Coralville IA
Tue Jun 18, 2024
(~53 miles)

Today is registration day, officially the first day of the trip including “rally business”, starting at 13:00. Until then, still plenty of downtime to poke around and socialize. Breakfast for us early arrivals is not included with our room stay here, but I was still digesting that pieshake from yesterday, so not exactly starving first thing anyway. When I moseyed out to the lobby for coffee, I ended up chatting awhile with the rallymaster and a few other riders.

The unavoidable topic of the IBR uncertainty and rally insurance in general dominated the conversation. Someone asked the obvious question, and let the record show that Mr. Tong emphatically denied that he would be taking over the reins as IBR rallymaster in the future. I think Tara may have been standing over his shoulder at this point. 😉 The idea was floated many times in conversations with other riders today and everyone agreed that, assuming the IBR could secure insurance for 2025, there must be a very short list of capable people who could even have a hope of pulling it off so late into the schedule, with Paul at the top of such a list.

Anyway, after thanking the RM sincerely for all his efforts in keeping LDX viable and on schedule, he shared some eye-opening tidbits about how he secures event insurance. That apparently includes a comprehensive written presentation for the insurance folks about how LD rallies work, with supporting documentation above and beyond the standard application forms. He emphasizes the various risk-mitigating practices built into his rallies, including the high-point rest bonuses, daily meal breaks, the emphasis on speed enforcement, etc.

The fact that there is a need to be so specific about such things was astounding. However, you can’t dispute the success he’s had so far with this approach, explaining our pastime to people unfamiliar. Namely that we are not a bunch of hooligans riding from bar to bar, or racing each other at reckless speeds over the public roadways, with no rest. Paul assured us that there would be more said on this topic at the rider meeting tomorrow morning, so that everyone would hear the same thing. I just hoped that any procedural changes wouldn’t be any more restrictive than in the first LDX.

It was a thought-provoking conversation that would end up percolating through my subconscious over the next several days, well into riding the actual rally. It’s taken even longer to process and begin to accept, even as of this writing several months later. Changes to things we love can be hard to swallow. It’s disappointing and feels undeserved that an outside industry is able to affect the practices and traditions that lie at the very heart of what makes an endurance rally (in my book at least). All this despite our community’s excellent safety record.

The “ridecraft” we practice stems in large part from a focus on learning to make safe riding decisions under stress, that suit our individual needs – i.e. experiencing and learning your own mental and physical limitations, strategizing where and when to eat and rest that make the most sense for you. Don’t like heavy traffic and high heat, but willing to ride after the sun goes down? Plan around it by resting through rush hour or during the hottest parts of the day and then tackle that city bonus at night. Prefer to take a series of shorter naps while riding through the night and save on time/money by avoiding hotels? This is part of your strategy and self-awareness that you pick up over time and (hopefully) improve, with each challenge or event that you ride. Or at least it was.

Feeling a bit unsettled and certainly more awake now, I headed back to my room to set about finding some food. I like to take advantage of these down days at rallies to get in some walking around the local area, since I’ll be on my ass for the next several days. I picked out an empanada restaurant a couple miles walk away, figuring I could use the exercise to bring back some Argentine pastry in time for a brunch, while seeing a bit more of Coralville.

Heading out on foot for my little adventure, the first obstacle was crossing the busy and construction-choked bridge over the interstate. Right away, I learned that Coralville has built a pretty nice bike/walking path system. Following the sidewalk from the hotel, I found myself strolling through a couple very clean tunnels, plus a dedicated bridge for foot/cycle traffic, avoiding all the messy construction happening on the main overpass.

I appreciated the tunnels for the shade they provided, because guess what, it was yet another hot and steamy day out in Iowa! One thing I learned about dealing with daily oppressive heat when living in Texas years ago was… move slower. Astounding observation, right? But not always so easy for us Yankees. I kept my pace down to an amble and sought the shady sections of sidewalk as I walked about a mile or so down 1st Avenue, which is a pretty busy six-lane commercial boulevard, lined with hotels, stores, and restaurants on both sides. Not exactly a pretty or calming stroll, but it was the only way from A to B.

Even slow-rolling it, I made it to Maestro Empanadas on 10th Ave in about a half hour, right at ten o’clock. Wait, what? TEN o’clock? Oh no, they open at 11! Because my laptop was still set to the eastern time zone, I had thought it was later than it is when planning the walk. Well crap, I wasn’t about to wait around this random little strip mall, which the restaurant shares with a small international market and a vacuum repair shop. So I headed back for the hotel, taking a shortcut this time through a pleasantly shady residential neighborhood.

I’d really been craving these empanadas once I’d chosen the place, so it was hard to get enthused about stopping at any of the other restaurants I’d passed. So I just ducked in at the Trader Joe’s by the highway, picking up some prosciutto rolls and a mango smoothie, a nice light snack that should carry me over fine to dinner.

Back at the hotel, more tire-kicking ensued in the lot for the next couple hours as more riders arrived, alternating with cool-down sessions in the lobby AC. Registration and odometer checks started at 13:00, with each rider having reserved a specific time ahead of the rally using an online form. I hadn’t formulated my travel plans nor arrival time back then, so I’d chosen a mid-afternoon time slot, which now left me with a few hours of just waiting around.

