If At First You Don’t Succeed….

            The dream always starts the same.  I am riding to a bonus during a rally.   I can see the lighthouse on the horizon, but I never get there.  Time is slipping away.  I need to catch a ferry, but I have to get to the lighthouse.  But I never do.  The lighthouse fades into dreamland and the dream goes on to something else. 

            Its’ been nearly two years now and the dream doesn’t visit as often as it once did.  One lighthouse.  One lighthouse between first and second.  So close but in reality, not close at all.  Even in my waking hours, the lighthouse seemed to visit.  In December, ’05 I was shopping for calendars for holiday gifts.  As I browsed the calendars, there it was.  A lighthouse calendar with the Currituck Lighthouse glaring back at me.  Mocking me.  There it was.  The Currituck Lighthouse bonus I failed to collect during the 2005 Iron Butt Rally that cost me a chance to win. 

            Time passes, memories fade.  It all seems so easy now.  I only needed to pick up that bonus and have a leisurely ride to the finish.  No memories of pain and fatigue remain.

            I have spent many hours over the past two years analyzing every part of my ride in 2005.  I listed every mistake I made and worked hard to make sure those mistakes would not be repeated.  I had several serious mental mistakes, but also 3 significant equipment failures.   The equipment failures were the easiest to fix. 

            The Autocomm system I had used reliably for years, failed miserably.  After getting home, I purchased another Autocomm, but never installed it.  After wrangling about it for nearly a year, I switched over to a J&M system.  This has two advantages over the Autocomm.  The J&M allows me to use soft ear plugs rather than the powered ear monitors I had been using.  When the monitors did not fit just right, hours of ear pain were sure to follow.  I was also now CB capable and completely waterproof.  Torrential rain had done in the Autocomm in 2005, when the audio splitter became rain soaked during the final leg.

            My aging and trusty Street Pilot III had let me down in 2005 when it got stuck in a GPS loop outside Boston.  This cost me nearly an hour at a crucial time during the Rally.  I replaced the unit with a new Garmin 2820.  This has numerous advantages over the old unit.  I can now use it as an XM receiver for music, traffic and weather.  The old XM receiver (not waterproof) was removed from the bike.  The 2820 also has faster routing and no maps to upload.  Most importantly, the new unit is GPSU compatible.  This simple feature allows routes and bonuses to be directly uploaded into the unit from popular routing software.  This feature would have saved me around 4 hours in 2005. 

            My high beam light of choice in 2005 was the Piaa 910.  These are powerful lights that have been the standard of the long distance riding community for years.  There main drawback was the difficulty in aiming them accurately for optimum performance.  Using them with an Aeroflow windshield also produces tremendous glare up through the windshield at night.  In 2005, I used a shielding cowl to solve this problem, but the cowls failed early in the Rally, rendering the 910’s useless. 

            For 2007, I have dumped the Piaa’s and switched to the Phillips HID lights for my high beam light.  However, I still had the problem with the glare coming from the lights and up through the windshield.  Enter Roger Sinclair.  Roger had prepped my bike in 2005 and has again in 2007.  Roger came up with a simple but bombproof system to shield the PHID’s from the windshield. One afternoon in his shop was all it took to solve the problem. 

            For those that do not know Roger, he is quickly becoming known in the long distance community for his mechanical and electrical abilities.  Roger is an electrical engineer by trade, but also a top flight mechanic.  He does everything by the book.  Every bolt is torqued exactly to manufacturer specifications.  He leaves nothing to chance.  For this Rally, he has gone over my bike from top to bottom.  As the miles have piled up on the GS, I became increasingly worried about the rear drive, a notorious problem for BMW’s.  Roger examined the rear drive from every possible angle and has pronounced it fit.  Anything can happen during a rally, but I feel pretty confident at this point.

            Unfortunately, Roger is so good, several other riders in this year’s Rally have also used him to work on their bike.  He has been swamped with business.  If you are interested in him working on your bike, you can reach him at Theirishspanner@comcast.net. 

          Roger Sinclair "The Irish Spanner"

            I made some other minor changes, including switching from an inner rain lining to an outer rain shell.  The equipment fixes were the easy ones.  Earlier this year I started working on the mental failures.  The number one failure came in routing on the first leg.  I was determined to not make this mistake again.  I developed a routing system to choose high point routes in a minimal amount of time.  Testing the system was obviously problematic.  The Iron Butt Association provided a perfect testing ground. 

            I began downloading every bonus list from every previous Iron Butt Rally.  I printed every set of bonus locations and went to work.  Over the next several months I began working through the legs.  I timed myself as I opened every packet.  Once I thought I had the route I would ride, I would then grade the route against the routes actually run by the top riders for that leg.  The more I did it, the easier it got.  And the better and quicker I got.  I also gained confidence in the route I was selecting.  Whatever route I run in 2007 may not be the winning route, but I feel the chances of me committing the same routing blunder I did in 2005 have been greatly diminished.

            The other major mental hurdle to overcome for 2007 was the desire to compete.  In 2005, the desire was strong and the drive to succeed pushed me through the Rally.  I had told Nancy and other close friends that if I thought I could not successfully compete, I would not ride the Rally.  The costs and risks are just too great.  Everyone rides in the Iron Butt Rally for their own reasons and no one reason is more important than any other.  Many ride for charity, many to test themselves and try to finish.  I ride for the competition.  Once again, I want to ride against the best in the world. 

            With only a few days to go before the start, I feel as ready as I can be.  If this Rally is anything like the last, the upcoming weekend will be a blur of activity.  After months of preparation, the start of the Rally will be a welcome relief.  Nancy will be updating these pages from her perspective.  Hopefully my whining and complaining will not be too overwhelming.  If it does, then I am sure she will let you know.  I know she will let me know when it does.  We are going to see very shortly if there is any room for improvement.

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