Matt Placed 17th in the 2007 Iron Butt Rally

Interested in my ‘09 Iron Butt Rally attempt? See the new blog here.

——————————————————

The Journey to the Iron Butt Rally Starting Line

Prologue

This is Part 1 in a 4 Part Series. They are the The Prologue, Leg 1, Leg 2, and The Epilogue

Special thanks to Rick Miller and other participants that I borrowed photos from to help weave this story!

Day -6 Washington

It takes more than 6 days to get ready for this event. Suffice it to say I had seriously started planning more like 16 months. It’s all documented in my Preparation and Other Rides area. Here’s what it looks like when you ride out the door of your home not to return for about three weeks. This, by far, was the longest vacation I’ve ever had and worthy of some amateur poetic foreshadowing:

Listless riding through the moose wilds of Quebec,
Photons dance green on Missouri highway signs,
Fading purple Westward-ho! to Vegas lights,
Arched up to foggy San Francisco Bay.

Cordura swathed astronauts lightly nap on park benches in the Nevada moon,
grabbing Z’s in an increasing REM deficit.
By day they nod knowingly in Interstate passing,
twist their grips zigzagging cardinal continental directions.

The Atlantic and Pacific bookend the mass,
shared young history pierced by a middle arch.

Beards grow long and crusty,
images clearer and more colored,
emotional ribbons of asphalt,
dissolve into sunsetted memory.

They all sleep well in the end.

Day -5 - Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska

Wednesday, 06:25 MDT, Boise, Exit 53

We’re to leave in 5 minutes. Covers off, complimentary breakfast inhaled, and sun is rising.

I-80 here we come!

Gassing up in Morgan, UT. This 15 minutes was essentially 1/3 of the days social interaction.

21:13 CDT, Ogalllllllaaaalllllalaalla, NE

No clue how to spell it. Suffice it to say it’s in the flat part of Nebraska and there are no significant landmarks visible. We’re 720 miles from Bonne Terre, MO, our destination to do maintenance, and calling it a night. Just rolled into another Super 8 with free wireless after having a Freschetta and salad at Wendy’s. Talked to Greg Marbach on the phone and he’s in New Mexico with plans of rolling into Bonne Terre late tomorrow.

More to follow in a half hour, but I GOTTA take a shower and drop the kids off at the pool! (Warning: things will undoubtedly get less subtle and more biological as the next 2 weeks wears on)

21:35 CDT, Freshly showered….now to blog

The day was a “drone” as Tobie put it and other than some military convoy on I-80 replete with two helicopters doing orbits and Humvees with automatic weapons on their roofs…it was fairly uneventful.

Also, think I may have figured out my Starcom and cell phone. Headset unplugged, plug in phone, then plug in headset. It’s a working theory although I’ll need to try a longer cable. Today I also got to realize I hadn’t thought out several recent farkle add-ons. Broke the rules I did….hopefully I can fix them up Friday through Sunday.

I hadn’t been between Cheyenne and Lincoln before….and I gotta say it’s pretty similarly boring as the rest of Wyomong….although there’s more humidity and ton more trees. That and some bugs in the trees that make a huge racket.

Day -4 Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri

We rolled out at 5:00 a.m. from Oga-la-lee-loo and made it four hole miles before it started to rain. I thought it was going to be a good idea to put on my dark visor and tough out the hour or so until sunrise.

Wrong choice. Rookie mistake. I still toughed it out….cautiously.

What can I say about Nebraska? For the lack in elevation changes they more than make up for with flatness.

We did have two surreal experiences today….or at least the monotony of the “drone” was relieved by first seeing a tourist site as we entered Nebraska. Perhaps impressive as the Great Platte River Road Arch covering I-80 is the reason why one would have possibly built it. Admittedly, I didn’t take a tour, but at freeway speed one puzzles on this point…for at least 50 miles…..which was a pleasant distraction. Well done Nebraska!

