Waterville ME – Lexington KY
July 13-14, 2018
(~1346 miles)

After a good long(ish) rest in a comfortable bed, I gave myself plenty of time in the morning to get up and get going. I clocked out of my rest bonus just a few minutes after the maximum-point eight hours, freshly stocked with Five Hour Energy bottles. This was the long finishing stretch, and I was determined to remain super focused all day and night until I was safe back in Lexington.

I’d realized last night that adding a medium bonus in Bethel ME didn’t add much time to my route and I knew it would be a quick photo, so that’s where I headed first, taking I-94 south to Lewiston and veering west on state routes 121 and 26. Western Maine has a lot of towns named for countries or famous cities in a fairly concentrated area and there are a couple of these marker signs in the area that make for an interesting roadside photo.

A huge swath of White Mountain National Forest and the Wildcat Mountain range separated me from the big anchor bonus atop Mt. Washington, roughly due west, so I went north on ME-35 to US-2 and worked my way over through Gorham NH. The summit conditions website hadn’t changed much over the past couple days and there was no indication of vehicle restrictions or high winds. This was fortunate because, per the rally book:

Rule 13.C on alternate proof does not apply to this bonus. NO ALLOWANCE WILL BE GIVEN FOR WEATHER OR ROAD CLOSURES. If the road is closed at the base or if weather prevents you from getting to the top, or if the road is closed for an event, you may not claim this bonus.

I arrived at the toll booth at the bottom of the Mt. Washington Auto Road around 08:15, paid my fare and proceeded with no small level of excitement. I’d hiked this mountain a couple of times but this was my first experience with the auto road, which is an experience often discussed enthusiastically by local riders.

On the way up, I noted that the road wasn’t well banked in terms of grading, having a fairly distinct crown. I didn’t get too cute with it, especially as I emerged from the tree line and was riding next to sheer drop-offs of hundreds of feet. Visibility was around 30 miles according to the ranger and wind was negligible. Temps in the high 40s, which felt pretty comfortable for the short time I was there. I approached the single unpaved section and to my dismay, there was a large tanker truck spraying water over the road, I assume to combat wind erosion. I came to a stop to let him get further up the slope – there was no way to pass and I didn’t want to ride up his ass, only to have to stop on what looked like a slippery dirt surface. The driver eventually noticed me and pulled over at a wide spot to let me by, which I did carefully. I felt much more confident on the wet dirt with my car tire than I might have with a MC tire.

A slow moving jeep let me pass and I also saw Dylan Spinks on his spiffy white Wing, whom I’d been trailing all day yesterday and chatted with by phone, riding his way back down the mountain after collecting his bonus. Soon, I was at the summit (or close enough) and got my photo as well.

The first phase of today’s mission was complete, and I was doing well on time! The fact that I was right behind Dylan gave me some heart that I wasn’t the only one stuck this far northeast right now, and I decided to re-assess my route at the bottom of the mountain. I pulled over by the little store and opened my top case to get at my laptop.

There was a really juicy 700-point bonus up in Derby Line VT, on the Canadian border, that I wanted really bad. My existing route had me cutting more or less straight through VT and circling south of Lake Champlain. I know the roads up along the border pretty well by now, and knew I could make good time on them. I decided to head north to the Colebrook NH bonus and then re-evaluate. I jotted down the basic bonus info for that one as well as the northern VT bonuses on my route sheet and got moving again. Within the next few miles I second-guessed myself and changed my mind several times, hemming and hawing about my decision. Eventually, I decided to scrap Colebrook and Derby, and head for St. Johnsbury VT on my originally planned route. After all, hadn’t I learned anything about changing the plan on the fly a couple days back?

I made good time over to St. Johnsbury following US-2 and navigated the last mile or so of dirt road to the Dog Chapel.

