Peter Behm Wins Iron Butt Rally!

[RideToEat]

What a fun and interesting routing challenge posed by the rally organizers! Congrats to them and to all the riders. And a big thanks to this forum and Dale for his interesting updates, and thanks to Jason Jonas. BTW, Jason will never remind you of this but I will - spotwalla.com accepts donations. It's painless. I figure at least the cost of going out to a movie would be fair for the entertainment he provided us - his IBR page was hit over 400,000 times.

There were 5 basic routes available, and you pretty much had to commit to one of them before you left Seattle.

Before Meese crashed he was on a smooth course to claim NV, CA and finish his 4-corners. This would have given him probably first place by 500 points or so.

So if Meese had not crashed, ALL FIVE of the basic routing options would have been reflected in the top 5 finishing positions. That blows my mind.

Hyder (Sinclair)

Hyder & 4-corners ME Leg 2, KW Leg 3 (Meese)

Just capitols (Jewell)

4 corners ME leg 1, KW leg 2 (Frens)

4 corners ME leg 2, KW leg 3 (Behm)

(Meese's Leg 3 & final numbers extrapolated as if he had finished after adding Carson City, Sacramento and San Ysidro.

I'd add that Frens had this thing won but penalty points bumped him down to the bottom of the podium.

I believe the route with the most potential points was not ridden by any of the finishers. It was 4-corners with ME in leg 1 and KW in leg 2 (similar to Frens) but the New England states are touched on Leg 1 and the New England capitols ignored on Leg 2.

A fairly conservative take on that route comes up over 26,000 points (example below). A real big-dog might be able to add a couple more capitols like Cheyenne and Santa Fe to even do better. I'm not saying I could ride it, but I'll bet any of the top finishers could have.

Here's the details on the route I think would have won:

Leg 1: https://goo.gl/SH7Fs

Capitols: WA, OR, ID, SD, WI, MI, PA

Leg 1 States: All except WY, KS, MO & KY.

Non Leg 1 states: CT, RI, MA, NH, ME, VT

Skipped Capitols: MT, WY, NE, KS, MO, ND, MN, IA, IL, IN, OH, KY (1433 points total)

Corners: Blaine and Madawaska

Notes: Painful to skip Cheyenne, but couldn't make it work without risking the 1,000 point Harrisburg PA and limiting rest.

Scheduled an 8 hour sleep bonus and should have time for a couple of other good rest periods

Leg 2: https://goo.gl/kv2Nw

Capitols: NJ, DE, MD, VA, NC, WV, SC, GA

Leg 2 States: Touched all remaining (New England states were touched in Leg 1)

Non Leg 2 states: Touched KY

Skipped Capitols: NY, CT, RI, MA, NH, ME, VT (1009 points total)

Callin bonus

Notes: Should arrive at CP2 early enough to get good rest.

Leg 3: https://goo.gl/yjHVZ

Bagged Leg 3 Capitols: FL, AL, TN, AR, OK, CO, UT, NV, CA, AZ

Leg 3 States: All

Other states: MO, KS & WY

Skipped Leg 3 Capitols: MS, LA, TX, NM (2059 points total)

Corners: San Ysidro (finished 4-corners bonus)

Notes: Basically threaded all the high point capitols except TX - other capitols were bagged only if they were already on that route. Picked up MO, KS and WY to finish 48 states.

Divided available rest up over the hot part of the last 3 days.

I hope this was of interest to someone - I'd hate to think I'm the only route porn addict out there.

 

[mleir]

I hope this was of interest to someone - I'd hate to think I'm the only route porn addict out there.

This is great stuff!!!

Congrats to Peter on a monster ride!

Congrats to all that had the kahones to put the money down and say "Yea I can do this!".

Now I expect Peter, and his wife Paula, to be running 2 Up in 2013. If you think that's crazy talk, take a peek at the MN1K archives.

-Marty

 

[Peter Murray]

Congrats to Peter on an awesome win! Peter is a serious competitor but very quiet in nature... it was so cool to see him last night at the banquet surrounded by new groupies.... some were having him sign copies of Roy Ayres books (Against the Wind....). I asked him to sign my butt but he declined . I am sure we will hear more about it but he pulled off a hard core 3rd leg for win. Truly well deserved and couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Perry

Hey Perry !

Kick Ass Job, well done !!

 

[64Y80]

Congratulations to Peter and everyone who rode this rally. I can't believe the miles you all rode. I used to be proud of doing 1500 miles in 3 days....um....I'll just take a piece of humble pie and go quietly to my room, you people are truly in a league of your own.

 

[Twigg]

Very many congratulations to all associated with this event.

The winner absolutely deserved the honor, this being an 11 day Rally, not 10 and a half

However, history has a way of remembering glorious attempts too, so the effort, skill and dedication shown over the last few days by Ken Meese, John Young and others will also take their rightful place in Iron Butt history.

Good Job Guys ...... all of you!