Once we rolled into Lincoln the humidity started to climb and the sky started opening up in earnest. Not hot yet as we’ve heard reports of 102 in St. Louis, but we stopped for gas and my one picture from the ride.

After we had left the humid and wet….but still cool….Lincoln area this horrible thing happened. The rain stopped and the sun came out. This made it unbearably hot and humid. 101 degrees worth of yucky stickiness. As a desert dweller I wasn’t cooked puppy like folks back home would know from staying out all day in the dry sun at boat races. I felt more like a hot dog that had been left in the tub of simmering water all day. Neglected……and very, very moist.

…anyway…it was frickin’ hot and the air felt heavy….OK? I’m supposed to be an Iron Butt rider, but I was whining in my flip-face helmet likea wimp. So, I tried to put a more positive spin on things……….

The nice thing about the IBR starting in Missouri is that we’re going to immediately aim our bikes away from this sauna hell hole!

The second surreal experience happened in Blue Springs, Missouri. I chose it because it was slightly over half way from Lincoln and made the last leg slightly shorter….purely a mental thing that Lisa and Paul totally got!

21:39 CDT, Bonne Terre, Missouri

Loading up on Gatorade this FJR rides up and it’s this dude from the FJR forum…..eeksnake! And we had seen him in Park City three weeks earlier. Weird cosmic coincidence….or he’s stalking us……. We exchanged pleasantries and he headed west back home to Vegas as we went deeper into the belly of the steamy beast.

We rolled into Bonne Terre about 5 p.m. and Bronce Smith’s home for a tire and oil change. He’s another member of the FJRForum and volunteered his shop to help us. We had sent off tires to his house weeks earlier, he arranged oil, had the fridge stocked with soda and water…and was the coolest host in the world!

To go over the top he arranged for a local auto parts store (B&D Auto Parts in Bonne Terre) to donate 6 gallons of Shell Rotella oil for free! My first and only sponsorship in this event. Thanks B&D!

And he has a nice shop with tire changer and lift. In fact, I got to break something in the first 30 minutes I was there. See anything wrong with this picture?

So, I apologized profusely, he was the ultimate host by blowing it off, and I signed my faux pas with a Sharpie.

We ordered pizza and spent the next few hours munching slices, changing tires, oil, and shooting the breeze in the humid evening. Also there were another FJRForum member, Bronce’s brother, and a Beemer guy. The cicadas were doing their 13 years dance and I definitely feel like I’m not in Kansas….or Washington anymore.

A picture of me sporting my official IBR haircut…..courtesy of a #2 clipper. Sweat is courtesy of the 427% humidity.

I also rethought my notion of having him install a cruise control and instead took off one of my throttle springs. It was a good compromise as it just lightens up the throttle tension enough to let my Vista Cruise work without slipping. This will pay dividends after about day 5 when my right hand wants to seize up.

Greg is due in about 15 minutes having come from Arizona. And in the morning is a leisurley breakfast next door and migrate up to the Chesterfield Doubletree to unpack, relax, tire kick…….and get ready for the game that will start Saturday morning at 10 a.m. with tech. inspection.

UPDATE 23:00

Greg rolled in and looks unusually fresh. He should look more wiped out after his ride. Hmmmmmm.

UPDATE 00:15

Paul, Greg, and myself are like school girls, amped up, and getting no sleep. Greg is retelling his story about his cell phone scittering down I-something or other as it fell off the bike, jammed the brakes, and running back down the freeway to pick things up as he feared a semi would run the phone over just before he got there. He’s talking on the cell now to his girlfriend….with scratches and chunks missing. The battery sits precarioulsy askew. ….something clearly to occupy his Friday to fix.

Paul is lamenting our poor meal habits today and announces, “Is that Waffle House 24 hours….I’m hungry.” He just wandered off.

It’s like a high school sleepover….except that we have money to buy expensive bikes and hotel rooms for 3 weeks….just to ride around North America taking Polaroids of things.

