When I talked with him, he was going to go find the guy and have a discussion about the whole mess and what to do about it.

He commented that the folks in Moab have been terrific and there a good three or four folks that deserve a steak dinner courtesy of the Rob Nye Iron Butt Travel Fund. He's pressing them to hook him up with a steak house so they can all go have a big feed.

I asked him about timing on this leg and I think he's going to ditch the bonuses and just concentrate on mission #1 - get home safely. He's going to head to Lakeland, which he's got until Saturday to accomplish. I think even a dork like me could get from Utah to Florida in three days if I was properly motivated.

I'm certain that Rob's properly motivated.

Through adversity lies the opportunity for excellence.

This is something I gave to myself a long time ago and it remains true to this day. Unfortunately this year seems to be filled with more of these opportunities than I would like.

After taking care to get some quality rest in Primm I departed this morning at around 4. Grabbed a gimmie bonus (casino chip from casino across the street) and headed back into Las Vegas for another. Then I went NE to Utah for some more before heading to Moab for a gas recipt and a picture of a bridge.

8 Miles after getting gas I approached a sweeping left and found a big pile of oil while leaned in. I went down to the left and released as we hit. I slid (he's SAFE at second) with left arm up and the Darien suit did exactly what it is supposed to which is save my hide. The suit is abraded from the knee to the elbow. The bike fetched up off and down to the right, stopped by a mile marker. I needed help to get it up and used one person and the engine (remembering the guy who fried his clutch in the desert yesterday) to get the bike on the road and parked to the side.

Meanwhile cars are hitting the apex, seeing me and hitting the brakes in the pile of spooge. I decided I would wait for the trooper in the *inside* of the turn. The trooper arrived and I walked back with him to the mess. He immediately called for back up as folks were not really responding to his lights and still sliding around. Ever see a veteran trooper nervous? I want back to the inside and sat for a bit.

The damage is bent fairing bracket, lots of scratches, bent bar end, toasted lights and one antenna, foot peg, holed valve cover, missing engine protection bar, busted pannier and more scratches.

The towing company arrived and we got the bike loaded. On the way to town he made a few calls to his buddies to see who could weld aluminium. We wound up at Moab Off Road which is a very cool shop full of the 4x4's you see in the magazines. The gave me a place to work and I removed the fairing, valve cover and other busted bits. Not only did they fix the problem (hole) in the valve cover but he PAINTED it too! I wish I had seen that as it took some time and I sorta wanted to keep the battle scars for a bit (and the adjuster). Now I have a bike with a servicable fairing, a funky left peg (passenger peg modified to be at the right angle but no spring and short) non functional ABS (after a whack the brain needs a reset) and some "minor" lighting issues. The mil spec tablet showed exactly why mil spec is mil spec, I hope they don't mind the little grinding on the corner when I return it.

Meanwhile the local grapevine is producing fruit and I learned that a fellow with a truck got an oil change at the local quickie lube and his motor siezed about three miles north of where I went down. I have the name of the truck owner and I am going to speak with him to see if it was a filter (which perhaps I could find) or the plug. Either way on my way out of town I am going to visit the quickie lube and show them my bike and stich. We may also have a "come to Jesus" chat as well. Without really trying I see around 3k of damage. My insurance company has been notified (and teriffic) and the police report will indicate the presence of oil. I was not cited for any violations.


So.... Here I sit in an internet cafe in Moab pondering what is next. I am absolutely going to finish the Iron Butt, that is what it really is all about, just ask Paul Pelland. I came to Moab because I wanted to ride the roads here (good points too) and was planning on doing some riding in Colorado. I was around 24th in Primm and was hoping to be in the top 20 for the rally and felt I had a very strong route to Denver where I was going to take my sleep bonus and plan the rest of my leg to Florida. First I must take a time out of at least 8 hrs of sleep, a nice meal and the morning business mentioned above. I figure to go get the bonus I was heading to when I crashed, the rest is up in the air. Chief technical inspector Dale (Warchild) Wilson mentioned on the LDR list that every finisher of the IBR is a winner, I intend to enjoy this victory however hard the task.

To clarify a few items that got confused in cell phone static, I really don't know anything about the red route because the blue crew left the meeting after we got our packets. I no longer think it is time on distance (I spoke with Dave between getting the notice and the meeting), I do know that the Iron Butt Rally is much more than just "sit there, twist that", it is a mental game as well. While I am a little disapointed that I can not directly compare my routes with the big dogs my plan in going blue was to have attrition from red give me that spot in the top twenty.

While I have some less than wonderful tales at this time the IBR is to me the greatest field event ever. I can't wait to get back in the game and I look forward to Florida, Maine, Missouila and the dumpster.

More to follow.

Best,

GO ROB!!!!!