Now, according to the GPS Derby Line was so close I could taste it. I realized it would be a very fast run to it up I-93, and decided to add it back in at the last minute. The northern route would cut into my time safety cushion, but would net me about 1000 additional points with another northern VT bonus along the way. One GPS (my old faithful 350) was giving me plenty of time at the finish, arrival around 03:30, while the new 595 was putting me at around 05:20 – quite a discrepancy in a rally like this! If I was going to do my best and try to mitigate all my earlier flubs, I needed to trust the GPS that I knew to be more accurate and play this game down to the wire if need be. Getting in at 03:30 wouldn’t do me any good…there would be time to sleep afterwards. I turned north, re-energized and fully committing to the route change.

I zipped up to the border without incident and navigated through some bridge construction just before customs to get on the correct road into town.  The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is a nice old building with a pretty cool history, having been purposely built right on the international border line. I needed a photo of the black line running along the floor inside the building, that shows the international border (apparently there for insurance reasons). It was immediately apparent on entering the building, and the nice lady at the counter mentioned that I wasn’t the first to be there today. I took one more photo outside the building to prove where I was, just in case.

I zipped back down I-93, picked my way through Newport and caught VT-105 for a beautiful fast ride west along the border to Richford, where I snapped this marker for the 45th parallel.

I completed my scenic back-road run along the border in Highgate and proceeded to cross Lake Champlain through Alburgh, via VT-78 and US-2 – always a pretty ride. Now in New York again, I zoomed south on I-87 to 9N into the Adirondack Park, where my third and final mountaintop bonus awaited on Whiteface Mountain. This is also a toll road and there were two cars ahead of me when I arrived. A sign in the window stated that the elevator (yes there is one inside the mountaintop that takes visitors from the upper parking lot to the summit area) wasn’t working. This apparently caused the folks in the first car to second-guess their plan, causing a longer conversation than usual with the teenaged gate girl. I waited impatiently and got my cash ready. Finally, that car decided to pay for the ascent and continued on.

The little red convertible right ahead of me, with a middle-aged couple and Canadian plates, now pulled up and appeared to want to have the exact same extended conversation! I’m thinking: Folks, the sign has been there all this time, if you have questions, pull aside and go talk to the nice people! Don’t hold other people up!

After a couple minutes, when it became clear the man was now debating with his wife whether to go up the mountain, I called over to the girl, “I’m ready to go up!” and waved my cash money. She grinned, but held up a finger, trying to do good customer service. The guy in the driver seat stared daggers at me in his rearview mirror, but I’m in rally mode and don’t give a damn. Finally, they decide to pay, drove through and then pulled over to the side of the road just ahead. I quickly paid my toll, and proceeded onward. As I passed them, convertible-guy violently waved me on ahead of them, clearly ticked off that I hadn’t wanted to wait mutely for them to figure things out. Whatever! I waved back and continued on briskly up the mountain, feeling just a bit bad for ruining this guy’s mood on a beautiful trip in the mountains, but amused he’d taken it so personally.

At the top, some parking attendants were guiding folks into spaces in the lower lot, but I shook my head and pulled up to one of them.

“I just need to got all the way up to the castle by the stairway for a photo of the sign there, I won’t be parking.”
The guy nodded as if he’d seen this already today. “OK, just don’t block the turnaround road.”

I continued through the upper lot and gently cruised by the tourists taking pictures on the way to/from the stairway to the summit. I pulled through the tunnel in the castle building and onto the brick walking area to get my photo of the mountain-shaped elevation sign.

On my way back through the lots, I passed the convertible and gave them a friendly wave, at which the guy threw up his hands, still miffed. Yep, you wouldn’t understand! Hopefully he got over it, forgot about the impatient motorcyclist, and enjoyed the views up there that clear afternoon.

I picked up NY-3 through Saranac Lake to Tupper Lake, and continued south on State Routes 30 and 28. Beautiful, fast riding through the forested lands and occasional vacation towns, I made good time right through the heart of the Adirondacks. The next big bonus was in the resort town of Old Forge, a large archway in the parking lot for a water park.

