FJRForum Official 2019 Iron Butt Rally Tracking/Analysis Thread

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Somebody who knows how to post a photo, needs to post a photo of McCarthy Road in Google Earth Street view the one AK rider is on right now. It is 60 miles in and 60 back out from Chitina, AK. The road ends at a passenger only footbridge at the town of McCarthy, population 28. Hey, it can't be that bad, the Google Car has been there :>).

John Frick

Cincinnati, OH

IBA #429
Road does not end there, you are allowed to ride across the footbridge on a bike and ride up to the McCarthy mine itself. My guess is the mine is the bonus. Pics of the mine are in my ride report in my sig.
Looks like they went to Kennicott

 
The rider is headed to the abandoned mine. If you haven't done so....look at McCarthy Road in Google Earth Street view.

JEF

 
EDIT with updates:
the lead bike made the turn towards Homer/Seward and the Kenai Peninsula. Next will be to see which is first. and/or if both will be in play. Kenai and Homer look to be the target. Also appears to be the only one who went to Valdez, and got a rest bonus there too.

the second is headed toward Homer/Seward Whittier, but didn't do Valdez.

the third is headed towards Chitna,Kennicott but has not gotten far enough to head towards Valdez/Seward/Homer.

the fourth rider that went to Skagway is now in Carmacks and headed towards Dawson City and possibly to Inuvik? time will tell.

Definitely a different path then the other three for all four. Will be fun to see which was the better route.

Must be a butt load of different bonii in Alaska this time.
So far these are all still following. Weather in Homer is sunny and 68F today. Perfect conditions

 
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Foot/moto bridge.

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Possible bonus???

i-X26NG3K-XL.jpg


 
EDIT with updates:
the lead bike made the turn towards Homer/Seward and the Kenai Peninsula. Next will be to see which is first. and/or if both will be in play. Kenai and Homer look to be the target. Also appears to be the only one who went to Valdez, and got a rest bonus there too.

the second is headed toward Homer/Seward Whittier, but didn't do Valdez.

the third is headed towards Chitna,Kennicott but has not gotten far enough to head towards Valdez/Seward/Homer.

the fourth rider that went to Skagway is now in Carmacks and headed towards Dawson City and possibly to Inuvik? time will tell.

Definitely a different path then the other three for all four. Will be fun to see which was the better route.

Must be a butt load of different bonii in Alaska this time.
So far these are all still following. Weather in Homer is sunny and 68F today. Perfect conditions
First rider is at the Seafarer's Memorial on the Homer Spit.

Second rider is headed toward Seward/Homer.

Third rider is headed back out from the Kennicott Mine

fourth rider is well on their way to Dawson City or the Dempster Hwy to Inuvik.

Can't wait to see wait to see what the rally packet that enticed these riders to go way north.

 
Just got back home after a FULL day of support for riders in the parking lot. I lost count of the tire/wheel combos, tires, boxes services, batteries replaced, broken parts fixed, and every other detail for riders taken care of. At the end of the day I *think* the only thing that didn't get sorted was a person with a Widder jacket couldn't find a new set of plugs.

Riders filtered in and while local volunteers got behind a couple of times on tough projects, the look on riders faces after this leg when their maintenace was sorted and how quick it happened for most....I literally watched stress go out of their heads, shoulders, and sighs of relief. Purney's been so far behing the curve, but once again he rolled in after an epic feat by Erik Lipps to loan him a bike, he turned the bike off in Biggs, OR and strugged to find a jump for an hour, but rolled in, we replace the battery, and he'll be off in the morning scrambling to make enough points to be a finisher.

The few that are up in Alaska are in a completely different world right now and I can't tell you what that feat is like. Those that have ridden Alaska before here have a far better clue at the logistics of what their doing.

But I will say that a fair amount of the riders that went south to California had to truncate their plans "a bonus, two, or three" and that the Leg 2/3 points aren't any more generous than Leg 1. This is atypical of IBRs and represents "an old-school IBR" as quoted by somebody totally in the know. Of the people that didn't go to Alaska I think one big dawg was satisfied with their place BECAUSE they actually accomplished what they planned. And watching the next few days I'm speculating that the northern riders aren't getting an automatic bump for their choice maybe like the Newfoundland 5 did in 2017. Me thinks its going to be a scramble for points to the bitter end in Greenville. And we won't know until then because rider scores will only be updated at the banquet Friday.

