2009 Iron Butt Rally... on a 33 year old rotary Suzuki

[nantahala]

I'm swamped at work now... two trials scheduled for this morning alone!

I'll go ahead and nominate this for a Buzzkill of the Year award.

[Slonishku]

The first moments of the rally were high adventure for me. The RE5 was running great, all systems seemed go. I had puched my first few waypoints into the Garmin to form a morning route. The first stop for most all riders was the BMW headquarters near Spartanburg. The actual bonus, not available until 10:30 am, was to take a photograph of "Amigo", an old BMW R60 that was the first motorcycle ridden all the way through South America, INCLUDING the Darrien Gap. It was righ there in the lobby of the visitors center. Barry and I were the first two bikes out the gate, followed a few minutes later by the rest of the filed. En route to the bonus, Barry mysteriously peeled away from me at a freeway exit not indicated on my GPS. I knew he was going to that bonus, so WTF?

It turns out that my GPS had decided to skip all the intermediate waypoints and head straight for the one I had scheduled for the end of the day. Grrr. A quick shuffling of exits got me back on track. I arrived just after Barry, and we were the only ones there. As we tried to figure out where to park, our head start was blown- the whole field suddenly descended on us like a swarm of locusts!

We all ran into the visitor's center and scrambked to get our rally flags positioned in front of Amigo for the shot. As you can imagine, it was a mob scene of modular helmets, cameras, Roadcrafters, and rally flags. I finally got to the front, snapped the picture, and was out on my way again. Lisa and Mike were already there, too. We exchanged a few words before I got back on my bike.

My strategy for this leg was to ride conservatively and figure out just how well the RE5 was going to do. It turned out the RE5 was happy to do what I asked of it. Cruising down the highway towards Atlanta, the RE5 was purring like a top, happy to cruise right along at 75mph without complaint. The day was beautiful, and things were going just fine.

[Slonishku]

While travelling toward two bonii (about 200 points each) that lay just east of Atlanta, I decided to bypass them to give myself a nice time cushion for the day. That turned out to be a good thing later in the day. Instead, I started heading for a series of bonii that lay to the northwest of Atlanta. A few hours into this route and my confidence in the RE5 was growing. By midafternoon, signs of my first mechanical problem began to pop up.

The oil filter on the RE5 sticks out of the right side of the motor, slightly above and ahead of the riders right foot. At some point, I happened to glance down at it and saw a single drop of oil fling off. Great. I observed that a drop of oil was coming off every 20 seconds or so. It was almost time to get gas anyway, so I added a filter inspection to the gas stop list. I couldn't see anything wrong with the filter itself, just an accumulation of oil on the inderside. I was able to torque it down a bit tighter by hand (with a lot of effort). Hoping that would fix it (and due to the fact that I was in a pretty small town), I continued on and hoped for the best. Once on the road, I saw the leak was still going. within 20 minutes, it was really picking up speed- a drop every couple of seconds. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere I was on the verge of a serious problem. I forgot that I had a spare filter in the saddle bag (D'oh!) and was getting pretty nervous.

A check of the Garmin showed no services along my route for another 40 miles. I was on a two lane windy little back road and not feeling very good. An area search showed an Autozone anout 25 miles  off my route down an even smaller backroad. It was what I had to do. I made it there just fine, and set to work in the parking lot. It turns out that the high-end K&N race filter was leaking, apparently along the tin-can sort of seal at the baser of the filter. I found no flaws in the gasket or anywhere else. I put a regular Fram filter in place, topped off the oil, and was underway again. After an hour of close observation, I was satisfied that the leak was no more.

[Tony T]

 

[Slonishku]

After picking up a bonus near Rome, GA, I began heading across the NE corner of Alabama toward Hohenwald, Tennessee and my next bonus which lay SW of Nashillve along Hwy 100. I was already feeling pretty blah about the plain 'ol water in my Camelback, and decided it would be a great idea to dump a single small bottle of Gatorade in the water, mostly for flavor. At the time, I was pretty glad I did. After doing so, I had laid on the ground for a second to check that the oil leak was indeed over. While doing do, some of the Gatorade water squirted out of the drinking tube and got all over the right shoulder and upper chest of my 'Stich. No biggie, this thing was going to get filthy anyway.

The bonus was a daylight only bonus- a photo of the Meriwether Lewis memorial column. This was the scene of the fatal shooting of Meriwether Lewis under unexplained circumstances.

