Of That, Which We Must Not Speak - Lice!

There are some topics that should never discussed across a dinner table.

And they should not be, at least in polite company. In part these are because we are "civilised" or at least in veneer. Sometimes they are just too gross to discuss over a meal! One such topic is that of Hair Lice and nits. Clearly no one wants to think of small writhing living creatures dropping from their hair into the soup.

Or worse, the thought of having to drag them out of the hair of a loved one. But then many of us have done that for our children, after they have shared hats at school, or got "really close" to each other. I remember those days well, of drowning the little blighters in some nasty chemical from the pharmacist, and then dragging, slowly, a very fine tooth comb through the long tangles of one of our children. Frankly, it wasn't easy, but it worked.

Lice are tiny creatures with six clinging legs, about 1 mm long. They give birth to babies as eggs called "nits" which generally contain a cluster of about six eggs. These stick to hair like - glue. For an adult human, who gets lice in their hair, they are a nightmare if only because it implies that the person is unclean. In fact the opposite is more probably true - lice love very clean hair, and hate oily locks.

I copped a dose of lice at my local barber. He used tools that had been also used on two teenage boys, who had their hair cut before me - I watched it happen! To make matters worse, I was heading off on a four day trans-continent motorcycle ride, and frankly, my helmet made a perfect breading ground for them - warmth, sweat, dead skin and time. By day two I was itching like hell.

On my return, I read up on lice via the internet of course. The general consensus is that lice can be killed easily in a hot environment and that the nits or eggs will not last 10 days in the heat. So, I wrapped my helmet in a plastic bag and set it in the sun for three weeks. Then cleaned the liner thoroughly after removing it, via hot water and soap. This did NOT work. Nits can last longer than three weeks quite clearly. I also believe that they can also last on bedding and towels, which is contrary to much of the information on the internet. For this reason, I started washing my towel and pillowcases every day.

In fact the way to sort out the liner, would have been to freeze the liner in our domestic freezer, then clean it.

While all of this was going on, I went to the pharmacist and bought two different commercial shampoos, "guaranteed to remove lice and nits". They did not. They will kill the lice, but the nits are another matter all together. I then tried other commercial treatments and some "home remedies" such as vinegar. The latter works fairly well, smells horrible and needs to be used twice a day for some days.

For nits, they will stick to your hair very strongly. The cleaner your hair, the better. So, adding a little oil to your hair makes it MUCH harder for them to survive. I started here. Then I had all my hair cut off, leaving the shortest stubble. It still did not clear this up, so I had my hair removed with a blade, by a barber. This worked for some time, but ANY small nicks or pimples offer a re-breading ground for the little buggers.

My recommendation is to mechanically remove the nits with a fine comb, when your hair is long. Do this a number of times. THEN get it cut short to a stubble, and rub with oil - cooking oil works but Tea Tree oil is the go -and number one treatment. This finally worked.

A footnote to this is that this process with chemicals is very rough on your hair, allowing another pest to take hold. It is microscopic and called demodex. Because you cannot see these little mites, and they are present on everyone's head, they are much harder to deal with when they get to plague proportions. The cause a rash on the skin, much like rosacea, when in plague numbers. Again, a very short, non-blade hair cut, coupled with Tea Tree oil works well.

A second footnote is that helmets wear out. Old ones are worse then new ones. This is a great time to throw out your old helmet " then one you have kept in case of emergencies". Do it now.

What the hell is The Iron Butt Association Anyway? (And long distance riding?)

To some friends who have asked:

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you on this. Enter the rest of this email at your peril. Addiction follows as sure as sun follows rain....

In simple terms, you go to the Iron Butt Association (IBA) Page here - http://www.ironbutt.com/ or the Iron Butt Rally (run by the IBA) page here;

http://www.ironbutt.com/ibr.cfm 

or here for this years details: http://www.ironbutt.com/2017ibr/

Or here for a review on ONE DAY of the last rally! 

http://www.ironbutt.com/ibr/2015/Day1.pdf  This was the one I rode in.

