Preparation

“Oh my gosh Jennifer – what happened on June 23?!” Kirsten yelled from the other room.  “What? What’s happened?” I said as I hurried to the study where she was sitting shocked at the computer.  The screen was full of analytics – charts and graphs - “On June 23, FIFTEEN people looked at my blog!  Why?  No one ever looks at my blog – 15 people – what happened?!”  “Seriously?” said I.  And so began the at-home preparation of another Iron Butt Ride.

In addition to motorcycle prep, clothes prep, and nutrition prep, there was also refreshing of the passwords, SpotTracker tests, updating insurance, calling the bank (yes – it’s possible that gas and other charges were made in 8 states 2,000 miles apart in 2 days), and photocopying everything that travels with her on the bike.  But we seem to always add another special layer of preparation – re-aiming the TV antenna in the attic so Channel 9 will come in, pulling the furniture out so that I can vacuum the baseboards, staining the deck…yes indeed, no room for slacking in Iron Butt Rally prep around here!   

Prep done, she got underway on the Leg 1A – getting to the start.  Wednesday was a 1,000 mile first day, with the usual mental re-adjustments to being on the bike again for the long miles.  In a short run – the first mile takes forever, in a long run, your body starts to smooth out and settle in after 5 miles.  On a long ride, it’s the first 500 miles.  She said that she felt like every time she looked at her clocks, it was 1300 hours – minutes dragged.  She felt a little like Cookie Monster waiting for the cookies to bake ~  

After those 500 miles, things settled in and the next several hours flew by as the shakedown cruise really got underway.  She’s getting a feel for the new tank bag, a GPS died (don’t worry, she has 3 backups), the tube in her hydration system was bunk and had to get fixed.  Yesterday’s 700 mile day included a final stop at Costco for the rest of the nutrition (peanut butter crackers, cashew chews- protein and sweet salt but no chocolate to melt!). She arrived at Rally HQ Denver by suppertime, and found out they moved next door.  The whole hotel, relocated, last week.  See – those tricky rally masters are already at it.

So if you’re new to this sport of long-distance endurance motorcycling, or you just happened to stumble onto this blog- stay tuned!  The Butt Lite runs from July 3 – 9, beginning and ending in Denver, CO with one checkpoint in Nevada.  Tech inspections start at Rally HQ in Denver today.  I’ll be posting as frequently as I can over the next couple of weeks and will share some “finding aids” with you in the next post.  So – enjoy – all 15 of you faithful viewers.