Iron Butt Rally 2023 – drop-off, to travel or not to travel, workout and a well-known commenter

Got up early, one hour too early. Perfect summer weather. Packed the rest, said goodbye to the cats and the cat mummy ☺️, left at 8 a.m. It was only some 400 km to today’s destination, the airport area in Paris. The usual traffic in Antwerp didn’t slow me down a lot and after two hours I was near the French border where I visit a motorcycle accessories shop. I bought another piece of extension for the RAM Mount system I am using to put the tablet in a better position.

After two hours more, I arrived at the hotel near the airport were I dropped off most of my luggage, at least the one that does not stay on the bike. I went to a car wash and cleaned the bike thoroughly and filled up 1.5 L of petrol: the maximum allowed volume of petrol in the tank is 1 gal (4 L), but I was afraid I’d had too little until I will get to the first Canadian station.

I went to my agent who does all the transport and customs procedures, he explained me the process. His colleague showed me the way to the warehouse/drop-off point. I was happy that I can leave a lot of things in the panniers: helmet, rain gear, tools and accessories. I had to disconnect the plus lead of the battery (as usual) and an employee of Air Canada checked the bike and liked what he saw. After that, I pushed the bike onto a metal pallet and two guys strapped the bike to that plate very thoroughly.

I had wondered when drama would struck for the first time. And it did. I had received an e-mail to check in for the flight already. When I went through the process, I had to introduce a number for a Canadian visa. Visa? What? Why? There was a help button that revealed that I had to introduce the number of a visa or the ETA number. ETA? A quick search showed that since my last visit, Canada has also introduced an electronic visa programme similar to the ESTA in the US. Gulp. This was new to me. I found a site on the internet that provided the application. It looked very similar to the US application I had done a few days ago. A the end, I startled…97 $?? That was hefty. Well; but I needed the number ASAP, otherwise I could not board the plane. When I received the e-mail after the transaction, it was in Spanish. Spanish? I checked the e-mail address that led me to a website in Spanish. Was this a scam?? I did not receive a confirmation message. Maybe it was a scam. I searched again and came across a governmental website that asked me all kind of things again. This one cost only 7 $, I got the confirmation immediately and the number a few minutes later, this was fast. I could finish my check-in and disaster could be averted. The other confirmation and number arrived later on that evening so I must have been kind of legit, although it is still a scam to ask 90 $ on top. Right, some money burnt in the process, but at least I could fly. It’s the result that matters.

After my breakfast this morning I took the shuttle to the airport. As there were some roadworks, I got dropped off at another terminal. The hotel could have warned me, as now I had to take a shuttle train as well and to walk for about 1 km to my check-in counter. The security check was interesting, after all I carry a lot of electronic devices, cables, power banks etc…these were fine, but I had to wait for more than 20 min to have my bag routinely swiped for explosives, the only security guy was not the fastest and clearly overworked…At the gate, the boarding went veeeeery slow, Paris Airport is still very complicated to travel. Nice cafés though.

So finally I entered the plane…I thought I was clever to book a seat next an emergency exit door. Infinite leg room. I did not reckon with the super narrow seats that are even narrower close to the window. It is impossible not to be in close touch with my seat neighbour. I realise that my ‚width‘ did grow a bit….this is a disadvantage here. The reason is that I started my fitness programme late, but at least I did. Since January, I have a great personal fitness trainer and together we managed to get me in a much better state than I was in January. Thomas designed a perfect plan to get me ready for the Iron Butt Rally with a focus on core stability. I did a lot of training myself, but Thomas keeps on pushing me to the limit which is necessary for good results. In the end I didn’t lose a lot of weight (yet), but I turned about 8 % of my fat tissue into muscle tissue in the last five months. As a result, I have a much stronger upper body that should bear much better the physical stress and fatigue during an Iron Butt Rally. My test ride around the Benelux was a good proof: no pain felt whatsoever.

As I have plenty of time to write now, being on the plane, I want to take the opportunity to introduce (again) another co-commentator for the next weeks: my good friend John Young will do me the honours, just like for the Iron Butt Rallies in 2013 and 2017. He will comment on my progress, the Iron Butt Rally and whatever comes to his mind. I will be barred to publish anything on social media between two hours before the start and the finish of the rally. In order to keep this blog alive in that time, he will entertain you with his witty contributions. Too bad you can’t hear his nice Yam Yam accent, this would make it even more colourful.

IMHO John is still the best British LD rally rider, even that he doesn’t do rallies anymore. Having said that, no rule without exception, he won the short SAS rally in May where he competed with his famous 1969 Triumph Trident that had successfully completed the 2011 rally with him.

“It’s the rider, not the bike”.

By the way, I did not participate in that rally 😉. While he still WAS doing rallies, it was usually the question who of us would win it. If you are curious, you can check his old posts in June/July 2013 and June/July 2017, they are in the archive.

So I am on the plane to Toronto and I will land in a few hours. Before I can get to the hotel, I’ll have to pass immigrations, the warehouse, customs and the warehouse again. What could be more fun after a transcontinental flight?