Day 4 – Further Update
As some of you will now know, Robert is currently lying in 36th Place.
What you will not know is that he “lost” 3 hours searching for a bike shop that could change his tyre. His message was not clear as to whether he lost 3 hours of rest or 3 hours of the second leg. If it`s a loss of rest, that`s not too bad. If he has lost some time out of his second leg, then he will have to ride a little bit harder to make it up.
His messages to me already indicate that he knows that “leg 2” is “massive” (his words).
I still have plenty of confidence in Robert, but his machine has so far had more problems than I think he anticipated. If he has already used one tyre in 3000 miles of north-east USA / Canadian roads, then the South west desert conditions will be equally hard on the tyres again, even though it`s slightly less miles in leg 2. I am in contact with him regarding this and will report back just as soon as he lets me know.
He will hopefully be able to deal with the continuing fuelling issue, although hopefully it was just poor petrol.
By simply achieving what he has done already, he will have impressed many American Iron Butt riders, many of whom cannot see past a BMW or FJR for these kind of competitive rides ….. Us Europeans are already more than impressed by this mad German no matter how the IBR 2013 ends up for him !!
My confidence remains high in Robert and although the bike is clearly suffering, as I reported earlier, the fact that he has overcome them will only boost his confidence.
Okay, I should be hearing from him within the next 12 hours as to how leg 2 is progressing for him. I will report asap …..
John
hutzlmandl on tour 
John, he mentioned -when he talked to me today, that he had lost time on the second leg, because car garages did not want to change motorbike tyres. He actually found out where to take the bike thanks to the IBA people around. He also told me the tyres he had in the first leg were not good, and that now he was getting better ones…let’s see how the new ones behave under the hight heat conditions. He was very satisfied with the first leg as he took it easy and tried to rest often. So, he is in good shape, still feels rested and is mentally and physically ready to face the huge challenge that the second leg represents. Of course, nobody can predict if the bike will cooperate…
I am afraid he lost riding time. If I am correct with my spotting his bike on the spotwalla map, he was moored on the western shore of the Ohio river in or not very far south of Wheeling for quite some time at the beginning of the leg. You only go – and stay – there for a reason.
Robert announced this adventure on the XBR forum (thanks Johannes for keeping that up!, and thanks to John for sharing here), that is why I am looking down the abyss of the IBR 2013. Taking an XBR to this final frontier of motorbike “tourism” would normally be the indisputable proof of ultimate hubris, if – pause – if Robert’s long distance riding achievements were not so well documented.
Fingers crossed.
PS: thanks for asking, yes I do have a job.
Please I ve a question.
I don’t understand the system of the Spotflags on the “official” spotwalla.
http://www.ironbuttrally.com/IBR/2013.cfm
First day : HUZ or GMK
second day: the spotflags had 2 Numbers
since the third day : 3 Numbers (but they changes allways the numbers)
At the moment it s possible to look on Roberts trackside for actual Position and than looking at he spot (timezone europe brüssel ).
but if I search for Gerd, I only can switch different spotflags (sometimes more than one, if it goes bad, about 70 switches) for looking at the time zone (europe berlin)
Hope new tyre last better than first leg ones, 3000 miles is not good and far less than he had been talking about getting – I would have thought one set could last the rally – perhaps he should try Tourances! Am sure temperature will be biggest test of bike over next two legs, is hot enough over here.
SPOTS – they keep changing them supposedly to stop people giving help or identifying riders on public forums. As you say only way is to keep track of riders so you know roughly where Gerhard is and then find the Berlin SPOT. I can usually find the two London SPOTS (Phil Weston and the Wellers) but struggle to find Kiel – can’t even remember what timezone his SPOT is now.
Seem to be a lot of riders following similar route to Sacramento!
thanks, so I dont waste any brain for understandig the system.
Robert uses an Bridgestone bt 45 more than 10 years. Its a good tyre for active driving and very smart if it s wet. If he had a speed about 120 km/h a tyre wear about 5000 – 6000 km is quite normal. A few years ago he had a tyre wear of ca 10 000km, as he come back from Dubai, but then he had seldom a max speed more than 80-90 km/h.
I think yet he had changed on a typ, which promise more km, like avon etc.