I thought I'd share a bit more memory of IBRs and what the last night might be like to riders. Of course it varies, but I think back to my most recent rally and those riders coming around the horn to Chicago are about the place I was the last night of '13 going to the finish in Pittsburgh. Thursday night is full of truck traffic on I-80 and you're tired. Not necessarily a sleep tired, but a tired that you feel like bits of your brain and body that produce important chemicals have been squeezed dry.
You've got a bike that has ridden 11 days that other than putting fuel in and maybe checking tire pressure a time or two...is just tired too. You're on your last granola bar, maybe you haven't bothered to fill up your water jug because you only have to run until 8 a.m. in the cool morning...you just don't bother fiddling with stuff because you're like a homing pigeon with a GPS. You keep looking at that mileage left indicator and your estimated arrival time shifts by a minute and it's dramatic.
Maybe you have a last bonus or two to get, but they're likely small potatoes in this particular rally. You known you have to gas up one more time and you'll grab that large cup of coffee.
Randomly you remember bits of the ride you've had. You remember the epic moments certainly, but weird obscure turns, sitting at stop lights, or your biggest goof (I vividly remember watching one of my helmet visors fluttering in the rear view memory on a two-laner in Indiana in 2013).
You might be texting a bit....on straight easy stretches. RenoJohn was always an entertaining contact for me. I imagine others contact signficant others.
You also judge yourself. What could you have differently and better. Where did you screw up. That part of the night is harsh because of your competitive spirit.
But you also give yourself a slug in the arm and say, "You did good."...and you did. Assuming you don't do something incredibly stupid or unlucky that last 5% of the rally...you're either joining a group of about 500 people to pull of the feat or reaffirming that three digit number and entering a smaller number of n-finisher status.
You think about who's going to be at the finish line and stressing the shit out of your scoring. It ain't done until you score and there are so many ways to screw up. You think about how you're going to organize your points.
You also have probably listened to music much of the ride and play song lyrics in your head. One I often would remember:
Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies
And we walked off to look for America
Cathy, I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America
Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said, be careful, his bowtie is really a camera
Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat
We smoked the last one an hour ago
So I looked at the scenery
She read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
Cathy, I'm lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America
Simon and Garfunkel - America
But, mostly you look left, you look right, you take a lung full of air and smile that you're riding a motorcycle like a grinning idiot.
