With All Our Friends Around Us- Leg 1 Begins 

Sometimes you find yourself right where you are supposed to be at exactly the time you were meant to be there.  For me, that was yesterday morning’s church service.  With so many friends and family traveling this week, I had a lot to be thankful for and a lot to offer up.  Then, during the second reading, this is what I heard, “And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something—now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means.”  And there you have it.    

So many friends are wearing the Big Girl Pants this year - Mark, Tom, Jim, Chris, Tonie, Lynda and Terry, Connie, John and Andie, Allen, Hammy, Bob, Scott, and so many more - thus begins watching dots and spots and tracking friends.  And blogging.  It is also the time when, as an earlier IBR report said, over 50,000 members devour the reports of the rally goings-on.  I watch the reports and FB pages of other friends, spouses, and riders (who are ONLY reporting at check-points, if even then, lest they distract themselves and earn the wrath of rally staff…or worse, end up in an IBR daily report).  So, if you’re ready to do the deep dive into the IBR 2015 viewing party over the next 11 days, here are some public sites you might want to watch:

Iron Butt Magazine’s FB page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Iron-Butt-Magazine/215472378531?fref=ts  a.k.a. reports, commentary and pictures!

Bob Rippy’s blog: http://mls2go.blogspot.com/2015/06/iron-butt-rally-2015-pictures-from.html  a.k.a. Never have so many, ridden so far, to see so little.

Chris Sakala’s blog (kept by Nancy): http://www.beadrider.com/2015-iron-butt-rally/  a.k.a. Co-creator of BeadRider – which some call the single best investment to improve comfort on long rides.

One good friend not at ABQ is Paul Pelland, who regaled us last summer at the Denver IBA Meet with his amazing story of riding the IBR in the “hopeless class,” which resulted in his standing on his pegs and screaming at the top of his lungs “I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!!”  He didn’t, doesn’t, and is still amazing, and still riding, with MS.  He got just got home yesterday after a monster ride to AK, which included, on his last leg of the trip, 3300 miles in 59.5 hours.  His site is: http://www.longhaulpaul.com/

If you’re a facts-n-figures kind of person, you might like to look at the many ways to split the numbers provided by the IBR Finishers and Records page. http://www.ironbutt.org/ibrfacts.htm

And if you were watching the public IBR Spot Tracker page around 10:00 a.m. ABQ time this morning, you saw pretty quickly that the field divided as each person made their routing decisions.  

 Kirsten, with Rider flag #2, shared a picture of her starting GPS.  She said that folks were cheering as they rode out of ABQ with a police escort.  She sounded super excited and eager in the 2 minutes I had her in her helmet, and then… game time.  At last report (7:00 p.m. ABQ time), she’s making good progress although a rainstorm surprised her with her vents open and she got pretty wet.  It was a quick dry once she was out of the storm, but she said the winds were so strong she had to keep moving to keep the bike upright.  Those western winds won’t blow her off course.  She’s got a plan and she’s sticking to it.

The sign on her office door at FOMR on her last day before leaving for ABQ.