Wow was it dusty! Had to wait till Friday so missed out on the good camping locations and ended up on the downwind side of the road. Bike trailer is full of dust, motorhome is full of dust, I am full of dust. We had a good day Saturday on the poker run. We did three sections of the iron man and bailed on the last section to get something cold and wet. Got up Sunday and signed up for the vintage class. There are new adjacent land owners involved so there was some new territory this year. One word - ROCKS! Lots of them in every size. I went down on a rock climb somewhere around mile 20. Fell off the low side of course, over backwards in rocks the size of a small suitcase. Bruised up my right elbow and pulled my left bicep plus the damage to my a@@ and back. Crap, still 30 miles to go. Left arm not work so good. Went down about 15 miles later in a sharp hole hidden on the far side of a whoop. My brother went down twice also but no serious owee's. We did finish! I think the cannon went off at 9:40 and we were back at camp at 2:20. If that is right we cut our last time by about an hour and we stopped four times to rest, twice after falls and twice for water. Got back to camp and rested for a couple hours then loaded up and got home about 8:30. Two showers later and still dirt in my eyes. All in all a great weekend! Oh two more things 1. Thank God for my brother who can start my bike when I can't, which is almost always. 2. New Husky's tanks are too small for 50 miles. We saw two along the trail. Offered one guy packing a can a ride to his bike but he passed up the offer.
Glad I decided not to go. did you see the guy on the Terra? did he finish? Seeing a lot of pictures of air filters on facebook of the race. Wow.
I looked for him but no luck. I didn't see him on the course. We passed quite a few riders, but they all passed us back while we were resting/ recovering Passed a few guys on giant adventure bikes, those guys are TOUGH! I on the other hand am just not too smart. 3. A huge thanks to my sister-inlaw for unlacing my boots after the race. Can't get left elbow past 90 degrees without pain.
We got there Friday morning at 0700 hours, the parking lot had lots of trailers in it. Did the 70 mile Iron Man on Saturday, lots of carnage thru out the course, lots of bottlenecks.Even saw a couple of bike in the river. Sunday was great weather with a fair amount of wind, Thank you Lord. The main start was amazing, saw one guy run up to his bike, running jump on the seat, fired it up and immediately looped it. Wish I had a camera. The 50 milers must have had 400 or so bikes in it. Dust, dust and more dust at the start. Got out on the course and still more dust. ROCKS, I've never seen so many ROCKS! The guys I went up with said this was the most technical Desert 100 they had seen. Lots of rock walls to climb and some hills. It's funny to see all the riders sitting at the bottom of the hills waiting for it too clear. Got yelled at a few times for not waiting my turn. Oh I'm sorry, I thought this was a RACE. I have never seen so many bikes stopped along the course in my life. Lots of bikes and bodies along the course. I saw three that looked like they were in a bad way. On Saturday by 1pm they had already had two helicopter rides and the ambulance was on it's 7th trip to the hospital. Not bad for a Poker Race. Had a good race, stalled it twice on the hills. I don't know who puts those rocks in the wrong spot. Cross rutted once and tipped over. Managed to get 8th place in the Masters class. Out of are group of 10 we had a dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, ankle injury, foot injury and one guy ran out of gas 1 mile from the pit. Over all it was an EPIC weekend. Will I go back next year, DAMN right I will. I here all those 70 years olds are SLOW. Gramps
Thanks for the reporting riders! And riding both days shows you are a hard a$$ rider ... I only did the IronMan in the past and it was always a blast and big event for my friends and I who attended .. Yep, always lots of crashes and rocks ... Lots of loose rocks hidden in that sand ... Snipes I think is what the locals called them... You'll never see them sometimes till you hit them or they look embedded till you hit them ... The last time IronMan (~6 yrs ago) I rode I hit one, had an awful crash... After that one, I knew I wanted no more crashes of that magnitude as it hurt my entire body hitting the ground ... A.K.A as the beginning of my slower riding days ... Yep, you'll see some wacky stuff out there. On the start the last time I rode there, many of us were off the bikes and in front of the bikes walking and looking at the terrain we about to cover off the line when the cannon was shot ...We just looked at each other and ran back to the bikes, cranked them, and hauled butt!!! I even saw a guy do a superman way out there as he went over a big ridge and his backend kicked him way up in the air over the bars! I tried to catch him and ask if he did that on purpose but he was gone! Glad you guys and your friends are OK (and finished?) ... Its really dangerous out there but they do have the whirly birds for support... Those bottlenecks were there when I rode it also ... And the dust... The last time I was there, I did not see another Husky 8th place? You were hauling the mail!! Congratulations! -- You guys gotta have some pics, correct? This event might lure me back to the states some day ...This is me on my 02 CR250 the last time I rode the IronMan... This was at the start of the course as you can tell by the hard looking road ... Rocks and rocks out there! -- Thanks again for posting ... It really brings back a little slice of home to me ... I'm gonna send my riding buddy a message and see if he rode it this year...
Seems like that is what we did also ...Cause we rolled down some hardtop and peeled back over in the dirt and lined up not too far from the road that was now just behind us... I can't say that the start of that race, with a few hundred bikes all in a crooked, curved line, up and over small hills that hid the entire line of bikes from your view is more exciting than sitting in a MX starting gate, but it was on the wild side when we all took off across that barren land heading for the smoke ... ESP with your riding buddies close enough to see Its was balls out till about ~50mph, then I let off ... There would be riders all around you doing all kinds of stuff on their bikes ... Hitting stuff, bouncing all over, hauling the mail ... All laying out their own trail of dust ... You just had to focus
This will help others put it into perspective. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezZsLQdASn0&feature=share
Spectacular!!! And with a high tech tweak. -- When he turned that camera backwards, I about fell out of my chair ...Did you notice how everyone started going to the right to avoid the dust and then towards the end, about ~6 guys came out from the middle left of the cloud ... It must have been like a texas dust storm tornado in there. Could anyone in the race spot themselves out there? -- They guy should have followed the leaders with that device ... Thats how they should video the GNCC rides and other outdoor events ...
Way cool! We were camped in the far left at the top of the screen. We were in the second wave and as usual started last. I only run for food or fear, and I'm not afraid very often
