2015 Iron Butt Rally

Thanks Shuey for the "expert analysis" and commentary from an insider to the big dance!

I like how Warchild salutes Al Holtsberry during the start...

Thanks Shuey I got the finisher part whatI was trying to get my head around wsa just waht was going to be included National Parks or were they expanding that to National monuments etc.

It's interesting seeing the diversity of routes unfold.

I'll be interested to see how the riders heading East and south come out in the rankings at the end of this first leg. Specially the two that headed south to Big Bend NP in Texas. In past IBRs the point values increased by big jumps for each leg. Heading South, they passed up a string of parks heading West across southern Utah and like many of the riders ran, another line of parks up through Califoirnia, with a swing back through Colorado on the way back to Albuquerque. Points east would seem to be better handled while heading east to Kingsport and probably for more points than they are this leg.

Time will tell.

Shuey

Whenever someone tells me I'm "hard core" because I ride long distances, I say no, I'm not hard core. People who finish an Iron Butt Rally are hard core.

:bow1:

Someone is spending a whole bunch of time in TX. Wondering if there is a points bump for scooping up all the particular boni in a single state...

smunderdog said:

Someone is spending a whole bunch of time in TX. Wondering if there is a points bump for scooping up all the particular boni in a single state...

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I've been wondering the same thing. Maybe he/she is going to ride the coast and hit all of the National parks along the way, then swing through some of the smaller states?? All the people riding west and north are riding through BIG States. More miles to cover each State. You have to draw a north-south line just about through the great lakes to split the country 50-50 on State count....

Do we know where the first check point is? All I've been able to find is they start and end the rally in Albuquerque.

First CP is back in Albuquerque, Second is Kingsport TN. then its back to NM for the finish.

http://www.ironbuttrally.com/IBR/2015/Day2.pdf

Day 2!

I believe that Eric Jewell is on an ST1300.

It's fascinating watching the strategy. For example one rider has been in Choteau, MT for a number of hours. I suspect the rider is taking an early rest stop, and will ride in the late night hours when it's cooler and scoop up some serious miles.

Shuey said:

For those who haven't read the Day 2 report . . . spoiler alert.

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Shuey,
A few quick questions that were suggestively answered in the day's reports but were not explicit for a newbie to the IBR (me).

Am I correct that the various numbers representing each rider are scrambled each time I refresh my screen to prevent us from ID'ing one rider and figuring out his strategy? So, unless I stay glued to the computer and watch a single SPOT' near, say Austin, TX trying to follow one particular numbered SPOT is useless? (I.e., I cannot keep looking for say, 119 because that number will rotate through various riders.)

The Day 2 report mentioned the people in Alb. NM are watching for speeders? So a participant cannot make up for lost time by doing what these bikes do so well on lightly traveled roads in rural areas (exceed the speed limit)? How fast can they go before the IBA penalizes them?

If a rider refused to carry a SPOT beacon and allow himself to be tracked he is docked points or gets lower bonus's for the same bonus location a SPOT equipped rider would get?

What do the yellow and green SPOT flags indicate? Iirc, one was a resting bike (not traveling). Which one? Whats the other?

Thanks.

Peter

yes, the spot ID no. get scrambled. having a SPOT is not mandatory but they say the points for doing it is very compelling. The IBR rules have historically used this tactic. eg. A rest stop is not mandatory but 1 point per minute for a rest stop between 4 and 8 hours will bag more points than a rider will be able to collect riding for that same amount of time.

We've no idea what the IBR staff consider "excessive speed". This year year is the first I recall that they have openly talked about this. This year the info available to us spectators seems better than in recent events. Normally the IBR keeps a very low profile.

SMSW said:

Shuey,
A few quick questions that were suggestively answered in the day's reports but were not explicit for a newbie to the IBR (me).

Am I correct that the various numbers representing each rider are scrambled each time I refresh my screen to prevent us from ID'ing one rider and figuring out his strategy? So, unless I stay glued to the computer and watch a single SPOT' near, say Austin, TX trying to follow one particular numbered SPOT is useless? (I.e., I cannot keep looking for say, 119 because that number will rotate through various riders.)

The Day 2 report mentioned the people in Alb. NM are watching for speeders? So a participant cannot make up for lost time by doing what these bikes do so well on lightly traveled roads in rural areas (exceed the speed limit)? How fast can they go before the IBA penalizes them?

If a rider refused to carry a SPOT beacon and allow himself to be tracked he is docked points or gets lower bonus's for the same bonus location a SPOT equipped rider would get?

What do the yellow and green SPOT flags indicate? Iirc, one was a resting bike (not traveling). Which one? Whats the other?

Thanks.

Peter

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Peter, While I am not Shuey, I can answer a couple of your questions. On the spot tracks, the colors denote if it was a OK message,tracking message, custom message to help message. Green is OK & Orange is a tracking ping, yellow it a custom. As to how fast is to fast to ride that is up to Lisa and Mike. This year riders were getting points for having a spot, from what I have read it will be hard to be in the top of the points with out a spot track.

Dave

SMSW said:

Shuey,
A few quick questions that were suggestively answered in the day's reports but were not explicit for a newbie to the IBR (me).

