Everyone has their preferences and I'd never criticize anyone for what they like or don't like.

I did ride in the 2022 Hoka Hey and had a blast. Unfortunately, I did not finish for various reasons but mainly due to family issues that I let get into my head and distract me from the ride to the point that I felt unsafe. Check my blog in the link below for my ride report

And thanks for the support of those like me who chose to ride the smaller bikes. By the way, my last name does not have an "e" in it

 

My apologies for the mis-spelling of your name. I'll be sure to check out your blog. I've read it in the past including your last IBRs. Sorry to hear that your Hoka Hey didn't work out. Last weekend I watched a series of videos posted on YT by one of the participants.

It's not my intent to criticize the participants in the IBR - only the rules package which allows electronics to reign supreme and places no value on efficiency. Don't get me wrong - if you limit Jim Owen (or name your top contender) to one GPS unit, no radar detector, and no cell phone he's still going to finish in the top 5. He's just that good.

 

No worries on the name, that's a common misspelling

Honestly, I don't think changing those rules would make much of a difference once someone got used to it. The benefit of a phone or tablet is for traffic information. The benefit for two GPS units is more to have a backup than anything else. It also allows for more information to consider. Most riders have one going direct to the next bonus, the other with the full route to show arrival time so they know when it is time to consider changing your route or heading for the checkpoint/finish.

With all the tech, efficiency is the king. If you are not efficient you will not do well. Period. No tech will fix that. Obviously, we probably disagree on this which is fine. I'm happy to discuss if you wish or to answer any questions.

One thing I do argue is the 11 days $11,000 thing. I find it to be less than half that (registration fee, 15 days hotels, 11-13,000 miles of fuel, and for me one rear tire). Anything spent on the bike in my opinion is not necessarily associated with the IBR since most riders will compete in various other rallies or ride around the country. And I exclude food since I have to eat regardless of whether I am riding in the IBR. In fact, I normally lose 5-10 pounds because I am riding 18-20 hours per day.

 

To all who are going to tackle the rally...bravo!

I'm IBA #33, rode the rally in 1987 on my old '78 R100/7. 11 days of very little sleep and never stopped to take even one picture. Back then it was a national speed limit of 55, no pay at the pump, no GPS and a tankful of AAA road maps. I jokingly refer to GPS back then was "gas, pee, and a sandwich."

New format is much different. but sounds like a blast. It's cool planning routes acrossed multiple states and where you can and can't make.

I was also the second youngest to ride it at that time so no, I'm not 100 years old.

Good luck to all and I look forward to reading some tales!

 

Thanks for checking in! #33, that's awesome. Al Greenwood (#18) rode in IBR21, and he's quite the character. I'm sure just about every strategy is different today, but the stories are great all around!

 

Chris: I finished reading your Hoka Hey chronicles and I’m so sorry you felt like you needed to withdraw. You are an awesome rider. Sometimes it’s not one big thing that trips us up but the accumulation of several small things.

I ran across the warriors on Day 1 in Williston. I was on what ended up being a 4,000 mile twelve day loop around the west to my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday party south of SLC. I rode eight days total including a one day loop of UT-12 with my BIL a day or two before you.

I happen to be familiar with many areas of the 2023 HH route. Maybe I would have had an unfair advantage! 🤣🤣🤣

The Hoka Hey interests me, yet as one who wears contact lenses, I don’t think I could get past the nightly hassle of not having a sink and vanity mirror. I can ride for sixteen hours or more but when I need to sleep I need to get them out. I’m blind enough without them I’d repeat your lost bike search every night of the challenge.

It sounds like sleeping out every night is part of what wore you down. It does that to most people who are not accustomed to camping. Besides the contacts, I reached my quota of sleeping outdoors as a BSA scoutmaster for ten years earlier in my life. I’m over the romance, adventure, and hassle of sleeping outside. I’ve camped exactly two nights off my motorcycle in my life and it’s unlikely there will ever be a third unless I take up the Challenge.

If I had been you I would have taken the 30 mile detour to see my grandparents graves. I ride to see people - a lot of them dead ancestors, some I knew but many who were generations before me in my family tree.

I admit to halving a hard time with registering for a rally that unknowingly is going to route me through my own backyard. Ughh. That would have pissed me off and deflated my enthusiasm.

I’m curious how you think the road book and no GPS effected your ride. Did it slowly wear you down mentally or did it have no impact?

I also read all the biographies of the 2023 riders. Impressive lot they are. What struck me is I don’t have the drive they do to challenge myself when it comes to riding. I ride as much as I want each day and then I quit. I might be rolling 60 minutes before sunrise and parking it 16 hours later but I stop as often as I want, whenever I want, for as long as I want - each one of those stops adds up even if they are only typically 6 minutes each to top off the tank and stretch. My personal distance riding is inspired by my own quirkiness of what I want to see or do. I’ve learned that I want to quit riding at whatever time leaves me excited to get on the bike the next day. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing and I don’t ever want to exceed that.

I also find myself doubting the spiritual fulfillment of such a ride. I’ve had my fill of spiritual experiences in life and I’ll pass - thank you very much - especially while riding.

Despite all this, I respect LD riders and especially those who do it on smaller bikes, smaller budgets, and with less gadgets.

Riding means different things to different riders. LD riding isn’t my gig but I get a lot of entertainment out of you guys nonetheless.

Photo below from my 3,000 mile ride to visit a family cemetery of my oldest American ancestors who died in the 1700’s.