The broken column, representing the life of Lewis, cut short.
When I looked more closely at this photo, the mysterious disappearance of my Windex Wipes was explained...


It was quiet here- no one around. It was late afternoon, and there were gigantic wasps of some sort going back and forth, in and out of the nearby treeline. Pretty quickly, they began buzzing closer and closer to me, so I picked up the pack of recording my bonus information. Before I was done, a fellow rider pulled up. After a few quick words, I was getting desperate to leave- what did these Hell Wasps want form me? Then it hit me- the Gatorade on the Stich. Time to go!

Somewhere in Northern Tennessee... A sure sign that you're in the South:


My next bonus was only available from 9-4, and was located about 100 miles away near Bowling Green, KY. The bonus involved buying a postcard from a bank. In the bank, there is a mural of Jesse James and crew robbing that bank back in 1868. The postcard has a photo of that mural on it.  Because of the significant number of points (511) and my desire to take it relatively easy on the first couple of days, I decided to grab a room about a mile from the bank in Russelville and be there when they openned up in the morning. Day one complete with no major disasters.

[Slonishku]

Side note: during the Iron Butt Rally, stay focused on the task at hand. Here in Russelville, I got worried about leaving all my gear on the bike overnight. I made the mistake of buring up significant time and energy unpacking the bike, firing up my computer to second guess my route plan, then repacking the bike in the morning. It took longer than expected to repack, and I didn't get to the bank until 20 minutes after they openned. Not a huge failure, but really NOT the way to be doing things during the IBR. I could have gotten a very full night's sleep. Instead, I was digging through gear and worrying about stuff that didn't matter. Not smart.

This was the first installment on a lesson set that would be driven home throughout the IBR for me: Pack efficiently. Don't take shit you don't need. Pack in such a way that you can walk away from the bike and not be worried about bandits stealing your gear.

[Slonishku]

Day two was probably my favorite day of the rally. I had an absolute ball. Prior to that day, I'd never been to Kentucky (other than my arrival the night before), West Virginia, or Ohio. On this day, I'd see a lot of all three, and I was jazzed.

I headed to the BB&T Bank in Russelville (about a mile from the hotel) and bought the postcard for a dollar. Kudos to Lisa- she made the bank charge us $1 for them. They're usually free. I was glad we were paying for them, and hopefully leaving these folks with a positive impression of all the power ranger looking freaks who barged through just to grab a postcard. Quite a few other riders had been through the prior afternoon, and the bank manager popped out to say "I shoulda made all you guys open a savings account to get one of those postcards!". I told him every one of us just might have done it!

My next bonus was on the opposite side of Kentucky. Harlan, KY is in the SE part of the state, right up close to the three state intersection of KY, VA, and WV. It's in mining country.

Kudzu in da house!


En route to Harlan, my second minor dink happenned, and this one really sucked. I went to click on my throttle lock and (dammit!) the flippin' thing was gone. Apparently it had recently just fallen off the throttle. That sucked for the remainder of the RE5's time in the rally. I hit a couple of bike shops along the route to look for a replacement, but could only find a crampbuster. Better than nothing, but only by a little bit. Crampbusters are, to me, a big fat pain in the butt. At Harlan, I got a photo of the Harlan County Courthouse, the sight of labor unrest and a shooting involving coal miners. Harlan and the rest of my daylight locations were all in coal mining country. The scenery, windy backroads, and weather were all absolutely gorgeous. Several folks had muttered about the roads for these bonii being "to remote and windy. Whatever! I earned my spurs riding the Cal24, and this is the stuff I can't get enough of. I was beyond happy.

[Slonishku]

Next up: McCarr, KY. A remote little town right on the West Virginia border. What a cool bonus: the sight of the 1882 outbreak of the long lived and famous Hatfield and McCoy family feud. From there, I continued on across the nearby river into West Virginia. The geography remained the same: mountainous, heavily wooded, crisscrossed by small streams. Roads remained well maintained and full of twisties. Large open fields, where they showed themselves, were entirely blanketed under deep layers of kudzu vines.

The RE5 and Chili in McCarr, KY:



The next stop was adjacent to another BB&T Bank. This time in the mining colony of Matewan, WV. Here, Police Chief Hatfield and his po-po lead a shootout with coal company detectives and coal miners attempting to unionize in 1920. Bullet holes were sill there to be seen in the brick walls of one of the area buildings.