Jeff has cast a spell of a puzzle and riders will be in the fog starting in the next couple of days. It's gonna be epic.
 
the second rider furthest into AK stopped in Hyder on the way up
The first rider (currently resting in Valdez) also went to Hyder, but seems to be much more on a mission that the 3 behind him/her.
Difficult to tell for sure, but looking at the leg 2 animation, I think I got it wrong - looks like rider one (the Denver person) seems to not have gone to Hyder. The other interesting thing is that one of the Alaska riders went almost to Whitehorse and then turned back to Teslin for a bit before proceeding further north again. Wonder what happened there.

 
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the second rider furthest into AK stopped in Hyder on the way up
The first rider (currently resting in Valdez) also went to Hyder, but seems to be much more on a mission that the 3 behind him/her.
Difficult to tell for sure, but looking at the leg 2 animation, I think I got it wrong - looks like rider one (the Denver person) seems to not have gone to Hyder. The other interesting thing is that one of the Alaska riders went almost to Whitehorse and then turned back to Teslin for a bit before proceeding further north again. Wonder what happened there.
The rider that went almost to Whitehorse got fuel at the Petro Canada station south of town then took the South Klondike Highway. The tracking seemed to stop just north of Fraser (Canadian Customs) There is an attraction there, the Yukon Suspension Bridge... maybe. Then they headed north to Dawson City, looks like the rider is waiting on the Yukon River Ferry now.

 
The rider that went almost to Whitehorse got fuel at the Petro Canada station south of town then took the South Klondike Highway.
I think that was actually the 4th rider (from Chicago, I think, who came via Muncho Lake on the Alaska Highway rather than via the Cassiar and (s)he actually went past Whitehorse before going back down to Skagway). It was the 2nd rider that approached Whitehorse that turned back to Teslin. Oh well, we might never know for sure. :)

 
The rider in Dawson City appears to be taking a rest stop. Looks like weather is good if they are headed for the Top of the World Hwy. Can be slimy and slippery if wet. It is about 165 miles of gravel, that if dry you can make pretty good time on back over to Tok. The section dropping into Chicken can be pretty tough if wet.

one rider is heading back towards Anchorage from Homer (assume rider that did Whittier), and one rider is heading to Whittier/Homer/Seward (assume rider that did Kennicott mine). They should pass each other in less than an hour.

One rider is headed towards Tok ( I assume this is the first rider to Homer yesterday)

 
I saw that the Going to the Sun Road just opened, so if Logan Pass is a bonus, it's now do-able.

 
Looks like a rider is waiting at the Port Glacier Hwy. I'm not familiar with AK. It looks like it may be an auto-train that goes into a tunnel?

 
Looks like a rider is waiting at the Port Glacier Hwy. I'm not familiar with AK. It looks like it may be an auto-train that goes into a tunnel?
The Whittier tunnel ( AKA Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel) is for trains that also allows vehicles go through. The area is paved around the train tracks. It is far from a great surface and usually wet from water dripping inside the tunnel. One hour allocated to each direction, motorcycles go last usually about 45 minutes after cars start going through.

 
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I think that was actually the 4th rider (from Chicago, I think, who came via Muncho Lake on the Alaska Highway rather than via the Cassiar and (s)he actually went past Whitehorse before going back down to Skagway). <snip>
Difficult to tell for sure, but looking at the leg 2 animation, I think I got it wrong - looks like rider one (the Denver person) seems to not have gone to Hyder.<snip>
You might be assuming the Spotwalla tags are the same for each leg. Historically, the Spotwalla tags are re-randomized for each leg to help with the obfuscation of rider identities.

EDIT: Just saw a later post that points out the SPOT "Device Timezone" is what you're referring to. NM
not_i.gif


 
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Is anyone else wishing that the Spotwalla tags included "heading" info?

I understand hiding the "time" field as adding to the obfuscation, but it can be hard to know who's coming or going with so many tags, and so few updates!

 
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