Prepping From Down Under

From Martin Little:

"It's the middle of winter, freezing cold but ride we must as we prepare for Butt Lite VIII. The bike in the photo is my 2009 R1200GSA (farkled up to match the GSA I will be using in Butt Lite) and I am on the return leg from a ride out to Northern New South Wales. 5 minutes after these photos were taken I had a kangaroo bounce off the bike mid corner. Kangaroo and bike undamaged and we continued on our merry way. Rider's heart returned to normal 30 minutes later"

Cheers
Martin

Shakedown Rally Uncovers Some Issues

From Dylan Spinks:

My ST was basically stock a couple months ago. So to work out all the little bugs I figured what would be better than doing a rally two weeks before the start of Butt Lite? So this past weekend I participated in the Minute Man 1000 24hr open rally. Fantastic staff, and is always an awesome time. And bugs I did find! 

·         The Zumo wouldn’t take a basecamp file 

·        iphone is useless when it gets hot

·         ipad is useless (and also won’t charge) when hot

·         Some Bluetooth connectivity issues

·         Hydration system worked well, long as you enjoy McDonalds Hot Coffee Temperature water/Gatorade mixture

At least the bike was running well. Then somewhere outside of Baltimore the rear tire went down. 

Add to list:

·         Buy more tire plugs (Consider Darkside?)

Looking like it’s going to be a long couple weeks in the garage.

-Dylan

 

What's That Advice About Making Major Changes To Your Bike Right Before A Rally?

Yeah, well, Rob Lightner must have missed that one.

"Attached is a photo of my LT taken on 17 June 2016 - two weeks prior to Butt Lite. Stupid rookie is violating Rule 5 from the IBA Archive of Wisdom: "Avoid Adding Accessories or Doing Maintenance Immediately Before a Trip." I hope the aux tank farkle is worth the stress of installation."

Here We Go Again

Can it possibly be that two whole years have passed since Butt Lite 7?  And can it be that we started planning Butt Lite VIII somewhere along I-35 between Austin and Minneapolis around that same time?

So, here we are.  Two weeks from today me, Bart, David & Pedrow will load up the Rally Van and begin the journey to Denver.  Pedrow will want to stop and pick up every shiny object laying on the side of the road. Bart will argue that there is no room in the van for any junk. David will test the Rally Phone and I will go over my lists for the 1000th time to make sure nothing has been overlooked.  (And something will be overlooked.)

As with Butt Lite 6IX & 7 - the Rally Masters have spent countless hours traveling North America looking for those wonderful nuggets called Bonuses.  We've exchanged thousands of emails.  We've made hundreds of tiny decisions.  We've run through possible routes looking for the winning one. We've ordered swag and trophies.  Negotiated with hotels.  Lined up volunteers.  And soon the plan will be executed.

Butt Lite VIII is the largest Butt Lite ever.  When we opened registration we had no idea it would sell out in mere hours.  Our original plan to have 80 riders was quickly changed to accommodate the instant waiting list we had.  We increased the field to 100.  As of this writing we have 97 participants.  There will be some attrition before 7:00am MDT, Sunday, July 3rd.  But it will still be the largest group to start a Butt Lite.

As with 6IX and 7, we plan to use this blog to keep y'all up to date on all the fun.  We'll have a public Spotwalla page so you can watch all those tiny motorcycles as they scurry about looking for all the fun things we found on our travels.  There will be photos and stories.  And we'll invite our riders to share their thoughts and rally prep with you too.

Rally Headquarters is the Denver Marriott Tech Center.  We'll start rider check-in and tech inspections on Friday, July 1st.  Rally packs will be handed out at dinner on Saturday, July 2nd.  The rally officially starts at 7:00am MDT on Sunday, July 3rd.  The checkpoint will be at the Boomtown Hotel & Casino near Reno, NV on Tuesday evening - Wednesday morning.  Then we all head back to Denver for the finish at 8:00am MDT on Saturday, July 9th.

Stock up on the popcorn.

Light fuse, get away...