As darkness settled in, I was en route to Ohio. I noticed that an easy (but low value) bonus lay close by the freeway in Charleston, WV and decided I could use a stop. A quick diversion would do me good. For a whopping 162 points, I went to the Charleston Child Enrichment Center. Not in the best of neighborhoods, there might have been better places to stop at night to take photos. The story of this bonus location is pretty funny, and worth reading if you've downloaded the Leg One Bonus Listing from the IBA website.

It was getting late, so I plodded on to my final bonus for the day in Calcutta, OH which was available anytime. That would set me up nicely to head to East Liverpool, a short drive away, to get a room, and be ready for my next bonus to open at 9am.

That was the plan... until the Blair Witch herself scared me worse than I could have ever imagined.

[jwhite518]

People complained about remote and windy roads on this rally? Sheesh. I guess we just have the Cal 24 spirit.

BTW, you barely missed me at that bank. I was there early that morning on Day 2. The bank employees gave us the postcards free before the bank even opened. We hung around until 9 and then skipped out.

Am enjoying your report..keep it coming.

[EricJ]

Killer report!  

[DNA]

More please.
 

[Slonishku]

People complained about remote and windy roads on this rally? Sheesh. I guess we just have the Cal 24 spirit.

BTW, you barely missed me at that bank. I was there early that morning on Day 2. The bank employees gave us the postcards free before the bank even opened. We hung around until 9 and then skipped out.

Am enjoying your report..keep it coming.

Jerry-

Sorry I missed you there! One thing I would have liked more of on this rally would have been to see my fellow riders in passing. I got pretty far behind the curve, though. If I had been on time that morning, I'd havbe been good to go!

And yeah, I just don't get the aversion to the winding roads. Nothing breaks up the monotony of long interstate hours like a handful of daytime twisites!

[Slonishku]

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the Blair Witch, but it sure seemed like it. Here's the story.

Heading up to Calcutta, OH in the middle of the night was an extremely interesting ride for me. Having never been in this part of the country for me, the drive was especially interesting at night. The closer I got to Canton, OH, the more heavily industrialized things became. I was very dark, but there were lights everywhere, mostly yellow sodium lamps. To my right was a big canal with occasional barge trains and locks. Everywhere were massive structures like nuclear cooling towers, giant terraced structures that reminded me of oil rigs. These sorts of things were everywhere. Occasionally I'd pass through an old worn-out looking light commercial/ residential areas that smacked of Flint, Michigan. It was all pretty eerie as it was. But the truly eerie thing was this: I didn't see another human being the entire time. Not another moving car, not a person, except for one guy I could just make out topside of a barge in the canal. That was it. And it was all pretty post-apocalyptic and weird.

There was significant cloud cover, with some very low hanging clouds. At one point I saw some sort of monstrous glowing thing of unimaginable proportions that appeared to be floating in the sky a mile or so in front of me. At the time, the roadway was curving around a bit and some bare trees were blocking the view here and there. It turned out that it was a pair of the aforementioned cooling towers which were partially obscured by clouds, making them seem bigger than they were (although still huge).

At this point, I was already feeling a little Twilight-Zone-ish.

[Slonishku]

As I got to Calcutta, it seemd like I had moved into more of a small town setting. As I rode through, I still saw not a soul. I started thinking of things like the dead world of Stephen King's "The Stand". Given, it was after midnight on a weekday, but it was odd.

I knew the bonus I was seeking was to take a photo of a historical marker. I hadn't read the bonus write-up much beyond that. The GPS was guiding me right to it, and that was all I needed right then. Then things went full on Blair Witch.

If you haven't read carol and Jeff's ride report yet, do. It's a really good write-up. I'm especially happy that they visited this particular bonus location shortly before I did and confirmed how wierd the road there was in the middle of the night.

The closer I got to the bonus, the stranger the road got. I went from being in a smallish, but still urban town to very suddenly feeling like I was in some remote woods. The area was blanketed in a thck, ground hugging fog, a-la some werewolf film. The sky was black from the cloud cover. I hadn't seen another person since that one guy on the barges 30 or 40 minutes before. The occasional speed limit sign read 45mph, but I doubt many folks could have made better than 30 or so in the daylight. I was having a bitch of a time keeping up to 25mph, so I slowed up to between 15 and 25. The road was very hilly and really twisty, but not in a good way. The road had a lot of patch repairs, many of the curves were way off camber. Many were of the decreasing radius ilk, and the majority of the road was distinctly crowned. There were a couple of bridges, one of which was a tiny wooden affair that I thought might have been a footbridge. As I came around one turn, a flashlight swept the road from about 50 feet off to the left of the road. I couldn't see who was wielding the light, but it freaked me the F out. I'm not kidding. It spooked me so bad I think I might have actually yelped inside my helmet. All this drawn out freaky shit was just piling up too deep, and that flashlight added a Deliverance flair to the Blair witch, Werewolves of London, The Stand, Friday The 13th crap that already had me feeling strange.