After emerging from the ‘Dacks at last, I hopped NY-365, skirting Rome down to I-90. Just a few miles further on, I exited to visit the Boxing Hall of Fame for the next bonus photo.

I was hungry and needed a nature break at this point, so I took care of both there in the empty parking lot, and decided to re-evaluate my progress. I opened the laptop once more and looked over my options. I had been making really good time with no delays to speak of, so my trusty Zumo 350 still had me arriving at the finish with a good two hours to spare. This morning’s route change to Derby Line had proven successful and definitely worth the points, so I decided to continue filling up the remaining rally time with bonus hunting. I was here to play the game and give it my all.

I had intended to simply follow the interstates at this point (mostly I-90) back to the barn, picking up a couple smaller bonuses in Ohio along the way. Now being a bit familiar with I-86 along the southern NY border (from last week’s Saddlesore), I saw an opportunity to snag an additional 1000 points by cutting the corner away from Buffalo NY, snagging three bonuses, and rejoining I-90 over in Pennsylvania. “Good GPS” had me arriving at 05:20, “bad GPS” said 06:29, into the penalty period. I put all my faith in the 350 at this point!

I gassed up and hit the highway once again, but now I exited through the Finger Lakes region, following NY-14 south alongside Seneca Lake. With the sun setting over the vineyards, I experienced another of those “wow” moments where you really appreciate the fact you are out enjoying the countryside on your motorcycle. I regret not getting a photo or two, but I was having a blast, and feeling confident that I was doing everything I could to recoup my losses from the misfortunes and mistakes earlier on this leg. I couldn’t get back that four hours of wasted time, but I could feel good about taking some calculated risk and trying to maximize points in the time I did have available. Worst case would be missing the checkpoint opening and racking up some penalty points – I would still end up netting more points with my revised route.

I arrived in the pleasant little burg of Watkins Glen shortly before sunset, and pulled over to get the photo of one of the markers for a historical road race start/finish line, right on the main drag.

I then enjoyed a very nice ride on County Road 87 through the hills, again missing a some great photo opps as the setting sunlight played over the landscape. I joined I-86 in Bath as darkness fell, and made quick work of the miles to Belfast, where I pulled up to the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame at the barn where the last champion of the sport, John Sullivan, trained.

Back on the interstate, I zoomed through the dark, keeping my bud-laden windshield up enough to prevent similiar splatter on my faceshield. I exited in Jamestown and picked my way through the city streets to get this photo of Lucille Ball in a park named for her on the shore of Lake Chautaqua.

I finished out my run on I-86, entering Pennsylvania and re-joining I-90, which took me another 60 miles or so to my next bonus in Geneva OH, just after midnight. Apparently, this is the shortest covered bridge in the world, measuring a scant 18 feet long.

I filled the tanks before jumping back on I-90. Now it was a long stretch of 290 miles through the wee hours, to the next bonus in Cincinnati and I downed some fig newtons and a final Five Hour Energy to keep my alertness levels sharp, though I wasn’t doing too badly just on adrenaline alone.

I’d been keeping an eye on my tire pressure readings throughout the rally, as this was a new tool for me. After filling the rear tire at the start, I’d only needed to add a few psi once during the rally, which you might reasonably expect when on a long trip doing a lot of miles. As I got closer to Cincinnati, I noted that I was actually down about 10 psi in the rear from what the front was reading. I wasn’t too worried about it, because some guys run these Goodyear Tripletreds close to 30 psi and I had started them off at about 41, so it was still within acceptable range. It was just one more thing on my mind, however, and I hoped that the slow leak could be dealt with once I was safe and rested in Lexington.

I cruised through Cincy just after 04:00, still dark and successfully navigated the mostly deserted streets to the building-size mural of James Brown.

That was it, my last bonus! I made a final fuel stop (main tank only) right up the street, surrounded by the remnants of the city’s nightlife characters, though nobody bothered me this time. No receipt came out, so I was glad there was no fuel log for this rally!