There were apparently less than 40 bikes signed up for this big event. Perhaps that’s because many of the usual suspects had been expecting to ride the 2025 IBR and were opting to ride smaller events this year like the new four-day PNW Rally. Well unfortunately, the news had broken this very week that PNW was also being cancelled due to inability to secure event insurance. There are going to be a lot of sad riders out there wishing they had signed up for LDX after all (and we all wish they were here too).

 

Unlike the IBR tradition of riders lining up for registration stations all morning to go through paperwork and check off pre-requisites for being allowed to compete, the LDX continues its practical embrace of technology to spread out the work and make things easier for everyone. We had all completed the registration forms and submitted supporting paperwork (registration, license, proof of personal insurance, etc) online, long before we even arrived here. You do miss out on that “been-thru-the-meat-grinder-together” experience standing in lines with your fellow competitors, but overall, I appreciate these very welcome improvements to the rally registration process.

So really, all that remains to do today is to check in with co-rallymaster Nancy Oz to: confirm the submitted paperwork was complete and sufficient; verify my Spotwalla tracker is working; and ride the odometer calibration course.

My time slot for the odo check is at 15:08. It was hinted that we might be able to head out earlier, so I got geared up about an hour prior. Turns out I only got the thumbs-up to depart a few minutes before my scheduled time anyway. It was yucky hot and humid out, but I’m starting to feel a bit acclimated already after riding in it the previous two days. The course was a simple out-and-back to the west on I-80, roughly 50 miles total, and it was over before you could say ‘cornfield’. It did feel good at least getting some saddle time today to break things up. After checking back in, I rode back across that dreaded interstate bridge twice more to fuel up at the nearest gas station, so I’d be starting the rally with full tanks tomorrow.

The LDX pre-start timeline is also quite dissimilar to IBR tradition, which has recently consisted of an official banquet the evening prior to the start, following by the main rider meeting and distribution of the rally packs, giving riders the entire night to plan if desired. Instead, the LDX begins with an early morning meeting and rally pack distribution. Then after a few hours to sift the data and plan our routes, we check out of our rooms and move our bikes to a designated starting area in the parking lot in preparation to leave as a group (in this case at 13:00 tomorrow afternoon).

This schedule seems to serve a dual purpose of providing opportunity for everyone to get a full night’s sleep, and to have the same amount of time for initial routing on Leg 1. It also means that that first key decision regarding endurance rally strategy (getting more sleep or taking extra routing time) is now out of the riders’ hands. This change rewards riders who tend to be quicker at slicing and dicing the electronic GPS data files, as well as understanding any puzzle aspects of the rally. After getting through all that, there is less optional time available to go deep into crunching the data to compare multiple routing solutions, in exchange for sleep. 

Given the meeting timeline, the only thing on the agenda for tonight is a non-mandatory evening meal together, with no official rally business to cover. The hotel served up cookout-type food buffet style: salad, burgers, chicken, beans, corn on the cob and potato salad. I sat with Iowans Lew Ballard and Lee Miller, along with Paul Meyer from Kansas. As I expounded on my newfound appreciation for the local countryside after my ride yesterday, they assured me that I had ridden the best part of the state, as it does get much flatter west and south.

We had a nice meal together, exchanging stories and more speculation on the theme, though of course Lew, as a volunteer staffer this year, kept an impeccable poker face about what we’d be facing in the morning. My best guess was it would have something to do with outer space, based on a very short video clip that the rallymaster had posted on Facebook in the past months – plus a satellite image of the planet Earth that had been displayed on the rally website.

After dinner, there was a bit of time to hang around outside until the curfew began. Yes, that’s right, we had been informed by the rallymaster a month ago that we would be physically confined to our hotel rooms starting at 20:00 hours, with no further explanation offered. Now, this being outside the timeframe of the rally, it caused quite a few raised eyebrows amongst my fellow riders, my own among them. With maybe a few exceptions, I’m betting it’s been decades since any of us have been sent to our rooms after dinner. I’d gotten reconciled to the idea by now, and just trusted that it has to do with concealing the theme of the rally until morning, so best to just be a good sport and play along.

So I made sure I had whatever I needed from the bike, the last of us headed for our rooms right around 19:55, and… that was that. With no rally book to process and being unable to leave my room, there wasn’t really much else to do but triple-check my routing process and files and then try to get to sleep at a reasonable time.

My ground-floor room happened to be directly opposite the suite that had been designated the “rally office”, so I’d idly wondered if I would see anything interesting through my peephole this evening. But not on this rallymaster’s watch! When I detected footsteps just outside my door and went to peep, I found that it had been covered over. Hah, very clever Paul! I felt like it would be within the letter of the rules to open my door as long as I stayed inside my room, but best not to poke the bear. 🐻

We’d been instructed to be present and accounted for outside the designated meeting room no sooner than 0400, with rider meeting starting at 0430. After winding down for a while, it was time to get some rest.