[Slonishku]

Up until I was that light, I had hoped that the marker I was looking for would be around the next turn. Now I wanted a good mile or two, at a minimum, between the mystery light and where I'd be stopping for the bonus. Screw me though- the marker was about 1/3 of a mile away. I was all kinds of freaked out as I pulled my bike over into a grassy clearing with the marker just off the road. It was seriously pitch blak out- not a light to be seen. The air was thick with the sound of frogs croaking. The clearing was surrounded by what looked like thick woods. I wanted to snap the photo and get the hell out of Dodge. Moving as quickly as I could, I got my camera, rally flag, and flashlight out. I threw the flag over the fucking marker and snapped the photo. As the flash went off, I saw a single work that jumped out from the marker: DEATH. I almost passed out.

I was frantically sweeping my flashlight about to figure out where the good ol' boys, zombies, or werewolves were approaching from... always just out of the light of my flashlight. I was scrambling to record the necessary info on my bonus sheet and saw what the marker was- the death scene of Pretty Boy Floyd. Perfect. I crammed everything back in my tank bag, didn't bother putting my floves on, and got the hell out of there. Just after I passed the spot where the phantom flashlight was, I was still spooked, but coming down. It was then that I though "Crap... I left my rally flag back there!" Followed immediately by "Screw it. The Blair witch can have the damned thing. No way in hell I'm going back there."

Possibly worth mentioning, purely to make a point and certainly not to toot my own horn, is this. I just came back from Afghanistan. I was a convoy gunner in the most deadly province in Afghanistan or Iraq, and I saw some scary stuff. I came home with a Bronze Star Medal, and was never truly, deeply terrified. No phantoms there- just honest to goodness bad guys who wanted, and tried, to kill me. But there was no way I was going back for that damned rally flag. Uh uh. No way.

[Slonishku]

As I drew closer to the town of Calcutta, I had calmed down quite a bit, but I was still on edge. My heart felt like it was an over-inflated basketball being attacked from the inside by a crack monkey with a hammer. BOOM BOOM BOOM.

As soon as I got into the town, I saw a nice looking hotel. A Best Western or some such place tucked in the trees, and went straight inside. On arrival, I noticed my exhaust was very, very loud. Standing at the desk checking in, I was still a little shaky. It turned out several other riders were there, long since asleep the clerk mentioned. I gave her a very watered-down account about how I had just been "spooked a little" at that Pretty Boy Floyed marker up the road. She mentioned that some kids were camping right near there. It struck me that they probably heard me a mile away with my exhaust doing what it was. It might have even scared thema bit, woken them up, and made them shine a flashlight at the douchebag on a bike trying to wake the dead at 1am.

I went to my room, took off my gear, and took a hot bath. And good god, did it feel wonderful. Then, blissfully, four hours of sleep.

When I woke up in the early morning, I got up and rearranged my gear. I had completely skipped my pre-departure check (Helmet, gloves, earphones in, rally flag stowed, camera stowed, inkpen in place, etc) before leaving the DEATH scene. As I rearranged my gear, I found my rally flag in my 'stich. "Ha!" I thought. Alex 1, Blair Witch/ Jason/ Bella Lugosi ZERO!

To boot, my exhaust pipes were a bit loose. One of the header bolts seemed to be stripped, and there was an exhaust leak, accounting for the loudness. I got it snugged up the best I could.

A quick snack of (yay) Cliff Bar, a bit of gasoline at the nearby gas station, and I was on my way to the Sturgis Hotel for my first bonus of the day.

[Tyrroneous]

This is good a good report!  The blair witch stuff had me   .

[mxvet57]

when Alex got to the St. Charles check point that was one of the things he was telling us about.  

if it was me i would on been scared as hell to.

good write up. keep it coming.

Alex, has Tony been in touch with you about the RE5? if you need to get it out of there storing it at my house or Tony,s wouldn't be a problem.
I've got a trailer and picking it up wouldn't be a problem.

[jfremder]

If you haven't read carol and Jeff's ride report yet, do. It's a really good write-up. I'm especially happy that they visited this particular bonus location shortly before I did and confirmed how wierd the road there was in the middle of the night.