Now I just needed to make the last hour and a half run safely down to Lexington. Of course there were construction areas along the way, and the pavement quality completely sucked during this stretch – I was feeling every bump and seam in the concrete through my spine. But it passed uneventfully and I pulled up to the hotel front door right around 05:30. Before checking in with rally staff, I parked under the canopy and went inside to take care of a nature break and hotel check-in. Then I re-mounted for the last time in this rally and rounded the corner to the side of the hotel and stopped my rally clock at 05:40, twenty minutes before the penalty window would begin.

Now having only an hour to prep for scoring, I quickly got myself inside and into the function room set aside for this purpose. There was some breakfast buffet laid out, and I helped myself to some sustenance while spreading out my paperwork. My new buddy Rick joined me a few minutes later and we chatted a bit as we worked, still coming down from the three day adrenaline high.

Once I had my paperwork in order, I grabbed what I needed and headed in to the scoring room. They had someone available to score me right away and I was pleased to see it was fellow New Englander Minna Case. Great to see a familiar face! I chatted and joked with Minna and the other rally staff floating around while I got scored. Then I heard “Uh-oh” from Minna, and my heart skipped a beat.

Remember that Robert Goddard plaque way back at Auburn MA? The one where I left my flag at  2am and had to go back to the following morning? Well, as it turns out, there is actually ANOTHER granite monument to Robert Goddard about 100 feet away from the plaque that I captured. Who could have imagined two such monuments at a remote little golf course!? And who could have found it in the pitch black of night? I made a plea to the rallymaster, since the coordinates weren’t exact enough to differentiate between the markers, especially in pitch black at 02:00, but the differentiating factor in the rally book was that the correct marker was presented by the American Rocketry Society, whereas the plaque I shot was from the Dept of the Interior, noting the National Historic Landmark. POINTS DENIED! I was somewhat sad.

Luckily, that was “only” 250 points, and was the only blemish on my score sheet for leg two. I felt proud that I had mostly salvaged what had started out as a downer of a leg, but couldn’t help thinking about the four hours I’d wasted and wondered how many points that might have added up to in a parallel universe. I wasn’t even really considering where my 27,817 points (15,279 for the leg) would put me, since I had basically written off a competitive finish two days ago. I was just thrilled to have made it to the finish of this awesome event, with all my enthusiasm and most of my faculties intact. It had been a great ride and a tremendous last day (for me), and I thought mostly about all the beautiful and varied countryside I’d ridden through in the last 24 hours en route from Maine.

Bonuses (Leg 2):
AOM, BYR, ELP, TES, ROC, IGL, OTR, BBG, HWB, CAD, CHP, LUB, WTS, MTW, DOG, DLV, V45, WHT, OFN, IBH, CAR, KNU, BAL, SCB, GOS, FIN

It felt like it should be nighttime, but the morning sun said otherwise. My new room turned out being in the furthest possible wing of the hotel from where all the bikes were parked. I grumbled to myself about it as I made one more trip to get the rest of my stuff to bring to my room, taking a shortcut across the front parking lot. I did take a few minutes to locate the head of a nail that was embedded in my rear tire, but decided to deal with it later. I called Char to let her know I was safe and scored and would be getting some sleep for a few hours before getting up for the evenings festivities.

I slept 4-5 hours, so as not to completely disrupt my sleep cycle for later that night. Upon waking, I spent some time getting caught up online and thinking about my plan for getting home. I decided to just ride the tire with the nail in, as it had been holding pretty well so far and I could monitor it on my GPS for any changes. But I would aim to make it home in one day so as not to have to worry about it getting worse while on the road.

I eventually headed downstairs to the lobby to hang out a bit with some other riders, everyone fairly mellow and still tired from the toll taken over the week. We relived some of our adventures, and there was a lot of discussion about unpaved roads and Garmin’s poor routing  guidance. We tried to figure out who owned the various spot tracker callsigns on the group page. Soon enough the bar was open, and we all mingled in the hallway, chattering away until the dinner bell rang and we filed into the banquet room to get our fill of short ribs, fish, veggies, mac & cheese, and some delicious butter cake (at last!). I think everyone was surprised and pleased to see Wolfe and Robyn had ridden down from Ontario for the feast, showing they were doing OK.

