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Sorry for the late chime-in here. I had a new-rider motorcycle training class (TEAM OREGON BRT) to teach today. Yeah, kind of at the other end of the motorcycling spectrum from this discussion, eh?

Speaking of "eh?". Look at all those riders that ran through Canada to get Madawaska! Tom Austin looked at me funny (nothing new there) when I told him my initial impression for leg 1 was to look at going to Hyder. Why? Because anybody who's playing this game to take home the crystal is going include 4-corners in their route and I needed to look for the "what else can I do" factor. I later decided Hyder was more than I wanted to chew off. (I crafted a route plan that had more miles and capitals than Mr. Meese logged, which is why I said "that route sucks" and went to bed.) I see that many are opting for 4-Corners. That means the winner will need more than 4-Corners in addition to a healthy serving of capital cities.

So the short summary is that Mr. Meese and Mr. Peek are sitting pretty in the standings; not likely so pretty on their bikes. The states they missed are not far out of the way on potential leg 3 routes. I don't think that will slow them down much. I'll play with the routing on that tomorrow.

What may slow them down is if they try for 4-Corners as well. Getting Hyder, Madawaska, and a minimally feasible number of states on leg 1 was not possible. Madawaska and KW on leg 2 is a chancy thing and will likely cause the rider that attempts it to bypass more states for later collection. So that leaves KW for leg 3 and as I mapped out previously, that is not going to play well with potential high value capitals in the west. Ya pays your money, ya takes yer chances. Who will try it?

What about Roger Sinclair? He's in a solid third place; trailing Meese by 1,291 points and ahead of Jewell by a similar margin. Barring errors by Meese or Peek, I don't see how he can advance past them. Roger's problem is Oregon; he skipped it on leg 1. There are very few places to get a computer time-dated receipt anywhere in southeastern Oregon and possibly none after 9 or 10pm. Maybe he'll luck into an open tavern in Denio or Rome and find an ATM that works. In any case, he will need to bypass potential big point opportunities just to reclaim that missing state. He'll still need to get back down for Arizona too. As I see it, Roger is facing a significant risk of DNF let alone maintaining or improving his position in the standings.

The riders in 4th to 20th place all had solid rides with good collection of capitols and the rest bonus. Presume that many of these riders collected the corner at Blaine, WA and are adding Madawaska on this leg.

Here's the public field as of 8:05pm PDT on June 25th; 19 hours into the 61 hour leg to Jacksonville.

0625_2005PDT.jpg


https://picasaweb.google.com/KGTpilot/IBR11?authkey=Gv1sRgCIa_xZSzi-CZkAE#5622359172331682674

The rallymaster must be going soft. It is a luxury that the timing works for riding the Boston/NYC corridor overnight instead of at peak rush.

You can clearly see a string of riders that made a choice to add Madawaska to their dance card.

The riders that bagged two corners on Leg 1? They're buried in the standings. For now.

 
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I wonder how many of the non-Alaskan contenders turned 2 corners in leg 1? Would Meese and Peek assume they had and thus force themselves to at least turn the 2nd corner in leg 2? Or if you were Meese and Peek would you abandon 4 corners after leg 1 by trying to increase your lead as much as possible knowing full well you will give the 4800 points back in Leg 3? Or perhaps you figure stay on 4 corners which requires everyone else to clawback your lead via additional capitols on 2 and 3 you just can't get to? Talk about a mindfuck for the leaders!

 
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He said he'd seen too many deer and it read like he and his wife had a heart-to-heart about the risks (plus other, not detailed, personal reasons).

 
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The best to Darrin; sounds like he knows when to say when.

I tell who I like is Kirsten Talken-Spaulding. I've got her personal track and wow, she's putting on some miles! Lead woman @ 7th at CP NY - I think she's got more.

I'll be seeing them all @ Jax soon!

 
I tell who I like is Kirsten Talken-Spaulding. I've got her personal track and wow, she's putting on some miles! Lead woman @ 7th at CP NY - I think she's got more.
Kristen is a rider, she was down a ton of points on leg one of the IB5K and made them up and then some for a great finish. She and I got held up just south of four corners for awhile in construction traffic so we talked a bit. It was one of those weird rally moments to have time to talk with another rider on the clock.

