pglaves
#13338
I read your post with a smile. I was the same as you state, doing several 900 plus one day rides with never a thought to document or ride the last 30 or so miles for an iron butt plate, until some yahoo at a rally made a big stink about not citing iron butt statistics unless I had an iron butt license plate and certification to back my information up. So the next summer, 2018, I did a documented SS just so I could stick the plate in the yahoos puss..... Now I don't have to condition my fire side discussion with a disclaimer that I am undocumented. Wouldn't want to be undocumented in a crowd of rusty buckets....
I'll weigh in now since the original post quoted was aimed at me. I have completed the 11 day Iron Butt Rally twice. It is a major life challenge. More people have climbed Mount Everest than have completed the IBR. But I have exactly 2 documented IBA rides. One was as a club ride where ten or so of us did it, and the other was an accident where I organized and sponsored a ride and wrote a humorous story about the one other rider other than me who rode it. After that was published I got a certificate I didn't even apply for.
The entire IBA is about challenging oneself and expanding horizons and abilities. Some people do that. Others don't. Some folks do it and nobody knows. That is fine, admirable even. But that does not diminish the achievements of folks who like to have a little piece of paper to stick in the file or a frame for their license plate. Scoff if you must, I guess. Each to their own.
My original post (see and actually read #8) was not about certificate or rally rides. It was about working up to longer rides as a matter of conditioning. Then the pot shots showed up (see #12) which I did not respond to. In the long distance riding community there is a mantra: "reading comprehension matters." That is indeed true.
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