Southeast MA – Greenville SC
Wed – Thur June 12-13, 2019
(~989 miles)

After months of preparation and preoccupation, the day arrived at last to depart to the start of the 2019 Iron Butt Rally, in Greenville, South Carolina. My family had given me a nice little send-off dinner at our house (homemade enchiladas!) earlier in the week, and the bike was loaded for bear.

I’d decided to take a more or less direct route there, and my friend and fellow IBR entrant, Marc Bialt, lived right along the way. I accepted his kind offer of a bed for Wednesday night, so that we might travel south together along with our brothers-in-miles Ken Aman and Roy Kjendal. I left Wednesday afternoon, after final goodbye hugs/kisses for the wife and dog – sad not to be seeing them for the next two weeks, but with much anticipation of the adventure to come.

The familiar trip down across Connecticut on I-84 was uneventful and I pulled into Marc’s spiffy garage in rural NY about three hours after leaving home. I was jealous of all the space and coated floors! For someone with so many stickers, I’m not sure how one forgets to apply one at last year’s VOID  rally, but maybe that’s just me…. (love ya Marc).

Marc had a family function to attend that evening, so I met up with Ken and Roy for dinner at a local restaurant, Third & Company Lakeside. The place was tough to find using modern GPS and the website didn’t include a Google Maps link. I was about 10 minutes late despite it only being a few miles from Marc’s  house – not a good portent for the rally routing to come! The burgers were good, while sitting outside on their deck overlooking a nice little pond.

Seeing as my seven month “IBR prep” diet was now being somewhat relaxed for the next several days, we all agreed that ice cream was needed to cap off the evening. Hometown Ice Cream, down the road a bit, helped us scratch that particular itch. Ken had ridden his little 150cc scooter tonight, and I couldn’t help laughing my ass off inside my helmet most of the way to the ice cream stand, watching this long distance animal zip along country roads on the scoot-scoot.

New Hopeless Class entry?

We parted for the evening, with plans to meet up in the morning along I-84. Marc and I headed out at 05:45 after some coffee, and the oncoming weather system hit us just as we pulled into the rest stop to join our friends. The skies opened up and we endured a cool wet drenching for the next couple hours until our breakfast stop at a Denny’s near Hazelton PA. Those kind folks let us come in dripping all over their floors and didn’t say boo – nothing but friendly service and some nice warm coffee to remove the chill.

The heavy stuff had stopped by the time we headed back out, and the air continued to warm up as we went further south, Ken leading the way as usual. Marc had experienced some bike trouble earlier this year and had traded in his K1600 for a GS just a couple months ago. Part of his resulting semi-panicked farkling binge included the purchase and installation of a very small (i.e. woefully inadequate) 2 gallon auxiliary fuel tank. The rest of us had arranged a special recognition of this questionable “tiny tank” for later in the week, but for now it just meant we needed to watch his fuel range on the way down south.

We passed a motorcycle moving south on I-85 somewhere in North Carolina and could tell it was an IBR rider from his apparel and bike customization. Spying it was an older Suzuki model that smelled like two-stroke, clearly identified the rider as “Hopeless Class” entrant Jerry Anderson on his classic Water Buffalo GT750. He fell in behind us for a while and then disappeared from our radar as we picked our way through the construction zones approaching the hotel in Greenville.

Jerry’s aux tank mount made good innovative use of RAM parts

When we pulled off our exit, I suddenly saw him up ahead of us making the corner into the hotel driveway. We were incredulous, but highly amused. I later found out from Jerry that there was an I-85 Business Loop highway that paralleled the main interstate and got him there just a bit quicker than us by avoiding construction zones. This would turn out to be useful information two short weeks later.

We arrived at the Greenville Marriot Hotel in much nicer weather than what we’d left behind up north, and found available spots in the section of parking lot that was marked off for rally riders only. Yes, Iron Butt Rally riders…am I really here parking in THEIR section of the lot? Mind. Blown.

Roy & Ken at the start

As we unpacked our bikes, familiar and welcoming faces appeared in the form of James Epley, IBR entrant from VA who’d had some bike trouble on the way down; and Gerry Arel, a fellow New Englander down to soak up the rally start environment, support his fellow northeasterners in our rally mania, and attend the BMR finishing banquet that weekend.

James – relieved to still be in it

Gerry – a friendly face from home

Good food and beer was next in priority. The rally organizers had done well with the hotel selection, as the Marriott was providing shuttle vans to transport riders and staff basically anywhere we wanted to go within the immediate area. I asked the bellmen for good suggestions for local fare and they pointed us toward Bacon Bros Public House for some meat-infused deliciousness. Four of us hopped a shuttle over there for a good dinner, and raised a glass to our good fortune for being at the start of the 2019 Iron Butt.

I elected the brisket and a double side of Brussels sprouts, which was all very good. We got the full story from James on his stressful ride down, during which he’d believed himself out of the rally already, before the LD community stepped up to help him out. I’ll leave that telling to him, but rest assured he was happy to be in Greenville and about to embark on his quest for triple digits.

We returned to a mostly quiet parking lot at the hotel, but found more folks to chat with in the lobby and bar area until it was time to hit the hay, well after the bar closed. I enjoyed chatting with other rookies, as well as IBR staff/veterans like Brian Roberts and Marty Cover, and hearing stories from years past.