We’re clearly nuts.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE 00:30

Paul is back and I thought he got aced out with a closed Huddle House….except that he says, “All I had today was a Hostess frickin’ fruit pie. They gave me eggs, hash browns, bacon, and white toast…..I was outta there in 15 minutes….. I’m an LD Rider!”

….we’re going to try and sleep now. I’ll spare you the sleeping arrangements since Skooter got here. Suffice it to say two of us are gay.

While we were finally about to drift off asleep Paul mentions that he runs Rotella oil in his Jetta. It hits me that three FJR owners all happen to be Volkswagen owners sleeping together. It’s confirmed….all three of us are gay! We finally drift off spouting stories of how many MPG we got. Not only are we all gay…..we’re all nerds.

Day -3 In Chesterfield, MO

Explorers of the Midwest

North America was the “New World” about five hundred years ago when folks like Cristóbal Colón, Jacques Cartier, sailed the Atlantic Seaboard….as it was the to myself and the majority of rookies in the 2007 Iron Butt Rally. Post-modern explorers many of us have visited various places in the Continental U.S. and maybe even lucky enough to get a free weekend while on company travel and point an Avis rental car to a nearby destination. But, the fact that so many of us had to transit several thousand miles to the center of our nation’s heartland was both symbolic and preparatory.

Located in an upscale suburb of St. Louis, Chesterfield has become the space port of 97 of the most hard-core long-distance motorcyclists, dozens of volunteers, and a smattering of family of friends and family descended on the Doubletree Inn to take part in an epic life adventure.

Analogous to the hey-day of man’s race to get to the Moon 40 years ago…. “farkled” motorcycles would look at home next to a Gemini space capsule, and the Aerostich protective gear and flip-up helmets Synchrotech helmets look suspiciously like space-suits. Even one of the folks hanging around in the parking lot has stitched a “NASA” patch on his suit and wears it with the swagger of a latter day Buzz Aldrin. In fact, many of the inventions of the space-race are present. The cliche, but extremely functional material Velcro is found by the spool…and not just standard-issue Velcro, but the industrial-strength Dual Lock that has the gripping strength to tow a capsule if needed.

I abuse the moonshot analogy further as the hubbub of activity on launch pad 39a (known by civilians as a parking lot) has a constant parade of Lookie-Lous asking minutiae from astronaut-technicians fiddling with various bike systems. And they’re happy to answer because this is Thursday and the T-Minus countdown clock is still 4 days away.

Digital cameras litter the tarmac snapping away in excruciating detail.

In Mission Control are the veterans of the sport. Deke Slayton is cross-gendered though and thoroughly blond and hot in a high school friend’s Mom sort of way. Part den mother, part cheerleader, and part Marquee deSade, Lisa Landry greets everybody with a friendly hug and smile.

My attention is immediately drawn to a drop-dead gorgeous pre-production motorcycle called a Victory Vision. Besides being a rolling piece of swooping artistry it’s hoped by snowmobile behemoth Polaris and it’s rider/engineer, Alex, that he’ll be able to pilot this nearly stock art-deco rocket barge around North America and hang with the variety of sport-touring mega-cruiser Yamaha FJRs, Honda ST1300s, gaggle of surprisingly sporty Wingebagos, new-kid-on-the-block Kawasaki Concourse 14, several nostalgic “hopeless class” entrants wearing accumulated bug guts and oxidation proudly, and the every-present Guzzlin Kool-Aid BMW’s. I should note that at the moment none of their final drives appear to be dripping any oil.

To a casual observer the number of gadgets on any motorcycle ranges from compulsively excessive to mind-boggingly incomprehensible. Rob Nye earns his Eagle Scout Farkle Badge by trailering a BMW into the parking lot with some TIG welded rear mast fixed to tail. Strewn with various protrusions and doohickeys this lightning rod of alloy would look more at home on a Naval destroyer con tower than a motorcycle. Heads turn when it enters in the parking lot and not in a friendly “that’s cool!” sort of way. Even battle worn Warchild gapes and asks, “What the fuck is that?”

