Day 10 – Gone with the Wind

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Well, he’s just finished his Day 10 ride and he’s in Charleston.

He’s just about to take his 8 hour break and when he wakes for day 11, he will have 26 hours to ride 1200 miles, pretty straightforward stuff really. The only potential hiccup is that his last “loop” takes him back in New York for a few hours, but barring a total calamity, he has so much time on his hands, it’s almost impossible to imagine that this could could wrong now.

Day 10 was another totally forgettable days ride primarily along Interstates. Robert is fine, the bike is fine, the traffic is freely moving and from what I can see, the only really notable this that happened was that not long before he stopped for the night, he rode past a town called “HURRICANE”

He has even commented to me today, just how “relaxed” this entire rally has been – and that must present a problem for the organisers, in that if someone from overseas can come to the IBR (admittedly a very good rider on perhaps the most suitable type of bike you could use) and have a relaxed IBR, then that cannot be good. It’s a dilemma though across the world for IBA rallies where organisers have to balance the “challenge” of an IBA rally against the requirements of an ever increasing safety conscious world that we live in.

I’m glad it’s not my problem ….

Comments

5 responses to “Day 10 – Gone with the Wind”

29/06/2023

David Edmund Badcock

I’m guessing many of the 100+ riders will not agree that it’s ‘easy’. The demographic of being arguably the best safe long distance riders in the World mean to get a finish is doable. But to get a top ten finish is tough.

In the general motorcycling public riding 1,000 miles in a day is tough but to do 11 consecutive 1,000 mile days is unimaginable.

When I rode Harleys a lot a roadside incident would be the adventure. I spent as many hours getting to know recovery drivers as riding without incident around the World. I’ve broken down in Nordkap and crashed in Austria and probably remember those situations more.

The top European Rallyist is currently 27th in this IBR, I’m betting on a top 20 and to me that’s some achievement.

Reply
1. 29/06/2023
  
  johnthetommy
  
  It is the “relative” ease with which Robert appears he is going to achieve a finish that would concern me as an IBR organiser. Robert is currently the best LDR in Europe (despite his recent results) and because of the huge financial commitment the IBR is for anyone, let alone someone from outside of the USA who ships his/her bike across, he has deliberately not pushed himself to the limit. Indeed the first two legs, he now admits that he totally underestimated his/his bikes ability I riding in the USA which is why he arrived so relaxed at each checkpoint. Perhaps as you say, for the majority who are clearly not in Roberts class, even assuming that they are riding a “proper” bike, then a simple finish is still a challenge. But I have to wonder that if Robert did not have to have in the back of his mind just how much he had “invested” just to be at the start line, what he could achieve.
  
  I look back at my solitary IBR ride in 2011 and despite the rally being in a format that worked in my favour hugely that year, in all reality competing in the “Worlds Toughest Rally” on a 40 year old bike AND finishing, shouldn’t really be possible. I understand that for rally masters across the world, it’s a fine balance between making a rally tough enough to be something worth doing but not tough enough that it will put too many people off and I also accept that there will always be “odd” people like Robert, who finds himself with the difficult choice between ambition and objectivity.
  
  As I say (and having been a Rallymaster myself of two occasions – once when i felt i did a god job and once when I did not – I’m just glad I’m not the one having to design rallies in the future
  
  Reply
29/06/2023

David Edmund Badcock

Like the typo because I always thought of you as a ‘God’.

Reply
1. 29/06/2023
  
  johnthetommy
  
  Oooops !! Lol !! However, I did actually think that the 2015 BBR (Unlocking the Combinations) was a VERY good rally
  
  Reply
29/06/2023

Johannes Dolecek

Ha ha ha I know Robert “Relaxness”
That is nothing much other people can handle.
I hope his “Flow” is still under control, strange things are happening with too much good flow

With greetings to the super hero’s from
“Basdschomen” Jo

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