 

[Slonishku]

Now that I'm done, I can tell you that this rally was great fun, and allowed each of us to bite off as big a piece as we felt up to. In my case, I rode extremely conservatively due to a deeply rooted sense of foreboding brought on by my '09 ride on the 1976 RE5. Of course, those fears turned out to be unfounded as my FJR ran brilliantly. I was the second bike to the finish line. O got there early afternoon of the 30th. My wife and daughter were there waiting. It was my daughter's first birthday, and the opportunity to spend it with here AND have the finisher status in the bag was enough to make me forgo the juicy Carson City/ Sacramento bonus.

I started leg three by grabbing Olympia, Salem, and Boise. I was running HIDs in place of the stock halogens. They both fried their relays when I was leaving Cincinatti on leg one. The sun was just going down. I replaced both relays, but only got one headlight back. As such, I opted to forgo Lansing, MI and Harrisburg, PA. That was the first real "oof" of the rally for me points wise. It made my go things a bit easier to err on the side of a conservative finish rather than a bonus-gobbling ride.

 

[mojeaux]

A big congratulations to Peter for an outstanding ride! Great win for a great guy! Eric, so dang close!! Jim, your 14,000+ miles is simply awesome. Roger, I didn't know how OR was gonna work out but way to Git'R Done! A high five to my fellow '04 MN1K rookie Curt Gran - mega-miles and a fantastic finish! John Young - Wow!! Congratulations to all of the other riders as well. T'was such fun watching it all unfold. For Mark Crane - Dang Man. That's gotta hurt. Sounds like you had a great ride otherwise.

Thanks to Jason Jonas for all of his efforts with Spotwalla which I know we all enjoyed.

Thanks always to Mike & Lisa and all of the IBR staff and volunteers without which this event would not be.

Thanks to those folks around the country that came to the aid of the riders in times of trouble.

Thanks to all here at the FJR Forum for having us here at THE best place to follow the 2011 Rally.

And...best wishes for a speedy recovery to those who went down during the course of the rally.

Joe L

Tomahawk, WI

IBA #374

 

[Bounce]

Congrats to everyone but specially to Peter for riding the kind of ride that hit the right combination of pushing and pacing that ended with him and his bike crossing the finish line while others around his went by the wayside (before or at the scoring table).

 

[tmc]

Slonishku , I'd say that was a damn good reason to cash it in early. My kid is 8.5 months and the IBR is not a good enough reason to miss his 1st b-day!

Also, that issue you had with the hid's is pretty much my primary reason for not adding them. It is a failure point I'm not willing to bother with. I've heard they are great, but I'd rather not lose my primary light source and not be able to roll in to any auto parts store or walmart and correct it.

 

[TriggerT]

Trying to get caught up on several forums after being away on vacation.

Congrats to Peter, and all of the IBR riders.

 

[SkooterG]

Also, that issue you had with the hid's is pretty much my primary reason for not adding them. It is a failure point I'm not willing to bother with. I've heard they are great, but I'd rather not lose my primary light source and not be able to roll in to any auto parts store or walmart and correct it.

Plus a bazillion!

You can be sure I'll be quoting his experience in future HID discussions!

 

[TriggerT]

I just don't get that argument, since I can remove either of my HID bulbs, and plug in a stock bulb anytime I want. Hell, the left side hook up for the stock bulb isn't even hooked up to anything when running my HID's so, I could plug in a stock bulb and go with little to no more work than changing a stock bulb.

I have to admit that I did not read all three pages of this thread before posting, so maybe I am missing something. that is more than likely the case.

 

[tmc]

Yeah I think I'm pretty set on adding Aux lighting and not replacing the stockers. The more LD riding I do the more convinced I am that that is the best route, for me anyway.I recently added some Osram nightbreakers and am very happy with the change. I keep a spare set not the bike as well.  Kinda hard to do that with hid's...  I you can always plug in the old lights in a pinch, but I just don't see the point when I can add Aux lighting. /hijack

Any word on Meese and the lion slayer?  I emailed Reno John about Meese but no response yet.

 

[Ignacio]

Any word on Meese and the lion slayer? I emailed Reno John about Meese but no response yet.

There's a blog specifically for it here.

 

[Texas T]

I just got off the phone with Rob Jaime, "the lion killer". MedJet is flying him home tomorrow from Flagstaff and will be arranging for transport of the bike. He was really appreciative of all the calls, the support, the help (and offers to help), and general concern from everyone.

 

[Good2Go]

Any word on Meese and the lion slayer? I emailed Reno John about Meese but no response yet.

There's a blog specifically for it here.

Thanks for the link. Relieved to here Ken's on the mend and will be headed home soon. Having personally suffered multiple rib fractures and a pneumothorax (collapsed lung) a few months ago, I know it's not going to be an easy recovery given his other injuries.

 

[tmc]

Thanks for that Matt

 

[LowAndSilent]

Thanks for the extra info on the wounded riders, Matt and Texas T.

As a side note in regards to the HID discussion, Perry K. had the best of both worlds. One light was left halogen, and the other was HID. That guy sure is smart.

 

[tmc]

Two things:

1) So it seems the consensus is that Meese hit a Coyote. Not surprising given the location.

2) His wife's is one hell of an interesting person!

 

[wheatonFJR]

So does Peter Behm get his face on the FJRForum banner...

...or what?