I retort, “I think it’s to measure Knots Indicated Airspeed like a Cessna. Maybe he needs to compare with GPS ground speed for some ride calculations.” ……..Nye is a nerd’s nerd, but he’s our nerd.

12:46 CDT

Sitting in the lobby with Doug. Classical music is playing over the speakers, the furniture is tastefully appointed,…….and there’s a dude with a doo rag and dingy Aerostich checking in.

…..now, that’s classy.

Warchild just strolled in and planted his butt on the marble coffee table in front of me.

…..more class.

We’re headed off to lunch at a sitdown joint with cloth napkins….wearing our shorts and motorcycle boots of course.

…..heaping mounds of class. It’s going to be a fun weekend.

14:32 CDT

Games are already a foot. Tom Austin came up and shook my hand in the lobby. Exchanging pleasantries I shared that I had never been to this area of the country he asked me what I thought about the place. So, I gave him my line from yesterday, “The nice thing about St. Louis is that on Monday I’ll be able to point my bike away from this hell hole of a sauna.”

He replied in deadpan, “How do you know you’re leaving St. Louis? Maybe the first bonus is to do a Saddle Sore around the beltway.”

….I gave him a pained, quizzed, intrigued, and angry look all at the same time.

Tom is, of course, the brutally strict yet consistently fair scorer that dinged me for not having all four limbs in the proper quadrants in the SPANK Rally last year.

So, I find myself chanting, “Austin will not get in my head….Austin will not get in my head……Austin will not get in my head!”

18:10 CDT

Folks are mingling in the bar…with a few drinking here and there, but it’s pretty sober and safe. Dinner is soon. It’s cool to see the regular cast of characters….Warchild, Higdon, McSweeny, Torters, Rebecca V., Van Santens, etc.

Got back from Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things I had forgotten. My CB worked pretty well. I can only transmit about 1/4 mile or so……maybe I can improve that with a ground or something.

You All Can Get Information Quicker Than Me!

23:53 CDT

Last night I remembered how’d I’d been monitoring regularly when The Iron Butt Rally Website got a 2007 entry. It did a couple of weeks ago, but I just realized I hadn’t checked in 4 or 5 days. So when I visited I found out all sort of useful and interesting information.

First and foremost was the question who would try and fill the big shoes of long-time scribe, Bob Higdon. With the first official IBR dispatch it seems the task has been taken up by Tom Austin (the guy I mentioned in an earlier post and know well from being denied 7,000 points for not having 4 limbs in 4 states last year). Tom is a technical guy and although his style will be different I’m sure…..I think you all are going to get a thorough play-by-play of this rally.

Other good stuff in there that Tom has set up a phone message system for us to call in and give updates and relay stories. A very-engineer-oriented solution. Kudos Tom for utilizing a piece of technology to learn and share information to the smallish audience of folks watching us wander North America!

You’d think being here at the hotel in St. Louis that I’d already know all about this, but the first I’ve heard of this is by reading the website. Tom is probably only 100 feet away from me in some room, but information dissemination occurs more quickly on the Internet.

It boggles the mind…..and more importantly reading through Tom’s sobering first post……I’m in it deep!

I’m getting up at 7:30 in the morning. Tech. inspection opens at 8:00 a.m. and I know they’re gunning to get me. They’re going to find something I’m sure…..and I’m going to stress.

That’s OK. It’s pre-ordained. Like a good thriller movie I paid good money to be scared by Warchild, Austin, Landry, and others….and they’re undoubtedly going to give me my money’s worth.

All I can say is, “Bring it on.” I’m about as ready as I can really be….except for rerouting a couple wires on my audio system and snapping a grommet through my wallet…which I’ll talk about tomorrow. I may have to go park in a corner of the parking lot to hide.

Regardless, I’m ready for the challenge. Tomorrow it gets interesting.

