Rider support for the IBR2007

[Birdman]

This year there will be 2 riders, riding two up, in the IBR 2007 rally from Ireland.

Chris McGaffin

Occupation: Firefighter

Ballymoney , N.Ireland

and

Michael Taylor

Occupation: Red Cross Fundraising Manager

Derry,N.Ireland

I would like to see if we can provide some support for them.



Their plan is to arrive in Chicago on Thursday, August 16th, spending the night, then take a train down to St. Louis Friday.

**** Support - would some one be interested in meeting them in Chicago and making sure they have a motel room, and know where and how to get the train to St Louis? - Some one could check out the Chicago area, and give them instruction on which motel (good but cheap), how to get to the train station, etc. I will get fight number and time later.

Travel to St Louis on Friday, August 17th.

**** Support - would some one be interested in meeting them in St Louis (train station) and getting them over to DOCS HARLEY ST LOUIS. They will be renting a Harley heritage soft tail.

Additional support:

**** They will need to install their set up for accessory plug's, GPS, Autocom, etc. This should be a temporary set up that connect to the battery. Most likely this can be done Saturday.

Chris said; "Because this is a hire bike, any auxiliary power supplies need to be non-invasive, easily connected and leaves the bike's wiring in the original condition."

**** A good set of maps. This is my response back to Chris but if some one has a better idea please let me know. I am thinking K-mart, Wal-mart or Target.

"A Atlas of the US and Canada should be good - Also 3 other maps US East, Middle, West.
A good usable Atlas is about $5.00 and each map will be about $2.00 each."


**** A screaming meanie alarm. (can`t buy them here) - I (Bill) will cover this; I will bring a extra one to St Louis that they can use.

**** A compact toolkit containing the bare essentials. (we have enough equipment to haul over the Atlantic) - I am not a Harley owner so I do not know what would be best here. Tools will be returned at the end of the rally. Any one want to cover this one?

**** one hydration system (I already own one, need another) I (Bill) will bring a extra one to St Louis that they can use.


**** A stop n go tire plugger or similar. I (Bill) am not sure what type of rims a Harley heritage softail has but if this could be covered with the tools that would be great.


Other Issues:
**** Chris said: how does a prepay gas pump work. (sounds dumb but we don't have them so I've never used one) Would any one know a good solution? I am thinking a Debit card at a local gas station that can be used by different stations. Anyone?


If you are will / able to provide support please e-mail me off list and I will maintain a list and provide the contact point for Chris and Michael. Once the contact is made I will step out. I would like to have 2 different contacts for meeting them in Chicago and St Louis just incase.

Bill Thweatt william.thweatt@eds.com
IBA 207
STOC 2140

 

[Raven]

+1 on multiple pre-paid debit cards - they usually take ~24hours for the hold to clear. However, if one actually goes inside to pay, there is no hold.

They might want to double check on the Harley as they're likely to get a whopping additional charge for mileage. They may actually do better moneywise to buy a used bike and then sell it after.

I'd offer tools but I'm pretty much down to metric these days and have no idea what size fasteners HD is using.

 

[Landon]

I have a piece of foam and a 5mm allen wrench they can use!:crackup :crackup :crackup


Seriously though...I don't know much about Harleys and with owning an ST...who needs tools?

 

[Gene]

Can't talk them into renting a Goldwing instead ?? Is this two guys or a guy and gal, not that it matters but just curious. What about comm gear?

 

[Maura]

2 guys, Chris is navigator, Michael is rider. Michael's bike is a Harley, he is sticking with what he knows, Chris has an ST1300 in Ireland but will not be riding.

Maura

 

[fitenfyr]

Have Chris get in touch with The St. Louis Professional Firefighters local.
http://www.iafflocal73.org/

We take care of our own.;-)
Even if they are from the far side of the world.

I bet the brothers and sisters their could help them out with a ride from the station and maybe even a place to crash for the night.

 

[Carl Custer]

Surely these guys have a VISA or Master Card for fuel.
They're good all over the world.
They just need to tell the card issuer that they will be traveling overseas.

 

[Maura]

He asked the question 'how does a prepay gas pump work'. For Chris and Michael, not unfamiliar with 'everywhere you want to be' visa and 'priceless' mastercard the answer to the question is 'you put any one of your several visa/mc/amex credit cards in a slot in the pump, follow the instructions on the screen, pump your gas, grab your receipt etc. '

Maura

 

[mshihrer]

Question. You can rent a motorcycle and ride it in the IBR?

 

[Raven]

Surely these guys have a VISA or Master Card for fuel.
They're good all over the world.
They just need to tell the card issuer that they will be traveling overseas.

Even if VISA or MC know you're traveling, there's still the issue of limits. If you ride 1000 miles in 24 hours and you have to get gas every ~130 miles (since it's not an ST they'll be on) you're looking at ~7.6 gas stops (let's just say 8 stops). Each time you swipe the card at the pump a $75 hold gets placed on the card even if you only get $12 worth of gas (and some places put more on hold now that gas prices are up and lots of folks drive trucks and SUV's). The hold takes 24-48 hours to release. So, in just one day you've got $600 worth of "hold" on the card for only $96 worth of gas. If it takes 48 hours to clear, you're at over $1000 worth of holds on only the second day so it starts getting a little dicey as to whether or not your card will work.

It's definitely worth having multiple cards and making sure you have plenty of room on your limit. If the pump gives you the option of choosing debit or credit and you have a debit card, use that b/c they don't put a hold on the debit and it only goes through for the amount. Why they can't do that for credit, I don't know, but that's how it seems to work.

Since there are two of them on the trip, one could walk in to pay during operating hours whilst the other pumps and that would help with the hold issue b/c if you pay inside, they only charge the amount of the sale at the time of the sale versus the hold charge until the amount of the sale goes through at the end of the day.

I tend to use AMEX (no limit) every chance I can and only use VISA/MC if AMEX isn't accepted.