Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Iron Butt Rally: Fun To Follow, Crazy Hard to Participate In

One of the great parts of using an RSS reader is that every once in a while a dormant feed will suddenly come alive with interesting content. And so it was with Living in a Tunnel. Back in early 2012 I read about the Iron Butt Rally, a massively epic motorcycle race that has its participants literally criss-crossing the country. At that time, I no doubt added the Living in a Tunnel blog to my feed list. Though no new posts appeared.

Then, out of nowhere, on July 16th the feed came alive with a blow-by-blow description of the author's participation in this year's rally:

By the time I left for the start I put about 750 miles on my bike in rally trim. I wasn't ready but I was somewhat confident that because of the simplicity of the modifications that there was nothing done that could be a ride stopper. If all failed I had a laptop, Zumo and a stack of index cards along with the mantra of "no drama." If it doesn't work move on. In each rally past I've spent some time in a truck stop fiddling with this or that and getting worked up that something isn't just right. I was determined through either redundancy or a I don't care attitude that I'd be able to avoid reaching for tools this time around. Bluetooth and simple electrical wiring made this a reality.

The Iron Butt Rally is part long distance motorcycle race, part scavenger hunt and one big mental challenge. It's an endurance race I'll never complete, but one I can respect and take great pleasure following from the comfort of my office chair.

It's definitely worth a read: Start Reading Here.

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