Day -2, I Have A Star On My Belly

11:42 CDT

I got up at 7:30 this morning knowing that Technical Inspection was going to open earlier than planned at 8 a.m. Being there at 7:40 afforded me the opportunity to be about the fifth in line and get done with things before they got hot. Warchild had a bullhorn, a wry smile, and was entertaining the crowd with his “tough love” methodology.

Austin was out with his decibel meter measuring after-market exhaust systems and stress-puppy Greg was pleasantly surpirsed to find 95 decibels when 105 is the limit.

After easing through Tech. Inspection with volunteer, Bob Broeking (’03 Butt and fellow ‘05 Tech Inspector), I was given an orange dot on my paperwork. That meant I got to go in, get my packet, and sit/stand in various other lines for 3 hours. I felt very much like a character in Dr’s Seuss’ Sneetch Star-On Machine.

Finally, sitting around in a smallish room with nice chairs I was asked into the “Board Room” where Evil Lord Kneebone sat like Donald Trump….except with a much more sensible haircut. I got a form initial from Ed Otto…insurance expert and ‘95 IBR Honda Helix scooter finisher. Then I got an initial from lawn gnome lookalike, Dave McQweeney.

Breezing through these two stations of the inner sanctum I got an excessively uneasy feeling as I planted myself in my third, and apparently final seat, between Mike and Bob Higdon. I’m not usually one rattled by reputations, but the fact that Mike was entering my name and data into some special program freaked me out a little. I couldn’t tell from my angle, but it wasn’t some Excel spreadsheet he had doctored up, but something custom for this rally.

I started to light-headed. By objective measure I was about to officially make it “in” the IBR, but sitting between these two guys I started to feel nauseous. It’s like Bob and Mike’s chi, shakras, and vortices are strangelty dissonant. It doesn’t affect them, but I suddenly felt like a lab rat for the military’s experimental puke ray.

…..then the spell was broken by Mike turning to me, beaming a smile, offering a hand and saying, “You’re in!”

I shook his hand and realized three words with only seven letters made me one huge step closer to starting the IBR.

I feel like Dorothy just landing in Oz.

There are Live Pictures of Us!

They’ve set up a live webcam of the back lobby where riders are walking by from the parking lot to their rooms.

Clicky here for enlightenment…or refresh this page with F5 and see it here.

This link is a gallery of the last 20 pictures.

Tip of the beanie to Joe Denton!

Day -1, Anticipation Builds

I find myself a little bit snippy and abrubt today. Milling people in the parking lot that wouldn’t have bothered me two days ago are like unpredictable cones I have to slalom to go gas my bike up. As I repack or tie wrap I get a comment from a person that I shouldn’t be working on my bike before an event I wanna flick them in the ear.

….gotta go easy for the next 20 hours….gotta pay attention at a meeting and get some sleep.

To lighten things up a bit Austin asked to borrow my Screaming Meanie (actually a Beacon for those in-the-know), but same effect. It’s an alarm clock that will wake the dead and get you kicked out of a hotel. Using the same standards as motorcycle exhausts he measured the decibel output and found 111 decibels. The exhaust standard is 105 or less…..so these things are honking loud!

Then Dick Fish wandered by and Warchild got to tell him his exhausts are louder than Meanies….to which he grumbled something imcomprehensible…… but we’re not sure he could hear us anyway with his hearing affected by the loud exhausts.

As I said…things are getting a little tense.

However, on the light-hearted side of things we have a new winner for the most farkled rig. Rob Nye trailers in his bike and I swear there’s a wind anemometer on the back of the thing like something you’d find on the Weather Channel. I wonder why anybody short of an airline pilot would know knots indicated airspeed, but find out it’s a few other things. This thing is just insanely gadgeted out!

More odds and ends. I got a little Monkey Butt coming down due to the moist heat and hoping to air out the nether region a bit. The beads from Autozone are a bit big so I had to do a little surgery. One thing I learned is that the brown beads roll across the floor and you’re guaranteed to find them at 2 a.m. in your bare feet when you go to pee.