 
Man that sucks about John Coons. He kicked ass in the IBR5K. Glad to hear he is expected to make a complete recovery.
Yes that really does suck but I couldn't be happier that he will heal up. I was sick this morning hearing that he had been hurt and was in the hospital and not knowing how bad it might be. That's the second time I've been down that path in the last couple of weeks and I don't like it one bit :glare: No more crashing allowed :big_boss:

I'll be headed down to Mayo to check on him as soon as he's there and can take visitors. We might even stop by Bob's Smoke Stack BBQ and see if we can sneak some ribs in for him :p
My route home from the Buf CP took me on I-90 to Syracuse. There was an absolute SHITLOAD of standing water on the highway as it was raining on and off very hard. A couple of times I felt the front end get a little squirrely, mostly when crossing the foot wide tar snake that ran between the lanes for nearly the entire length. I was on the LT which is a lot heavier than Coons' ride. It would've been very easy to hydroplane on a lighter mount. Glad he's OK and it really does suck as I thought he was going to be a top 5 or higher.

Bob

 
Sorry for the late chime-in here. I had a new-rider motorcycle training class (TEAM OREGON BRT) to teach today. Yeah, kind of at the other end of the motorcycling spectrum from this discussion, eh?

Speaking of "eh?". Look at all those riders that ran through Canada to get Madawaska! Tom Austin looked at me funny (nothing new there) when I told him my initial impression for leg 1 was to look at going to Hyder. Why? Because anybody who's playing this game to take home the crystal is going include 4-corners in their route and I needed to look for the "what else can I do" factor. I later decided Hyder was more than I wanted to chew off. (I crafted a route plan that had more miles and capitals than Mr. Meese logged, which is why I said "that route sucks" and went to bed.) I see that many are opting for 4-Corners. That means the winner will need more than 4-Corners in addition to a healthy serving of capital cities.

So the short summary is that Mr. Meese and Mr. Peek are sitting pretty in the standings; not likely so pretty on their bikes. The states they missed are not far out of the way on potential leg 3 routes. I don't think that will slow them down much. I'll play with the routing on that tomorrow.

What may slow them down is if they try for 4-Corners as well. Getting Hyder, Madawaska, and a minimally feasible number of states on leg 1 was not possible. Madawaska and KW on leg 2 is a chancy thing and will likely cause the rider that attempts it to bypass more states for later collection. So that leaves KW for leg 3 and as I mapped out previously, that is not going to play well with potential high value capitals in the west. Ya pays your money, ya takes yer chances. Who will try it?

What about Roger Sinclair? He's in a solid third place; trailing Meese by 1,291 points and ahead of Jewell by a similar margin. Barring errors by Meese or Peek, I don't see how he can advance past them. Roger's problem is Oregon; he skipped it on leg 1. There are very few places to get a computer time-dated receipt anywhere in southeastern Oregon and possibly none after 9 or 10pm. Maybe he'll luck into an open tavern in Denio or Rome and find an ATM that works. In any case, he will need to bypass potential big point opportunities just to reclaim that missing state. He'll still need to get back down for Arizona too. As I see it, Roger is facing a significant risk of DNF let alone maintaining or improving his position in the standings.

The riders in 4th to 20th place all had solid rides with good collection of capitols and the rest bonus. Presume that many of these riders collected the corner at Blaine, WA and are adding Madawaska on this leg.

Here's the public field as of 8:05pm PDT on June 25th; 19 hours into the 61 hour leg to Jacksonville.

https://picasaweb.google.com/KGTpilot/IBR11?authkey=Gv1sRgCIa_xZSzi-CZkAE#5622359172331682674

The rallymaster must be going soft. It is a luxury that the timing works for riding the Boston/NYC corridor overnight instead of at peak rush.

You can clearly see a string of riders that made a choice to add Madawaska to their dance card.

