- 5,014
- Panama City, FL
The Iron Butt Rally, trademarked as The World's Toughest Motorcycle Rally, is in progress right now.
The format is that participants gather at a start location, the bikes are tech-inspected. They have fuel capacity rules, other equipment rules, that have to be adhered to.
The evening before the start they are given a packet with locations to collect, with point values associated with those locations. They have some amount of time to do that and reassemble at a checkpoint. There is a start, two checkpoints, and a finish, for three running legs, 11 days total.
The rally is run every other year at the beginning of July, and is always themed. One year it was locations in all 48 continental states. Another year it was famous crime scenes. This year it's national parks (and monuments, seashores, etc.)
The rally is run by the Iron Butt Association, which certifies long-distance rides for its members. Riding a qualified ride consists of submitting documentation of the ride, meaning dated and timed fuel receipts at the start and end and in between so you can prove the distance ridden. The lowest level certification in the US is 1000 miles in 24 hours. They also have two 1500-mile rides, in 36 and in 24 hours. Or you could do coast-to-coast (San Diego to Jacksonville or vice versa) in 50 hours. They also have a National Park Tour where you collect park stamps over a one-year period of visiting parks by motorcycle.
This year's Iron Butt Rally is loosely based on the National Parks Tour, except you have 11 days, not the full year.
Riders will run anywhere from 11,000 to over 14,000 miles during the 11 days of the rally. This is enough miles that they will have to arrange for oil changes and new tires during the event, hopefully at the checkpoints. Riders are not allowed to receive assistance with route planning, but mechanical assistance is OK, i.e. repairs, replacing a blowout, etc. They are responsible for their own routing decisions, i.e. which locations to get and in what order. There are usually very high points allocated to locations that are all but impossible to reach, i.e. something in Alaska, or Key West. One year even had a Hawaii location, a true sucker item since you can't ride there. Another year had negative points values to some locations, some quite large! Tired riders miss the minus sign nearly every time, and collect the location and destroy their scores! It's cruel, but it's real.
Rest time is actually awarded points as well, to discourage overexertion or complete sleeplessness.
Arriving late to the checkpoint at the end of a leg adds penalty points per minute of tardiness. Missing the deadline by two hours is a disqualification.
Motorcycle rallying is about solving the puzzle of where to go in the allotted time to collect that highest amount of points, and to complete any other finishing requirement. To be counted as a finisher in the past, there has always been a minimum number of points to achieve, and that minimum is not always known beforehand. This year is different, points are not required at all to be a finisher (although they are scored to see who wins, of course) but to finish, "all" you have to do is collect 50 of the locations in 25 different states.
Daily reports and a countdown clock to the next checkpoint can be seen here. The FJR Forum has a great thread running about the rally, as one of the fjrforum admins is a rally officer, and another, along with several forum members, is a multi-time participant and finisher. You don't have to register to read the thread, but you do to see pictures. There is also a site with Spotwalla tracking information on the riders who've elected to allow their devices to be seen publicly. There's even a Facebook page! The locations are available publicly, but the point values with them are not. Generally that is released after the event so people can what-if for themselves.
Completing a certified ride and having it accepted gets you a membership number. General membership numbers are 5 digits, but finishing the Iron Butt Rally earns you a 3-digit number, and very few people have those; more people have orbited the earth in space than have earned finisher status in the Iron Butt Rally!
The format is that participants gather at a start location, the bikes are tech-inspected. They have fuel capacity rules, other equipment rules, that have to be adhered to.
The evening before the start they are given a packet with locations to collect, with point values associated with those locations. They have some amount of time to do that and reassemble at a checkpoint. There is a start, two checkpoints, and a finish, for three running legs, 11 days total.
The rally is run every other year at the beginning of July, and is always themed. One year it was locations in all 48 continental states. Another year it was famous crime scenes. This year it's national parks (and monuments, seashores, etc.)
The rally is run by the Iron Butt Association, which certifies long-distance rides for its members. Riding a qualified ride consists of submitting documentation of the ride, meaning dated and timed fuel receipts at the start and end and in between so you can prove the distance ridden. The lowest level certification in the US is 1000 miles in 24 hours. They also have two 1500-mile rides, in 36 and in 24 hours. Or you could do coast-to-coast (San Diego to Jacksonville or vice versa) in 50 hours. They also have a National Park Tour where you collect park stamps over a one-year period of visiting parks by motorcycle.
This year's Iron Butt Rally is loosely based on the National Parks Tour, except you have 11 days, not the full year.
Riders will run anywhere from 11,000 to over 14,000 miles during the 11 days of the rally. This is enough miles that they will have to arrange for oil changes and new tires during the event, hopefully at the checkpoints. Riders are not allowed to receive assistance with route planning, but mechanical assistance is OK, i.e. repairs, replacing a blowout, etc. They are responsible for their own routing decisions, i.e. which locations to get and in what order. There are usually very high points allocated to locations that are all but impossible to reach, i.e. something in Alaska, or Key West. One year even had a Hawaii location, a true sucker item since you can't ride there. Another year had negative points values to some locations, some quite large! Tired riders miss the minus sign nearly every time, and collect the location and destroy their scores! It's cruel, but it's real.
Rest time is actually awarded points as well, to discourage overexertion or complete sleeplessness.
Arriving late to the checkpoint at the end of a leg adds penalty points per minute of tardiness. Missing the deadline by two hours is a disqualification.
Motorcycle rallying is about solving the puzzle of where to go in the allotted time to collect that highest amount of points, and to complete any other finishing requirement. To be counted as a finisher in the past, there has always been a minimum number of points to achieve, and that minimum is not always known beforehand. This year is different, points are not required at all to be a finisher (although they are scored to see who wins, of course) but to finish, "all" you have to do is collect 50 of the locations in 25 different states.
Daily reports and a countdown clock to the next checkpoint can be seen here. The FJR Forum has a great thread running about the rally, as one of the fjrforum admins is a rally officer, and another, along with several forum members, is a multi-time participant and finisher. You don't have to register to read the thread, but you do to see pictures. There is also a site with Spotwalla tracking information on the riders who've elected to allow their devices to be seen publicly. There's even a Facebook page! The locations are available publicly, but the point values with them are not. Generally that is released after the event so people can what-if for themselves.
Completing a certified ride and having it accepted gets you a membership number. General membership numbers are 5 digits, but finishing the Iron Butt Rally earns you a 3-digit number, and very few people have those; more people have orbited the earth in space than have earned finisher status in the Iron Butt Rally!
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