BUT, I am preparing a more detailed response as a number of people have asked - eventually it will be on my BLOG here:

http://olafsbike.blogspot.com.au/ where you will also find all my 7 reports on the Iron Butt Rally 2015.

But before you go there, the Australian club and website for LDR's (both Long Distance Rides and Riders) in Australia is the Far Riders and you can find it here:

http://farriders.com.au/index.php

These guys generally do an RTE (Ride to Eat) on a Saturday at Noon anywhere in Australia. To get on their list you register for one of their rides (on their website), ride the 1000 km in 24 hours and bring a receipt for your starting time (after Noon Friday) to the event (as I did today for "East #43"). Your name gets added on the list, you get a number (mine is 489) and you are enshrined as an Australian Far Rider for ever in the website list. Everyone who is a FR is visible to anyone who wants to scroll down the list! Currently there are 1046 Members, and some of those are Aliens. 

The Iron Butt Rally is a different beast. It started in 1984 and runs every second year. It is organized (exceedingly professionally) by the Iron Butt Association who are based in the USA but operate in about 30 countries. To join the IBA you simply have to ride and document a 1000 MILE Ride (1610 km) in 24 hours. Document and submit to their Exacting standard. Go here for the IBA as before: http://www.ironbutt.com/ One of my close friends in Sydney realised he could ride his Harley to Melbourne and back and just qualify for membership of the IBA. He did it, got his certificate and has never tried again - "You have to be f....g crazy to do that weird shit again" he said.

NOW to get in the 11-day, highly competitive, Iron Butt Rally takes about four years. Thousands of people apply, and about 100 get accepted. As Mike Kneebone aka "Mr Nice-guy" is prone to say regularly, "More people have been into space than have finished the Iron Butt Rally" - and factually that is correct.

This thing is brutal. Finishers don't generally shake hands when they meet - they give huge bear-hugs (irrespective of gender) indicating "mate we went through hell together but wasn't it awesome!" The IBR is essentially a Scavenger Hunt for sites (not things) all over Canada and the USA, with points for the more remote and weird places (mountain tops, death valley, brothels, car museums, private homes, there is nothing they would not stoop to, to make it "interesting".)

There are no monetary prizes for the winners of the IBR. The first get a piece of plastic for the shelf and the rest - who finish - get a certificate. Plus Global Kudos. And one other thing. You cannot buy, trade, bargain or otherwise steal one of these - a three-digit IBA Membership number. You only get it when you have COMPLETED an Iron Butt Rally. Plenty of great riders have tried and failed. Mine is #517 - and it aint going nowhere!

On the alternate years there is another rally run in the USA, called "Butt Lite". IT is 6 days not 11 and has become insanely popular, mainly because it is brilliant practice for the IBR itself, and adds to your ride credentials (or Ride Biography that you have to provide when applying for the IBR)  I have ridden in Butt Lite VII and Butt Lite VIII. The organizers for Butt Lite are a quaint group from Minnesota called Team Strange. They started as a Ten Pin Bowling Club and morphed to motorcycles. Just to keep Butt Lite interesting, they regularly ask riders to play a game of bowls - and score their points into the Rally!

Go here to read about all their rallies; http://www.teamstrange.com/

So, who enters and why?

Well that is easy - Type "A" personalities make up 80% of the entrants. Great riders (well most of them anyway), athletes, US Marines, Policeman, pilots, NP Rangers - and regular Joes and Joans etc. One entrant last year was a "Naval Aviator" (F18 Pilot) who looked and acted like Tom Cruise. (How do you know when a Naval Aviator is in the room? Don't worry, he'll tell you!) The navy flew him back from Afghanistan just to compete.... and gave him all that weird food and psycho training. He came second.

Well that should get you started. Don't say I didn't warn you.

(More in the un-abridge version, like "is this dangerous?"

Olaf