Cheyenne WY
Sat Jul 2 (continued)

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
― Abraham Lincoln

The finisher’s banquet was scheduled for 19:00. I was up and about in plenty of time, having caught a few hours of sleep through the early afternoon. I spent some time packing up and planning logistics for the two-day route home, and admiring the nice swag we’d gotten from the event.

i headed down to chew the fat with folks in the parking lot, swapping stories about the rally: ferries to Mackinac, comparing Lincoln multipliers, who went to Gerlach, mistakes, DNFs, and misdeeds, etc. I was saddened to hear more about how the Cover-Rufo clan had had to pull out of the rally due to illness back on the east coast and couldn’t be with us at the finish. Lew had picked up an uninvited passenger somewhere along the his ride, who didn’t quite make it intact. Does this count as riding as a team???

Gerry and I made tentative plans to ride towards home together tomorrow, since I had a hotel already booked in Joliet IL for the following night. He wasn’t sure he would want to ride that far (remember this later), but what the hell. The plan required an early start tomorrow morning, and we agreed on an early departure time before breakfast.

When chow time rolled around, we all headed into the designated banquet room to enjoy some typical banquet fare including a couple meat choices. You’ll never see the salad bowls and veggie trays empty as quickly as at a rally finishing banquet buffet! Sound was subdued for a while as everyone dug into what was most likely their first balanced meal in days.

Paul was dolled up as Honest Abe for this party, complete with stovepipe hat and Amish beard. After 40 minutes or so of the sound of forks and knives hitting plates, he stepped up to address the masses. After thanking the hotel and many staff/volunteers that made the rally possible, Paul talked a bit about the rally and pointed out that he’d specifically scheduled it to finish exactly seven days from the start. That had made it possible, in cooperation with the Iron Butt Association, to automatically award SaddleSore 7000 certificates for all LDX riders who netted over 7000 miles during the rally. Though total mileage is not a driving factor in these rallies, over a dozen of us qualified for this extra little recognition.

Then we dove into the presentation of finisher plaques. Similar to the IBR, every single rider who completed the rally received a wooden plaque to memorialize their achievement. No wonder all those Home Depot boxes at the start seemed to weigh so much! Out of 56 motorcycles at the start, only 41  managed to make it intact to the finish line, for various reasons. Paul acknowledged a few of the riders and teams who’d had difficulties and dropped out, before then proceeding with the awards.

He started with 41st place and worked back from there, with statistical slides showing on the projector for each rider as they went up to get their plaque. As I had learned at the Heart of Texas rally earlier this year, Paul likes to make up amusing awards for riders who  accomplished certain notable deeds during the rally, certain combinations of bonuses, furthest travel in a certain direction, etc. Lew won the “Don Juan” award for claiming bonuses the furthest east and west, while James Epley won a similar “Spanish Conquest” award for the greatest difference in bonus latitude (Fargo ND and New Orleans LA). Nick Byrnes won the “Fountain of Youth” award for being the only rider to visit the Ponce de Leon bonus in Florida on Leg A. And Paul Meyers got recognition for achieving the longest distance during his run – an astounding 8844 miles! Fun stuff.

When he reached the top 20 and the points totals were still a lower than mine, I was expecting there to quickly be some big scoring gaps and then I’d be called up. When 11th place was announced and I was still without a plaque, I was surprised and excited. I also felt quite undeserving and sheepish for having made top ten after the heartbreak of the second leg . Paul asked the remaining 10 riders to all come up front, and it felt amazing standing up there beside nine strong riders who’d given their all during the last week to get here. I somehow managed to hang in for fifth place.

Four elite riders were left after I sat down, all guys that are frequently at or near the top of the leaderboard in every event they enter. Ben Ernst took fourth and followed me to sit down shortly after. Then there were three, and Mike Best ended up with the third place trophy. At this point, Paul hearkened back in rally history to the end of the Butt Lite IX rally when Billy Connacher and Jim Owen were also the final two riders left standing. These are two serious competitors and also two of the absolute nicest guys you’ll ever meet. While Jim had outscored us all in that final Butt Lite, it was now Billy’s turn at last to take home a big win.