The riders that bagged two corners on Leg 1? They're buried in the standings. For now.
Hi, Jeff,

I worked the CP in Buf. With regard to Meese and Peek not looking so pretty on their bikes, I was really surprised that both of them looked amazingly fresh having come in from the monster ride they pulled. Roger also looked pretty damn spry. I got up this morning to watch them leave and again, all looked pretty chipper for having the monster leg 1 they did. To get home, I took I-90 to Syracuse before turning south. The road was absolutely loaded with water as some major cloud bursting was going on. To hear about an accident by hydroplane is not a surprise to me. Glad it was only one rider and glad he's good. I thought Coons would be a top 5 for sure.

Bob

 
Did 921 leave something behind?

Spent the night in Bristol, TN. Now headed back NE.

Maybe on the way to Richmond?

The others are catching up!

 
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921 can get VA, NC, SC, GA, FL capitals, then Key West before Jax, albeit with little rest and hoping for decent traffic. At least KW would be in the early morning hours...It may have been prudent to forego Richmond and just take the state to leave more time for KW. At least, from where I sit!

 
921 went down through WV yesterday, it looks like he is going to bag Richmond today.

Too bad about the rider who withdrew- this crew has had to ride through some truly miserable weather, but now it's a beautiful day here in the Southeast, it would have seemed like a whole new rally.

 
Too bad about the rider who withdrew- this crew has had to ride through some truly miserable weather, but now it's a beautiful day here in the Southeast, it would have seemed like a whole new rally.
This is a tough and personal call. Only the rider can make it and for sure it's better to be safe than sorry: there is always another ride. It's also a good call with the Mrs. since one can point to the fact that when and if you're in too deep you have a track record of making a good decision for your safety. With all of that said, it's amazing the emotional roller-coaster you can go through on a multi-day rally. One minute you're spent, disgusted and miserable and an hour later the whole world is coming up roses. This can happen a few times a day.

I'm sorry about his ride but am glad he's safe. :thumbsup:

 
I can't imagine how tough of a call it would be to withdraw, but if your head isn't in it, it is the smart call. I just don't know if I would be smart enough to know when to say when. Good for him to know when it is time to call it a day.

 
With all of that said, it's amazing the emotional roller-coaster you can go through on a multi-day rally. One minute you're spent, disgusted and miserable and an hour later the whole world is coming up roses. This can happen a few times a day.
Paul nailed this aspect of the Iron Butt Rally perfectly as it's difficult for anyone who hasn't experienced this to really understand it.

 
IBR RIDER NEEDS HELP!!

Just got a call from Cletha. She's stopped at the Walt WhitmanService Area on the I-95 Turnpike at the South end of NJ. She's

afraid to ride the bike any more due to the excessive chain slack.

It's hitting the swing arm, she says.

If you can bring tools to adjust the chain tension on an '11 BMW

F650GS to that location and help her out it would be greatly

appreciated. I believe she really needs a chain at this point, but

with the Sun/Mon issue for bike shops, that seems unlikely. She just

wants to be able to continue on at this point.

Alternate info would be where to have her towed so that the same task

could be accomplished. I suggested she get to a hardware store or

auto parts store to buy tools, but she has no GPS, (apparently both

have failed due to the rain), and is afraid to go farther.

I do not know the axle nut size or adjuster bolt sizes.

Her Cell is xxx-xxx-xxxx

Post to the list so what can be offered is known.

My cell is xxx-xxx-xxxx if you need to contact me.

Thanks!

--

Eric Vaillancourt

Ivins, UT

Darkside FJR

EDIT: A trucker stopped to help her, she appears to be back on the road for now.

It does sound to me that she needs a new set of chain/sprockets ASAP, as her current chain is to the point where she can no longer maintain any type of adjustment.. I trust Eric is lighting up all the appropriate BMW forums, etc to see if someone currently near her has a spare set to donate to the cause.

Bummer. We always, always, ALWAYS start a long rally with fresh chain/sprockets... not sure what's the deal here, but I am bumming for Cletha... :(

 
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921 can get VA, NC, SC, GA, FL capitals, then Key West before Jax, albeit with little rest and hoping for decent traffic. At least KW would be in the early morning hours...It may have been prudent to forego Richmond and just take the state to leave more time for KW. At least, from where I sit!
All of that, Jim, except Tallahassee. Fla. Capitol is not available on 2nd Leg.

 
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