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.
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
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
8th place? You were hauling the mail!! Congratulations!
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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!
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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...
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.
Passed a few guys on giant adventure bikes, those guys are
