FJRForum Official 2017 Iron Butt Rally Tracking/Analysis Thread

[Uncle Hud]

Leg 3 is gonna be a beast. Lots of prep and planning, followed by riding LOTS of miles to collect those high-value strings.

 

[RenoJohn]

I am working up a full list of spurious stats for all of you that I shall get posted a little later today. However, I have noticed one little stat that surprised me...
Those riders(5) with 7 characters in their name outscored the rest of the field by an average of 4,000 points in Leg 1. The next 2 were riders with very long names, 21 or 23 characters.

The Seven Character Riders as they are now known, also out mile'd the rest of the field by about 300 miles, but rider 23 took the overall crown by 467 miles over the 7's.

I have a pile of spurious stats to share soon...

Fantastic!!! Nothing is spurious. And 7 is no accident, take two dice and roll them infinitely, "7" will come up much more frequently than any other number. (16.667%of the time, vs 2.778% for the numbers 2 and 12)
I think your diligent analysis will connect the dots. Let's not lose sight that we're on an FJR forum, hence we need to be diligent to show which generation of bikes the successful-7 riders are piloting.

Your efforts are appreciated. RJ

 

[RenoJohn]

I'm still grinding on the subtle yet dramatic trend of doubling and tripling last bonuses of category strings....as they trend across multiple legs.

Me Too Igster. It's really quite daunting and fascinating ..alone, before factoring in the other things you mention. I'm going to make a big prediction. You heard it from Reno first: Look for very solid performances from Erik Lipps, Ken Meese and Eric Bray. They all have minds for this puzzle, they also aren't handicapped by being on a gen3

 

[Tyler]

So all the bonii are available for all three legs... if they already got certain bonuses on leg 1, are they off the table for leg 2 (i.e. they can't get them a second time)?

 

[JackBurns40]

Kurt Worden on his Ninja 250 is currently in 16th place, riding a very efficient rally. Mileage that puts most in the bottom half, but he's up with more than 17,000 points and 2300ish miles.
Wow!

He is definitely amazing! Is this his 3rd IBR on the Ninjette? Really have to give kudos to someone who gets off the barcalounger rides and puts in those kind of hours and miles on a little sewing machine. Surely a testament to mental toughness and will..... two items I am obviously lacking!

Yes, this is his third on the minimalist 250. First one was a DNF due to a late navigation error. Second was proper finish. He is a beast.

 

[DFW Tom]

So is this hose creating some seat cooling device?

I assumed the rear end of these two flexible hoses somehow connect to the rider's jacket, but did not see it while the rider was there. Here is a view (if this works) from the back side:

 

[PapaUtah]

Yes, I talked with that rider....those are cooling tubes to bring cool air to his nether regions...he fabbed them on site at the Marriot before he left Minneapolis. Shop Vac hoses to be exact...

 

[Timmer]

Here's the leg 1 results sorted by points per mile:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqfFHIB477eTiDmoRm7ycoe_5YIW

Tim

I'm not seeing the 3-up team of the Boges in that sheet. My calculations have them at 3.408 pts/mile (5842/1714). That puts them in 100th position.

I fixed my spreadsheet. Here's the link to the new one: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqfFHIB477eTiDvKALBG3psW44Al

Tim

 

[Timmer]

Timmer beat me to the punch - was cranking out a spreadsheet to sort by points/mile as well. Except I had to go teach myself how to get a pdf table into Excel first...
https://docs.google.com/a/activeindytours.com/spreadsheets/d/1rHdxZq1_hUPfvYDpce3LcbwKIC7b_s5cvQsA8evR3g4/edit?usp=sharing

Left mine sorted by actual current placing. Also added a column assuming that a rider averaged 60 mph for the miles they covered - how many hours were they on the bike during this 60 hour leg. Obviously the 60mph number is arbitrary...

I'm on a PC, and for me the easy way to get the data from a PDF file is simply to use CNTRL A, CNTRL C, in the PDF. I open EXCEL, and press CNTRL V and all the data is there in columns. I then delete the unnneeded data that may be copied over. IHTH.

Tim

 

[Where is Bob L]

That is something I have been thinking about doing since I got my ST1300.....8 years ago.

Maybe now I will actually do it.

EDIT: I was talking about the cooling hoses. For some reason our firewall here won't let me quote or even cut and paste here.

 

[Timmer]

Here's the leg 1 results sorted by points per mile:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqfFHIB477eTiDmoRm7ycoe_5YIW

Tim

Awesome Timmerest, thanks for sharing. Really fascinating to break this down. One observation I made before you made it obvious is Bob Lilly BRUTE-FORCING himself into 2nd place. We'll see if these Brute force guys (Like Slayton) can stay fresh enough for the long hall.
Kurt Worden needs to be efficient being that he spends his sleeping time rebuilding that Ninja at each CP LOL.

This is going to be a good event to follow. OH, I didn't break it out, how are the riders that choose gen3 doing on efficiency vs the other FJR riders?

RJ

I don't think brute forcing will work in this rally particularly on Leg 3 and especially if one is competing with the field we see in this rally. Mr. Earls appears to have done a masterful job, and we haven't even seen the rally book.

 

[Timmer]

Here's a listing of the FJR riders. It's sorted by Year Ascending.

