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