The closer I got to the bonus, the stranger the road got. I went from being in a smallish, but still urban town to very suddenly feeling like I was in some remote woods. The area was blanketed in a thck, ground hugging fog, a-la some werewolf film. The sky was black from the cloud cover. I hadn't seen another person since that one guy on the barges 30 or 40 minutes before. The occasional speed limit sign read 45mph, but I doubt many folks could have made better than 30 or so in the daylight. I was having a bitch of a time keeping up to 25mph, so I slowed up to between 15 and 25. The road was very hilly and really twisty, but not in a good way. The road had a lot of patch repairs, many of the curves were way off camber. Many were of the decreasing radius ilk, and the majority of the road was distinctly crowned. There were a couple of bridges, one of which was a tiny wooden affair that I thought might have been a footbridge. As I came around one turn, a flashlight swept the road from about 50 feet off to the left of the road. I couldn't see who was wielding the light, but it freaked me the F out. I'm not kidding. It spooked me so bad I think I might have actually yelped inside my helmet. All this drawn out freaky shit was just piling up too deep, and that flashlight added a Deliverance flair to the Blair witch, Werewolves of London, The Stand, Friday The 13th crap that already had me feeling strange.

ALex-
Ohh MY GOSH!!! this describes our experience to a TEE. Those road were fierce and scarey at night. Thirty mph rated cuves, and I was scraping hard parts at 15mph

Thanks for helping me relive it all. I screamed at the bridge too!

Jeff + Carol

[Slonishku]

Day three of the rally began very well. I was somewhat rested, and the weather was, once again, perfect. Not too hot, dry, and clear. I stopped by the Sturgis bed and breakfast to buy a keychain. I hadn't read the directions too thoroughly, though. The bonus required the purchase of a key fob from the B&B as well as a photo. The photo made me laugh- we were to get a photo of the death mask of Pretty Boy Floyd, which this place had in the basement. One of the staff escorted me down into the basement and there it was- an actual plaster cast of PBF's face. The basement of this place was COMPLETELY unrefined. Just a dank old basement with unpainted walls stained with mineral deposits. The death mask was in a plain wooden plank frame hung right above a washing machine. I laughed a little because this mask, the night before, would have only added to my terror. Now, the only thoughts I had about it concerned how it was in such an odd and unimportant spot.

With photo and key fob secured, I was off. I would be heading for the checkpoint, and intended to get there by 5pm to allow time to get bike maintenance and scoring done with plenty of time to rest up. My plan was to pick up a numbewr of smaller bonii thay lay roughly along a direct route to St. Charles, which would keep me rougly on track for the suggested Leg 1 point total without pushing anything too hard.

After getting on to I-80 to start heading west, all seemed fine. I had picked up an EZ-Pass for the toll roads in the northeastern states, and was looking forward to taking advantage of it that day. As I approached the first toll booth to obtain a toll ticket, I noticed that my exhaust was sounding king of loud. Keep in mind, this was while I was travelling at about 70mph and listening to my XM radio through a set if Etymotic ER-6i headphone earplugs. As I pulled into the tool booth itself, the noise was deafening, even with the Etymotics in place. This wasn't good.

About a mile later, I pulled over on the side of the turnpike. I figured the loose bolts from the previous night had worked loose again and would need to be tightened. I got off the bike and laid on the ground for a good look and... holy crap. The right side exhaust pipe was completely off the motor. Both exhause header bolts were flat out GONE. The only thing holding the pipe on the bike was the rear footpeg retaining bolt. The exhaust port was completely open to the outside, entirely unobstructed by the pipe, which was cool to the touch. A look at the other pipe on the other side revealed that one of the exhause bolts was gone. The second one was almost etirely free of the motor, barely suspending the front of the pipe near the exhaust port. The fronbt of the pipe was warm, but the rest was cool- no appreciable amount of exhaust was flowing through it. Overall assesment: Not good.

I went to work with a bunch of safety wire and safety wire pliers. Luck for me, a section of the bike's frame ran parallel and close to the proper location of the pipes, giving me a good solid thing to bind the pipes to. I got the roadside bit done, then headed down the road to the nearest Home Depot. Overal three seperate trips into the store and three wrenching sessions in the parking lot, I found out that no bolt was going to do the trick, as all four bolt holes in the exhaust header were stripped. I ended up getting a pair of steel hose clamps and using them to augment the safety wire bindings. That did the trick as best it could be done. I still had exhaust leaks, but they were relatively minor at this point, and the thundering of the rotary motor was contained.