 

In addition to his first-place trophy, Billy was also presented with the poster-sized document that all riders had had to sign unknowingly back on registration day. It was written in the style of Lincoln’s famous address in Gettysburg:

With the official awards presentation now at an end, rider John Kerr got up and made an additional short speech, presenting our bearded rallymaster with an ENORMOUS trophy. Just for being Paul, I think, and some recognition for putting on an absolutely fantastic rally experience for all of us riders. Luckily Paul will not have to figure out a way to strap that thing onto a motorcycle to get it home.

It is truly amazing the amount of planning, coordination, and effort that rallymasters and staff – like the Tong family, Jeff, Nancy, the Stevens, and all the other volunteers – are willing to do in order to create these epic events for the rest of us. From the rally app, to the amazing books and theme artwork, and fun scoring puzzles – thank you, thank you, thank you, it can never be said enough!

(all staff pics courtesy of Toby Stevens)

Spending some time chatting with other riders after the banquet was the big payoff for this entire trip, as we talked about our plans, actual routes, and successes and failures along the way. Though he had gone neither to Mackinac Island nor Gerlach, Billy had put together a strong second leg route across the country, dipping down to northern Georgia and up to Chicago before tackling the middle route that I’d taken from St. Louis to Lamar. He’d done a complete lap through Cheyenne and Laramie to maximize his Lincoln multiplier to 15 before going back south to collect the points-rich Colorado cluster as well as the Lincoln combination, worth 30,000. He had outscored everyone on the second leg by over 40,000 points!

Building a Lincoln multiplier early on, finishing out the Madonnas combo, and grabbing those three Colorado bonuses with a decent multiplier seems to be what saved a top-ten finish for me. I feel like I got away with one here, considering some bad luck that others had, and that my Leg B plan changed four times – SMH.

I have more work to do on my middle-rally mental game. I had thrown away a very good route in the middle of riding it, perhaps distrusting myself after having been so confident with my plan in Heart of Texas. Doubt and indecision can hit us all, especially as the miles stretch on and cumulative rest becomes scarce. Time for a new windshield reminder on rule #1: PYRRYP (Plan Your Ride, Ride Your Plan)!

As the excitement and adrenaline from the presentations word down, everyone gradually wandered away from the proverbial campfire to get some sleep and I did the same. There were still miles to ride before I could truly rest and we had an early start tomorrow. However, it would be nice to be off that awful clock at last!

 

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Cheyenne WY – Southeast MA
Sun Jul 3 – Mon Jul 4, 2022
(~1950 miles)

Gerry met me down in the parking lot in plenty of time for our planned 06:00 departure. He’d apparently gotten a good night’s sleep and said he was feeling great and well-rested. Despite his hemming and hawing yesterday, he was now singing a different tune about possibly riding home in a straight shot, depending on how he was feeling. Whoa there Gerry! We still got a day’s riding ahead of us – let’s get that done first! We fueled up at the nearby station and got moving east on I-80.

I’d checked the weather along our route home this morning. The beautiful weather pattern that had dominated the rally week was still with us, with bright blue skies rimming the patches of frosty-white clouds. What a gorgeous morning it was as we paced a freight train towards the Nebraska line.

After a few hours of riding, we were ready to stop for some breakfast, so I pulled up some likely spots in Yelp along our way. A place in North Platte, Nebraska caught our eye and seemed to be at about the right distance, so we set our sights on that and took the exit, winding around some strange access roads to get to Penny’s Diner.

Penny’s was a classic greasy spoon – busy, dirty, and waitresses who barely seem to give a f*ck whether we sat down or turned around and kept going.  It was perfect. After one of the girls cleaned our table of all the dishes from the last customers, we put in our orders. I think I ordered an omelet with my coffee, which actually turned out to be pretty decent. We had a good little meal break here.

