Butt Lite Recap - Intro

Over the past 4-5 years, I have been moving away from the Iron Butt Association certification rides towards participation in long distance scavenger hunt rallies.  In these rallies, the rallymaster(s) lay out bonus locations across an appropriate area, each with their own point values and possibly other restrictions.  The goal is to visit and document (take a picture, answer a question, do some activity, etc.) the visit in such a way as to gather the most points in the time allowed.  Up until now, I have been participating in 32-36 hours rallies and have performed fairly well.  This would be my first step up to the big time multi-day rally format where the level of difficulty is escalated to a higher level.

Team Strange out of Minnesota has organized this 9th edition of the Butt Lite Rally.  It can be looked upon as the 6-day little brother to the prestigious and grueling 11-day Iron Butt Rally (IBR).  We will be basically running half of an IBR with all of the same level of difficulties and nuances included.  Since I was selected to participate in next year's IBR, the Butt Lite was essential in preparing for the flagship event.

Credit: Steve Gallant

Butt Lite would be kicking off at 8am on July 8th from the Marriott Griffen Gate Resort in Lexington, Kentucky.  There's a lot of activity in the days leading up to the start of the event.  I arrived on the 5th to get settled in and visit with fellow riders.  I met up with Steve Gallant (MA), Rick Armour (PA) and Gerry Arel (CT) to head downtown for dinner at the highly recommend HopCat restaurant.  The claim to fame at this place is their over 300 beer selection and their famous and award winning "Crack Fries."  I don't do drugs so I can't vouch for it, but these fries are like crack to a fat boy.  OMG, they were out of this world good.

Credit: Rick Corwine

On the 6th we had registration and inspection activities.  Registration included signing liability releases, collecting rally swag (shirts, stickers, coffee mug, etc.), and presenting your motorcycle for "tech inspection."

Credit: Rick Corwine

Everyone takes tech inspection seriously as it is imperative that the participating motorcycles are in safe and roadworthy condition, and any and all modifications do not impair the safety or performance of the motorcycle. Tech inspection also makes sure that each rider is properly licensed, bikes are properly registered and insurance is up to rally requirements.  As most participants run some sort of auxiliary gas tank, the systems are checked for sturdiness and capacity as their is a maximum combined capacity on the bike of 11.5 gallons. My buddy, Roy Kjendal, is having his bike inspected by rally staff.

Later in the afternoon the "rookies" were required to attend a Rookie Class designed to help us first timers to become acquainted with what would transpire in the next day and a half prior to the start.  We also discussed routing strategies and warnings.  I believe this was the time of the first mention of "Think. Don't just follow the magenta line." This will become clear later.

The rest of the day and evening was spent visiting with friends and swapping stories and strategies. I spent a good amount of time with Martin Cover and Lisa Cover Hecker (a father-daughter team that I really envy), and Steve Rufo (a fellow Triumph rider).  Since I was in bourbon country, I had to sample various offerings at the bar.  Off to bed early was called for as tomorrow night would be quite restless.