 

Great to hear from one of the original IBR vets. I've read about the first few IBRs when the IBA still had their magazine and so much has changed. I find one of the hardest things is lack of human contact. At least today we have cell phones so we can speak with anyone we want provided we have cell coverage. But even with that I find the long periods of alone time to be difficult when your mind starts wandering.

I'll be on my fifth and possibly final IBR this summer which fortunately starts not too far from home.

If interested in reading about my IBRs feel free to check out my blog, there is a link in my signature below

 

What seat are you all using?

Believe I spotted a Russel Day-Long in this thread.

 

I'm running a RDL on my GSA. For previous IBRs on my HD, I ran a Harley Hammock seat that I've had for about 15 years.

 

Thanks for the comments. The thing that caused me to stop my ride was solely in my head, I was just to distracted with family issues that began a year or more before the ride.

Long story short, my father has Alzheimer's and was put into a memory care facility the December before the ride. For a few years before that there were things I had wanted to do with my father that I kept putting off thinking there would always be a tomorrow where I could do them. One example is taking my father to see the EAA airshow "Airventure" in Oshkosh WI. He was a big fan of WWII aircraft as am I, plus he was a flight instructor in the USAF in the 1960's. Just prior to the start of the HH I visited Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse since the start was close by and that stirred up all those emotions once again. So I essentially started the HH with that on my mind and the long hours of riding with little contact with others allowed that to fester. Then I rode US-180 and a large portion of US-191 in the dark with a light rain and for those unfamiliar with 191 there are no guardrails and the drop off can be several hundred feet. Certainly not a place to be distracted. The final nail in the coffin was hearing of a friend of mine also riding the HH being in an accident and being seriously hurt. I knew the last leg would have some rather technical roads like 191 and I decided to pull the plug rather than ride them being distracted. To drive the point home to me, there were several riders who wrecked a few hundred miles from the finish. Do I regret dropping out? Yes, I do. However, I still feel the decision was the right one for me.

Regarding some of your other points, the paper directions were not really a distraction to me. I had done a short 6hr road rally in the dark several years ago, so I knew how to set up my bike and what to expect. Yes, I made a few wrong turns, but that was usually because I was not paying attention and blew by a turn. Most were only a few miles, but I did have one that was 20 or more before I realized it.

As for skipping my grandparents one of the benefits of being an LD rider is I have no issues going for a 1500-mile ride to visit family. I was out there just before Covid and a few years before that. I may make it out this year after the IBR.

In actually the sleeping did not wear me down. I did that myself because I rode longer than I normally do on the first night. I have a personal rule to stop by midnight each night. That's partially because it's easier to book a room with my phone before midnight (not an issue on the HH) and partially because if I stop before I am utterly exhausted, I have no issues with 3-4 hours of sleep and hopping back on the bike and riding for 20 hours and then repeating that. I broke that rule by stopping after 1am and it was compounded by my not having the gear to sleep in the cold. I mistakenly took a fleece sleeping bag good for maybe 60 degrees rather than the 15-degree mummy bag sitting right next to it. I put myself in a sleep deficit the first night and it took 3 days to dig myself out of it. I actually felt better than I had since before the start on the last day of the ride before I decided to drop out.

I was a little worried about the camping, but I did grow up camping and have done a few motorcycle trips where I camped. With the HH I was stopping late at night, setting up camp my cot and sometimes my tent, and going to bed so I did not really miss a hotel unless it was cold at night, and I froze. In fact, I probably slept better than I did in hotel rooms . The only times I had an issue with camping was the first night and the night I spent in Alpine AZ because I did not have the correct camping gear to sleep in 40–50-degree temps.

As for spirituality and what you get out of the ride, you get out of it what you put into it. I went into the HH with the same thought I have during the IRB. I planned to ride to the best of my ability and finish in as high of a position as possible. In the case of the HH it was to finish as soon as possible without doing anything stupid or riding ridiculously fast. This ride was about whether I could complete the HH and be satisfied with how I rode it. I didn't really care who was ahead of me or behind me, I stopped for riders which were parked on the side of the road and made several friends by doing so, I stopped for a nap when I needed one, I spoke to other riders at gas stations, etc.

There were other riders who took another week or two to finish than most of the riders. If you wanted to ride in the HH there is no reason why you could not ride as you normally would. You'd likely be in within 2 weeks and make the end of the road party. If not, you'd probably make it in within a day or two afterwards. And regarding the contacts, you could always switch to disposables so you could pull them out and trash them at the end of each day. Then it would be a matter of finding a place to wash your hands to put them in. I used to wear contacts, so I know exactly what you mean with getting them out.

Not trying to talk you into it, just commenting that you can make the ride what you want. There is no official end date where you need to be in as long as you are still working your way to the finish location and staying on route.

For those that have not read my blog for my Hoka Hey ride here are a few pictures:


How I set up my bike. The pink clipboard is where I had the directions, at night I had a flashlight around my neck so I could read it.

Some nights I simply slept on my cot next to my bike with no tent. This was at the Tonopah airport in Tonopah NV (home of the Clown Motel)


Some nights I got lucky and found a campground and setup my tent. This was somewhere in MN.

Some nights I setup my tent at a scenic overlook. This was on UT-12


And this was my complete route including ride to the start and ride home. 13,100 miles in just under 4 weeks
Start was in Rapid City SD and finish was in Hot Springs SD, about an hour south of Rapid City