You have the right attitude and I'm sure you'll finish. Paul Pelland's amazing 2001 finish on the Ural (maybe I should say Urals - since he went through several bikes worth of parts) is an excellent analogy.

Don't forget the other lesson from the '01 IBR - it looked like the big bonii were awarded during the first leg, but Mike Kneebone hinted strongly that there would be bigger things coming to those with patience.

That may very well be the case in the '03 version as well. Hang in there and keep rolling.

Pete Bansen

Early reports from today

From George Mastovich:

Paul Pelland is having several kinds of bike problems. He did well on the first leg, but seems to be fading as a result of the difficulties.

Jack Tollett is in the hospital. He's sitting up. He has a bunch of broken ribs and a broken collarbone. Lots of pain, but he seems to be coming along.

Allen Ledue is out. He crashed in UT or NV. He was pushing up a dirt road on his Goldwing. He says he shouldn't have been there. He has a concussion. He's on his way home by plane.

Manny Samiero crashed. He hit gravel on a relatively low speed turn. He's got road rash -- but nothing like the last time. He's on his way back to NJ.

The rally has been split between two route. The only way that the blue route wins is if the 32 people who took the red route all fall in a bottomless lake. That's a direct quote.

There is a lot of whining going on. It is crap. People had a choice. The red route is not TSD. But it is a far tighter route. No room for either rookie error or whacking the throttle and speeding your way out of a problem.

That's about all I know. The IBR crew is in Flagstaff and on their way to FL.

gbm

Rob Nye writes

"While I have some less than wonderful tales at this time the IBR is to me the greatest field event ever. I can't wait to get back in the game and I look forward to Florida, Maine, Missouila and the dumpster. More to follow."

looking forward to it, thanks for the post.

we will be in Lake city showing support, I'm Tom I'm be wandering around to say hey and wish good luck to a friend of ours Vicki.

cya there!
have fun

Tom

Rob,

I am glad you are OK. Thanks for taking the time to post. It calms nerves and dispells mistruths (rumours). Have a great Ride to Florida. Ride Safe, at the rate the riders are falling out, just finishing could get you a decent place.

Best

Craig Cleasby
South Windsor, CT

HI Folks, I am hanging on all the websites to hear about the IBR. I finished in 2001 with my own difficulties. I can relate to several stories making me hold my breath as I recall being stranded on the side of I-10 in the dark. I know what it feels like to just want to finish and how helpless one feels while counting the minutes to check point closing while the bike is on a lift. I am talking to Rob and Paul in my mind, encouraging you mentally to ride your own ride as safely and prudently as you can and may the deer never cross your path. Good luck to all

Russell Stephens is out but alive.
Paul Taylors riding partner Dennis is out.
Jack Tollet is out but alive

The bottom line is alive here. Ride the wind to hug your loved ones.

SKERT

Th' IBR is all about right mental attitude, and that 's especially true when the bike's attitude is horizontal rather than vertical. Good adjusting, Robstah!

Here's El Jefe's 3 rules:
1. Anybody can ride 1,000 miles a day, when the roads are smooth, traffic light, and the bike is in perfect order. Even I've done this, which sorta proves the point...
2. Only a few will do such a thing after a crash like this one. THIS is the sort of action of which IBR legends are made. Plus, why waste the entry fee, eh?
and
3. The IBR IS a mind game, and Kneebone is a Master Gamesman. The red and Blue Pill routes may be A)just a ploy to throw you off your game; B) NOT true at all; Duh! and C) likely to be a trick that will get repeated on the 4th leg.

Anything can happen, but only if you're riding the bike. Good on ya, Mr. Nye. Be seein' ya!

From Bob..