 

[Blind Squirrel]

So all the bonii are available for all three legs... if they already got certain bonuses on leg 1, are they off the table for leg 2 (i.e. they can't get them a second time)?

I am curious to know this one too. If a rider can only bag a bonus once during the rally, they could have hamstrung themselves if they went for the big bonuses during the first leg and got double value for them instead of triple, or who knows how much on leg 3.

 

[Hello Kitty]

I tip my hat to Mr. Earls.

Indeedy

 

[Hello Kitty]

So all the bonii are available for all three legs... if they already got certain bonuses on leg 1, are they off the table for leg 2 (i.e. they can't get them a second time)?

Yes, cutie pants. All the bonuses are available all three legs. You could get the same one each leg. But they don't know the value until THAT leg. Make sense?

 

[RenoJohn]

Here's a listing of the FJR riders. It's sorted by Year Ascending.

Really awesome. How are those riders who choose the Gen3 doing?

 

[Dan S]

I think they know the point value for all the bonii but not the multiplier for a string conbination.

But aren't there always some sucker bonii?

 

[danalipps]

The point value changes each leg so they know the locations but not what the value will be. And as we found out, the strings change

 

[Ignacio]

But aren't there always some sucker bonii?

I can't say for sure since I don't know the points and the bonus details, but competing against and riding in rallies created by Jeff Earls--he's not a sucker bonus kind of guy IMO.

Assuming that though, I can still imagine riders going to bonuses that require more time investment than they guessed (i.e. a hike besides riding to something, a bonus on a dead-end road that they thought had two ways to get to it, etc.) and calling it a sucker bonus after the fact. I guess it could depend on your definition.

To me a sucker bonus is an obvious one like in 2007 or 2009 there was a bonus that instantly grabbed your attention because it was worth a 1,000,000 points to have a picture of something with your motorcycle in it. It's when you see that the location was in Hawaii and anybody that actually start Googling air shipping details....fell for the sucker bonus.

Then again, if we see an icon or two head to the tip of Florida or somewhere in Alaska (particularly on the final leg)....then I could be all wet.

 

[JohnF]

JohnF posted: Does anyone know what the riders are seeing that shows them 1.) what category the bonus location fits under .... <snip>

JohnF, look at the Day 2 summary here. There's an small excerpt from the bonus packet .

The bonus code is "APC", for "Air - Prairie Chicken", most likely. I'll assume other animals have other codes: Air, Land, Water, and Mythical, perhaps.

The excerpt goes on to show that bonus "APC" is located near I-94, exit 38 south, Rothsay, MN, at GPS coordinates 46.4814 / -96.2816. There's also the time window when this bonus can be claimed: 1400 hours, June 26, 2017. Show up 5 minutes late and you'll miss the photo and 1,203 points -- just like the Boge family did.

You can enter those GPS coordinates into Google Maps, hit Street View, and see the World's Largest Prairie Chicken yourself, though not as well as in the Day 2 summary.

My technique is to use shapes/colors to represent point value -- gold stars having the highest values, of course -- but that only works since the Big Money Rally has fixed point values for each category. You plan your route to hit the time-limited spots when they're open (don't leave that to chance) and the daylight ones in the daylight.

Once you start riding, there's not much you can do except ride your plan. Adding bonuses into a well-planned route is a rare occurrence.

<edit 5 mins later> I see Hello Kitty has the same lines of thought. I'm a very amateur rallyer, flattered to be considered a kid, and use Google Maps to plan. The final route can be converted to GPX and stuffed into a Garmin, but I just bring it up on my iPhone (Google Maps App) and follow the blue line across the southeastern US. Since I have to stop at each bonus for a photo, it does just fine for my point-to-point navigation.

FYI...I have ridden in over 45 LD rallies (2-IBR's), so I have a little concept of what goes on. The new twist in this rally is the introduction of a 3rd variable ( category). You and the dear Miss Kitty have both guessed that the first letter might be the code for what category. I had the same thought...but do not KNOW as fact. That might make the laying out a map to lay out a route a little easier. Another variable, is the riders can go to ANY bonus (except maybe a leg specific bonus like the group photo) during any leg. Kicker there is the rider may not know what the point value is for that bonus ( leg one some values given, leg two more bonus site values given, and assuming for the big leg 3 ALL point values will be known. If you are just trying to get some needed bonus capture to bag a super high point bonus for the 3rd in the string, not too big a deal. So I guess the thought process there is, "choose an unknown point value bonus wisely."

Yes, one could use all the icons available on whatever mapping program they use to get a visual. But it would not be "clean/neat" With two variables in my primary method that I use, I know when I look at a map and see a Green Square, it is a High point bonus site available 24hrs. I would have to have a cheat sheet to remember all what icons that I used to cover all the possible type bonus location. That is probably the issue riders are dealing with, most probably had to come up with an entire different way to lay out their planning map. Some see the solution quickly, while others are a little slower to retrain. IF the first letter of the bonus code is the category, the rider then has to have the information box open to see that. A laptop screen with 325 bonus locations showing with the information box open is not very useful. Not much map to see. Obviously many of the World's Toughest Riders are figuring it out.

I think I'll just go for and all day ride tomorrow!

JEF