Following the meal, Bart said a short piece apologizing for the few mistakes on coordinates in the rally book, including Appomattox, which was a classy thing to do though unnecessary after all the hard work they had undertaken to give us riders an amazing vacation. Then came the moment we’d been waiting for, while Lisa read through the entire list of rally finishers, including their mileage and point total. Each rider received a finsher’s plaque and a professional portrait photo taken by Rick. When they reached 15th place and the scores were still a couple thousand below mine, my stomach kind of did a little thing – goal achieved! When they reached 10th, I swallowed hard and looked around stunned at my friends at the table, a couple of whom also hadn’t been called yet. We shook hands. Lisa got to fifth place and I heard “Rider 32” called out and got up in a bit of a daze, but extremely happy and proud of the recovery I’d made out on the road, edging ahead of Dylan in sixth with those extra points I’d routed on the fly.

I joined the other top 10 riders, shaking hands all around as the countdown continued. Rick Armour had put in another great leg, going northwest to the Michigan UP, increasing his Leg 1 lead over me by a few hundred points. Eric Bray, who had missed the early handout of the Leg 2 packet, had gone the same direction and pulled off a great route to maintain his third place. Billy Connacher secured second place by going northeast gathering up a bunch of high-pointers, though I don’t think he made it up to Lubec. Jim Owen pulled out another huge victory, a full 2000 points ahead of Billy, once again showing mastery of this sport and his incredible endurance. He’d gone northeast, but skipped the run up into Maine in favor of vacuuming up just about every other bonus in the region in a routing pattern I have yet to see or understand.

We all exchanged handshakes and congratulations, and posed for a group photo as the banquet came to a close. I hung around for a while afterwards, chatting with folks and trying to understand what routes the top placers had taken. The top ten riders are entitled to a no-draw entry in the 2019 Iron Butt Rally, though most of us had already been drawn for the event for months now. Still it was nice to know I could have earned my slot as well. The exhaustion started to hit me as I stood there, and it was hard to eventually head up to the room as it meant Butt Lite was finally over.

 

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EPILOGUE
Lexington KY – Southeast MA
July 15, 2018
(~949 miles)

After a full night’s rest, I was up for another good breakfast on my own in the cafe at 07:00 and packed up to go by around 08:30. I said a few goodbyes, but many bikes were already gone and I think many were still sleeping in. I fueled up at the nearby gas station and topped off the air in the rear tire once again. The ride home was long, hot, and all interstate, giving me time to reflect back over the last several days and wondering what it would be like to run one more leg, as would be required next year in the IBR. I took the most direct route except a detour up to I-84 to meet friends Ken and Felicia for a bite of supper in Newburgh NY. There was pie.

After parking the bike in the garage, I stayed away from it for the next couple days before tackling the nail in the tire. From experience, I knew plugging the car tire would be an effort and not much fun….and memory served me well on that point. After much sweating and swearing, I got the plug in and its been holding fine ever since. Hoping to get 40K miles more from this tire!

It’s taken a few days to get used to being home and off the bike – spending several days in a row with intense focus like that has a lingering effect. I enjoyed myself so very much on this trip, thanks to the TeamStrange Rallymasters, staff, and all the great riders I met, talked with, and shared the experience with. I’m looking forward to seeing you all again at the next one. It was a top-notch event, and I’m looking forward to an extended version of this experience during next year’s Iron Butt Rally.

 

Some Stats
Miles (total trip): 8294
Miles (rally): 6196
Bonuses claimed: 64
Bonuses denied: 1
Tip-overs: 1
Rally Fuel Stops: 18
Mountains ascended: 3
Roadside chats: 0
Roadside chats avoided: ~ 3-4 (estimated)
Close encounters with a grue: 1
Canadians pissed off: 2 (that I know of)