Albuquerque, New Mexico
August 13, 2003
Day 2

Go West, Young Man, Or Maybe East

The first leg of the 2003 edition of the Iron Butt Rally followed
a typical format with its route instructions. Thirty-three bonus listings
spread over nine pages invited the riders to figure out the most efficient
and effective way to pile up points between Missoula, Montana and Primm,
Nevada.
You might think that there is a fairly good correlation between
efficient riding and a high finishing position. There isn't. More than
any other factor, a winning ride almost invariably correlates with total
miles ridden. There's no getting around it: Efficiency looks great, but
sloppy most often takes home the bacon. Never forget, however, that
fatigue can easily give it all back. The dynamics are complex.
After the first leg the points-per-mile efficiency of Eric Jewell
and Bob Cox was almost the same (2.12 v. 2.11), but Jewell stood in first
place while Cox was 60th. The difference was that Cox had ridden a very
short, controlled route while Jewell was all over the map, racking up 621
more miles than Cox. A rider with an excellent efficiency is smart; a
rider with big points is an animal; a rider with both is the guy to beat in
the Iron Butt.
But the bonus instructions are not always so straightforward. In
1993 Mike Kneebone handed out not one but two sets of instructions for a
single leg. He called it "Pick Your Poison." Both sets of route
instructions went from Point A to Point B, but one set was dramatically
more difficult than the other. You didn't have to decide which route to
follow, but if you began picking up bonuses from Poisoned Route #1, you
couldn't grab any from the other route.
It sounds somewhat worse than it was. The tough route was clearly
for those who had aspirations of winning the event; the simpler set of
instructions was for everybody else. Most entrants realize that they have
no realistic chance to win this rally. Being selected in the drawing for a
starting number was more luck than they ever should have had. They had
jumped to the head of a line of more than 2,100 hopefuls. For almost
everyone the mere fact of being able to participate in such an amazing
circus is sufficient. There are rides with some friends in the country;
there are cross-country rides that can last weeks; you may take rides to
foreign lands. And then there is the Iron Butt, the big one. Winning it,
except for a couple of dozen heavies with the thousand-yard stares, isn't
why they're there. Finishing it is.
For the second leg on this year's IBR from Nevada to Florida,
Kneebone turned up the heat to a degree that was clearly uncomfortable for
more than a few of the riders. Instead of having the opportunity to check
out bonuses in a single set of route instructions or having the chance to
compare two sets of route instructions and decide which might be more
suitable, at 11:00 p.m. PDT last night The Evil Lord Kneebone forced the
lambs to select one of two possible routes out of Nevada without first
being able to look at either of them.
It was a variant on a theme from the original "Matrix" film. The
rider would pick a colored pill, red or blue, and once having done so, his
future would be fixed for the next several days. The riders had been
gathered together in a huge showroom. Kneebone walked up to the
stage. They stared at him uneasily.
"In that movie," he began, "the blue pill made your life fairly
easy and safe, but it wasn't reality. If you needed reality, with all its
sordid, downside risks, you'd take the red pill. Your life would
immediately become hard, dirty, tiring, nasty, brutish, and short. But it
was in the tradition of True Iron Butt. And it will be the route that the
winner of this rally will take. Any questions?"
A hand was raised. "Is there any way the blue pill route can win?"
"Yes," Mike said. "If every single rider on the red pill route
crashes, breaks down, goes home, is time-barred at the next checkpoint,
develops tertiary syphilis, or is abducted by aliens, it is theoretically
possible that a rider on the blue pill route could win. Still, I view it
as unlikely."
There it was. You want to win? Pick that red pill. You say you
don't have a clue where it could take you? Well, Kneebone spent the next
twenty minutes trying to assure the quaking riders that most of the rumors
they'd heard during the months leading up to the event were
baseless. Yeah, one option was the road to Goose Bay, Labrador, but it
wasn't worth taking. No, the winning route wouldn't require slogging
through 15,000 miles of corrugated dirt roads. Yes, rallymaster Lisa
Landry had gone to every major bonus aboard her massive Gold Wing, and if
she can do it, stop telling me that you can't.
The long and short of it was that taking the blue pill would
guarantee a nice, easy ride from Las Vegas to Florida via the top of Mt.
Evans in Colorado (the highest paved road in the U.S.) or via the bowels of
Carlsbad Caverns. The average motorcyclist would view either of such trips
as the mother of all rides; for the Butt entrant, it was not much better
than an also-ran. Me? I'd have kicked my own mother down the stairs for
one of those blue pills. Let's be realistic, OK?
Lisa and Mike arranged to have the riders approach the stage
single-file, declare their preference of pill color, and accept
one. Having done so, they were directed to return to the chairs in the
audience. The chairs to the left of the stage were for red pill holders;
those to the right for blue. I later asked Mike how he and Lisa had
arrived at this structured kind of dance.
"People are constantly telling me that they're ready to go to
Prudhoe Bay or Cabo San Lucas or the Isles Beneath the Wind. Talk is
cheap. Half the people who declared they were going to Alaska in 2001
never went near the place. I thought it was time for them to decide in
advance whether they were big dogs or not. The red pill will win. I told
them that. The blue one won't. You want that red sucker, not knowing
where it will take you? Here it is, Jack, and good luck."
All in all, they had about two hours to consider the odds. Then
they were lined up and fed up to the stage one by one where Lisa waited
with the two bowls of pills.
"Red or blue?" she asked repeatedly.
Kneebone dotes on this sort of drama. It's the most obvious kind
of cheap, staged effect, from the Greeks to Jolson. I tell him that these
poor bastards are tired, frazzled, and crazier than rats in a coffee
can. They don't need to stand in a line like this, I plead. They need to
be lying down in a manger somewhere, loaded up with 200mg of Ambien and
Prozac, dreaming of bunnies hopping through a green meadow. You're
prolonging their nightmares, I say. Have you no sense of shame, sir? He
chuckles sadistically.
When the ceremonies were concluded, just 33 of the still-standing
110 riders held red pills in their sweaty fists. Thirty-four had initially
picked red, but Rob Nye, a BMW MOA club director, chugged back to the stage
just before bonus packages were handed out and begged for the chance to
exchange his red pill for something milder. Landry granted his wish.
Today 77 riders are on their way to Florida, while 33 of their
friends have gone in the opposite direction to the western slopes of the
Sierra Nevada mountains in California. There they will receive further
instructions. Pain is on the horizon, I fear. Stay tuned.