While eating, we talked about possible plans for this evening. Both of us were feeling energized, and now Gerry seemed to have gotten it into his mind to do a Bun Burner Gold (1500 miles in 24 hrs) straight through the night to get home. Well I couldn’t very well wuss out and get a hotel if he was going to keep going. So I said I’d stick with him if he still wanted to do that when we got to Joliet. I’d reserved the hotel room on points, which were non-refundable, so either way the hotel would be there for us if we needed it.

We hit the road again and rode tank-to-tank across the central states, with fuel stops in Gibbon NE, Newton IA, and then Utica IL where we grabbed some Subway for dinner at a Loves after gassing up, around 20:40 CDT. We assessed our situation and our condition, and I asked Gerry what he wanted to do. He was on a mission, and I had no objection to getting home a bit earlier on the July 4th holiday. OK we’ll just keep riding then! And on we went, waving to the paid-for, comfortable hotel beds in Joliet as we passed.

As I’ve seen on past return trips from the IBRs on Independence Day weekend, we were treated to sights of local fireworks displays in the small towns along the interstate, which is a pretty cool experience. We made our miles through the mid-west, with a fuel stop around 02:00 EDT in Genoa OH and then few stops for nature breaks and stretching as needed, on into and through Pennsylvania. We were trying to keep up our conversation to stay alert, and stopping every hour or less as the night wore into the lighter morning hours. We had fuel stops in Snow Shoe and then Lake Ariel PA.

I was intent on stopping for breakfast at the Red Line Diner, but Gerry still had a couple hundred miles to finish his BBG. We parted ways when I exited in Fishkill NY, while my crazy friend kept on trucking – he was actually going to have to overshoot his home in order to get the miles in for the certificate. Considering we’d just finished an intense 7-day rally, plus an undocumented BBG already, I was quite content to take things down a notch for the final three hours home. I was over the Hudson River now and back in the northeast. I was exhausted, but I had all day if needed to cover the remaining 200 miles.

My meal was a simple breakfast burrito and plenty of coffee and juice to perk me back up. I thought about getting some of their marvelous pie, but I’d heard it through the grapevine that a homemade pie was awaiting my return at home. 🥧 😊 It felt great to be in the AC and sitting down to truly just enjoy a meal, with no plans to calculate and able to close my eyelids for a minute or two without worry, for the better part of an hour. Almost home!

The remainder of the ride was a bit of a blur, as I’ve ridden this stretch across Connecticut so many times. I stuck to the interstates to avoid having to think, and there were no bad slowdowns or problems getting through Waterbury or Hartford, amazingly enough.

I rolled into my driveway around 13:30, greeted by a small but warm welcoming committee consisting of Char and my thoughtful sister Susan, who’d made up a couple signs as usual for my return home after big rallies. After unpacking and cleaning up, I relaxed with a nice beer and some comfort food – my favorite all-beef franks, pesto pasta, and a freshly baked Dutch apple pie! There is something to be said about coming home! It felt amazing to be here so quickly, about 30 hours after leaving the hotel in Cheyenne! Sort of like stepping out of time-machine. That I’m-not-sure-I-wanna-ride-that-far Gerry guy has turned into a MONSTER. He’s been hanging out with Ken an awful lot, tho… 😂

 

My trusty ST1300 continued to serve me well for this trip, despite that rude blowdown in the Wyoming winds. I’ll cover some maintenance needed in the aftermath of this trip in a future post, but to close the loop on the GPS power issue: I later found that the cradle wires inside the nosecone had apparently gotten caught up in the windshield roller mechanism, causing a wiring break. An easy enough fix to replace the proprietary cradle cord, once all the plastic was removed. 🙄

What an incredibly fun trip and amazing rally experience. I daresay many riders in this community are extremely grateful and relieved that the Texans have stepped up to fill the biennial vacancy left by the Minnesotan Butt Lite crew. If this inaugural event is any indication, there are some fun and exciting rallies coming our way in the future IBR off-years. I cannot wait for the next one….is registration for LDX-II open yet??

Trip Stats
Days: 16
Miles: ~12,604
Moose: 6
Pie Slices: 1

Here is a LINK TO ALL PHOTOS FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP, including many people shots and others that I couldn’t fit into the trip posts. Enjoy.