Am I correct that the various numbers representing each rider are scrambled each time I refresh my screen to prevent us from ID'ing one rider and figuring out his strategy? So, unless I stay glued to the computer and watch a single SPOT' near, say Austin, TX trying to follow one particular numbered SPOT is useless? (I.e., I cannot keep looking for say, 119 because that number will rotate through various riders.)

The Day 2 report mentioned the people in Alb. NM are watching for speeders? So a participant cannot make up for lost time by doing what these bikes do so well on lightly traveled roads in rural areas (exceed the speed limit)? How fast can they go before the IBA penalizes them?

If a rider refused to carry a SPOT beacon and allow himself to be tracked he is docked points or gets lower bonus's for the same bonus location a SPOT equipped rider would get?

What do the yellow and green SPOT flags indicate? Iirc, one was a resting bike (not traveling). Which one? Whats the other?

Thanks.

Peter

Click to expand...

Good questions Peter. Here's my best shot at answering them.

1. You're correct about the rider numbers being randomized. The process isn't tied to when you refresh your screen, but they're changed at least daily. In the past, someone . . . maybe Jason Jonas the owner and creator of the SpotWalla site, has been taking screen shots at some uniform interval then creating a video of the whole rally. It's really cool to watch the icons wander around the screen. As a rider, knowing where I had gone, it was amazing to watch and see how many times when I hadn't seen another IBR ride for days that the screen made it look like I was running over some! Something to watch for when these rides are done.

2. Bob Higdon, a lawyer, humorist extraordinaire and a great rider is the one referred to as attempting to look for speeders. As far as I know, unless there was something briefed at the rider's meeting, there isn't any penalty for speeding. It's a topic of interest, however. So far, though, penalties are only assessed as law violating riders happen to meet up with law enforcement along their travels. This is a great subject for a discussion, should we meet up some time. I will note in general that successfully riding long IBR miles is more about staying in the seat than riding triple digits.

3. Carrying a SPOT choice? Riders have two choices regarding their SPOT if they use one (some are carrying two, maybe more). The rallymasters want to keep track of the riders, primarily from the standpoint of safety, so they can get help to someone in need and . . . of course to follow the action. To encourage riders to provide SPOT information to the rallymasters, use garners BIG POINTS. A rider who wants to be competitive really can't afford to lose these points. However, SPOT data made available to the rallymasters isn't public, it's only seen at rally HQ in Albuquerque. Riders can of course choose to share their data with anyone else they want and even password protect it it they want. The second choice a rider can make is to participate in the SpotWalla IBR Public Page. Some do, some don't and there's no points or penalties for not participating. This is the data, with daily randomization of rider numbers, that we get to see.

4. Coloring of markers on the SPOT Public page . . . I wonder about that myself. I'll try to get an answer so we can all know. Stay tuned.

I hope that helps.

Stay tuned,
Shuey

Steve Hobart, the Managing Editor and Directory of Photography for the Iron Butt Magazine has been taking lots of pictures and will continue to do so. Some of them are posted on a FaceBook page I noted earlier.

With his permission, here's his own, non-FaceBook site to make things easier for we non-Ludites. After looking through them, there's lots of pictures here that aren't posted to the FaceBook site.Stay tuned,
Shuey

Some late morning thoughts.

A glance at the SpotWalla page shows the wide dispersion of riders across the western US. It's just fascinating to me that all the riders, provided the same information and requirements, can come up with such diverse solutions.

https://spotwalla.com/locationViewer.php?id=283

At a glance I see riders nearly in Sioux City, Iowa; Texas of course; up near Spokane, Washington; Bedford, Oregon . . . and points in-between. I can only guess they've gone after big miles and big points on their way to a hopeful top 10 finish. The Day 2 report noted that Jim Owens, a previous IBR winner, has been gobbling up points while never being more than 400 miles away from Albuquerque. Interesting . . .

Stay tuned,
Shuey

Shuey said:

...........

4. Coloring of markers on the SPOT Public page . . . I wonder about that myself. ...........

Stay tuned,
Shuey

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Top left corner of the Spotwalla page you'll see "2015 Iron Butt Rally"....click on it and there is a drop down menu. Go to "Legend" and click on it. You'll see what colours mean what.
I believe someone else may have posted this info earlier in the thread.

Interesting tidbit of info....not sure if it means much...but if click on the actual spot location icons located on the map it will give you a bunch of info. One piece of that info is "Device TZone". Right beside that you'll see, for example, America/NewYork or America/Vancouver. Could this be the Spot device's home location? More importantly the rider's home location?

PFD023 said:

Interesting tidbit of info....not sure if it means much...but if click on the actual spot location icons located on the map it will give you a bunch of info. One piece of that info is "Device TZone". Right beside that you'll see, for example, America/NewYork or America/Vancouver. Could this be the Spot device's home location? More importantly the rider's home location?

Click to expand...

yes it's typically the home area for that spot but not sure if that's also jumbled up for the purposes of all this. Also, it's a pretty vague area/zone like chicago or new york but could be many surrounding states.