Bob Higdon
www.ironbutt.com

Questions

Is Rob Nye the one with the IBER dog on his bike?

Thanks,
Lisa

Re: Questions

Tieton said:

Is Rob Nye the one with the IBER dog on his bike?

Thanks,
Lisa

Click to expand...

No, he's the guy with all the antennas and lights on his K11LT. I think a couple of those lights are gone and the antennas are all pointing in different directions now.

For Skert

Skert, our mutal friend, Kerry Willey, has his own ride
comments - via a ladyfriend - on www.carssuck.com. He's on the Yammahammer again this year...but because of Mike Kneebone's
"no sponsors" rule...had to get ride of the dealer plate and buy one himself.

Mac

Thanks! Kerry is one of my mentors and a dear friend. I certainly want to keep up with him. He an Rick are IB ridders that made me feel like one of the group. I try to make others feel the same way.

Bill Shaw

From the IBMWR list:

Bill Shaw is running the Iron Butt and had an accident yesterday afternoon.

Here are the details:

Bill's in a Red Roof Inn in Phoenix - - he's
working with his insurance company on the bike now.

He was 3rd day in the IronButt - on I17 South in Phoenix. Car in his lane
2 up had a blow out - Toyota Pick up - the car in front of him slammed on
the brakes and Bill swerved left to avoid the
Honda Civic in front of him and contacted the left rear quarter panel. He
went down then and slid about 8 to 10 feet - the bike traveled further and
hit the Jersey wall before going off the road. Lots of damage to the bike
- impacted the front wheel - probably totaled.

It was towed to the BMW dealer - he's unhurt - thanks to his Rukka suit -
which has abrasions on it - he does not think he hit his helmet.

Police showed up termed it a no fault accident - no tickets
issued. Basically sucks for Bill.

He's trying to get back in the IronButt - he's working on a plan to fly
back to Washington Dulles tonight (red - eye) and get back in the Ironbutt
on another bike.

Don Graling
Centreville, Virginia
BMW 2001 R1150GS

Today's Rob Report, as of 5pm PDT:

I talked with Rob, who was just south of Denver on 470. He's on his way to Florida and trying to get south and east across OK and TX. He hooked up with Norm Babcock and they rode to the top of Mt. Evans together, a 1500 point bonus. He's now got 36 hours or so to get to Florida.

This morning, he went and visited the Quick Lube folks. I'll say it was an interesting discussion and leave it at that. Nonetheless, he managed to nab the bonus points for the bridge near Moab and then beat it to Colorado where he met Norm. They've now split up, Rob being a Yankee in traffic and Norm being somewhat more polite.

Rob's looking for a truck stop that can sell him a giant cell phone antenna so he can get better range on the phone. I've been talking with him while he's usually riding down the road.

His quote:"I'm at about 90% of full operational capabilitiy."

This is good. More later.

Rob's Status

Did Rob say that he had installed a new set of "Energizer" batteries???

Go Rob, Go Rob, Go:
bliss

7:30 PM PDT

Rob's fixed the cell phone antenna and now has some decent communications ability. He's heading off of I-25 and going to take 50 and try to head southeast.

He's going to ride another few hours and then stop and sleep for a few. Tomorrow will be a big push south toward Florida.

You reported that Rob hooked up with Norm Babcock. Any word on where Linda is? Has anyone heard anything about Vicki Johnston (R1100RT), Marsha Hall (R1100S) or Paul and Voni?

Say Hi to Rob!!

Karol Patzer said:

You reported that Rob hooked up with Norm Babcock. Any word on where Linda is? Has anyone heard anything about Vicki Johnston (R1100RT), Marsha Hall (R1100S) or Paul and Voni?

Say Hi to Rob!!

Click to expand...

Sure will. I'll see who else he's run into. I'll probably talk with him tomorrow at some point. He says when he runs into other riders on the road it helps him feel like he's doing something right, especially if he runs into other folks that have done this before.

Hi Karol, yes we've heard about Vicki, she's doing fine and headed to florida, I talked to her other half last night and KNee Bone had said he saw her as well, I saw a couple pics with her in it. Heck that rally is looking like alot of fun!

Tom