Back on the road, I decided to cut at least one of the smaller bonii out to make up for lost time and still get in just a little later than planned. I have an XM weather option on my GPS which shows a doppler radar image of precipitation, updated every 15 minutes. A quick glance showed me that there was a little skattered rain on either side of my route ahead, but not much. With each successive update, that radar picture got worse and worse. Before long, I was comparing the depicted rain on the GPS to the storm clouds brewing in front of me. Then I hit that wave of cool ait that tells you the rain is here. Without a lot of transition time, the weather went from dry with a heavy overcast to pouring rain. At that point, I decided to blow off the bonii between Michigan and Chicago. As we had been told at the pre-rally meeting, best not to wear yourself out on the relatively small bonii on the first leg. Save your energies for the later stages.

After a coule of hours, the rain subsided. Good timing too, as this was when Chicago traffic was starting up. The RE5, with it's 70's tech solid brake rotors isn't a stellar wet-weather braking machine. Traffic into Chicago around 5pm, predictably, sucked.

THere's an odd phenomenon that I have noticed at each Cal24 rally I've done, and came to notice at each stage of the IBR, too. I am usually able to manage the eventual discomfort of any long distance event pretty well. Sure, there are aches and pains. There are times when the seat kinda hurts, or knees are beggin to be stretched out or repositioned. There are times when earplugs or earphones really sting. But it's all relatively minor and bearable. But in the final miles of each leg of this rally- the last 30 or 40 miles- my level of discomfort shot through the roof. I'm sure it's mostly a mental thing, but holy crap. As I was approaching the checkpoint in St. Charles, I could barely bear being on the bike. My knees were on fire. My wrists were aching. My ass felt like I had sat on a fast running belt sander and sprayed with lemon juice. My feet felt like they were in a steam cooker. My ear canals were raw and stinging. And I was tired. Pulling in to the parking lot at the Pheasnat Run Resort. I couldn't wait to be off the bike. I could see a few bikes to my right as I pulled into the parking lot. There were a lot of trees in the lot, so I wasn't sure how to get there. Someone was standing by, welcomed me there and did the airport runway worker style sweeping two hand point to the right, guiding me in. As I approached the mass of people and bikes in the lot, about 30 people or so began cheering and applauding. Wow! Now that was pretty cool! I though all the riders were greeted in the same fashion, but soon realized that the amazing welcome was for me! I had a cheering section! I pulled up, dropped the kickstand, and peeled myself off the bike. I was surrounded by a crowd of a couple of dozen people, all beaming at me. What a reception! Soon, I had met half a dozen S-T.ners who had come out to see the sights. At least four of them came out to specifically help me get the RE5 ready for Stage 2.

I grabbed the necessary gear and headed right to check-in, then grabbed some hot food which was laid out for the riders, then went in to do scoring. I wanted to get scoring done quickly, as I knew a flood of riders would be there soon. I got through scoring pretty quickly, and came up a couple of thousand points below the suggested 9,000 points to be tracking for finisher status. A lot of that was due to an intentionally conservative ride plan for the leg, compounded by my decisions to blow off bonii near Atlanta and, later, in the final stretch into St. Charles. I wasn't too concerned at that point, as the point values increase dramatically for each leg.

The pit crew got to work on the bike as soon as I was back to the bike. Rally rules, as of this year, require the rider to be there whenever any work is done on the bike. The point it to prevent overmuch "team" involvement. This way, a rider doesn't go to sleep while a crew works on his bike all night, giving him an advantage over riders without such a crew.

In any case, my STN crew jumped right in- changing oil, driving to get parts, and trying really hard to get the exhaust headers fixed. Because I had run into some electrical issues before (my bad farkle wiring), I was trying to wire in a new cigarette lighter type socket along with everything else that was going on.

It was dark before we finished. Tony-T and Fourstring had brought fresh banannas, cliff bars, ensure, and other goodies to restock me for the next leg. I ran up to my room to shuffle my gear around and plug in all my rechargeables- my laptop, phone, J&M Integratr, and iPod (which remained unused for the entire rally).

Before going to sleep, I set up my maps, highlighters, and laptop to be ready to go in the morning. I finally collapsed, much later than planned. But not for long.

At 4am, the riders meeting for Leg 2 was on. I got up at 3:45 and headed down. There was a breakfast buffet there for us. The meeting ended around 4:15, and I was back up in my room, reading the rally pack, and furiously planning my route.