My Ride in the Brit Butt Rally 2008

Thinking about this year's rally finally got me round to completing this write up of my experience of last year's rally.

The bank holiday weekend at the end of May in 2008 saw the first running of the Brit Butt Rally, organised by Iron Butt UK, the UK arm of the Iron Butt Association. I had first seen this event advertised around October the previous year and emailed the organisers, but entry forms were not yet available. I had not done any long distance rides before, but had done quite a few National and Welsh rallies over the years, and travelled long distances touring across Europe and when working as a despatch rider in the mid 80s. I promptly forgot all about the event until some time in February when I emailed the organisers again, to find I had been given a place and it had been advertised on their website, but I had not seen it so had lost my place. Luckily someone else must have pulled out because I soon after received another email telling me I had a place after all!

In March there was a meeting for the event at a hotel near Stafford which was a great opportunity to meet some of my fellow participants and gain some insights into what we had signed up for, with advice from some of the few people in the UK who have completed the Iron Butt Rally in America (11 days, 11,000 miles!). In comparison our event, 36 hours with a minimum of 1110 miles and an undisclosed number of points, seemed small beer – however, talking to others it was clearly more than any of us had done before. I was obviously excited getting there because I had left the lights on on my car and had to get Dave Badcock to give me a jump start. I drove home thinking this did not seem like a good omen!
I had already started my preparation by undertaking one thousand mile ride in February and continued over the next two months with another SS1000 and took part in the Welsh Rally at the beginning of May. In the weeks leading up to the rally date I prepared my bike, a 2001 BMW R1150GS, as best I could to make it as comfortable and reliable as possible, while reading everything I could about long distance riding.

The event was starting and finishing at a hotel a few miles from the one we had met at in March. I arrived in sunshine around lunchtime and sat in the garden of the pub next door chatting to a few others who had arrived early. Around 3 o’clock we could book into the hotel and then came back down to go through technical inspection and wander round looking at everyone else’s bikes. Technical inspection included getting your odometer checked – this involved zeroing your trip meter and then riding 10 miles south and then back again along the A34 before getting the distance checked by the inspection team. There were about a dozen speed cameras on the route, and at least one participant gained a speeding ticket!

Over the next few hours we were all processed by the rally team, signed forms and met together for final details. The first three numbers for the rally had been given to three guys who had taken part in the Iron Butt Rally – they were obviously the guys to watch! I was number 25. At 9pm we were given the bonus books, containing our rally towels and the bonus book with details of the 60 bonuses we could visit to gain points during the rally. Each page had a different bonus on it, giving a description of its location, a Google map, and detailing how many points it was worth. Some had extra details – some had to be photographed in daylight only, and others could only be accessed between certain hours, depending on whether they were open or on tidal access. We then repaired to our rooms with nine hours until the start at 6am.

I started by spreading a road map of the UK out on the floor and putting a sticker on the map to show the location of each bonus point – I used three different colours to show low, medium and high value bonuses, and coded them if they had any restrictions to them. After plotting all the bonuses onto a paper map it seemed to be clear that the best way of stringing together a series of high scoring bonuses was to go to Skye then across to John O Groats via Ullapool and Scourie. This route naturally added Spean Bridge, Eilean Donan and Clootie Well. I also wanted to visit Lindisfarne and Scarborough as they were high bonuses. Because of the time restrictions for Lindisfarne, which can only be accessed at low tide, and the fact that Eilean Donan and Scourie were day bonuses only the route was going to be clockwise. I reckoned quite a few riders would be going for these high bonuses so reckoned the way to get ahead would be to add as many other bonuses as I could. I then plotted all the bonuses I was possibly able to get to, about 37 of them, into Microsoft Autoroute and used this to calculate the time and distance between the controls on my likely route. I went through quite a few combinations before ending up with a route I was happy with. I then transferred the Autoroute file into GPSU and then saved this as a Mapsource file and transferred it to my Garmin 2610. I also wrote the control numbers, codes, and description of location and bonus requirement onto some sheets which would fit into the top of my tank bag so I could see them at a glance.

I initially planned to start off by going to Sandbach then Jodrell Bank before heading up the M6 to add Forton, Morecambe, Bentpath then going around Scotland, adding St Andrews and then heading back to the finish via Humber Bridge. I think this came to just over 40000 points and about 1600 miles, which I had previously calculated was possible in the time. In planning I did not really think about where to stop for the rest bonus which had to be taken for 3 hours between 10pm and 5am, but did go onto the internet to download a POI on petrol stations in Northern Scotland I had seen on the Round Britain Rally website.

The fact that this was the first running of the Brit Butt Rally meant there were a lot of unknowns, especially when it came to planning. No-one knew what a likely winning score would be, nor how strong the competition was. Before the event my intention was to ensure a finish, with hopefully a result in the top ten. The bar was set at 25000 points and after working through the planning I reckoned a score of around 40000 points was possible. I finished planning around 1 am and got a few hours fitful sleep.

By 5.30am we were all in the car park, sorting out final details nervously and trying to find out from each other where we were going – as if could make any difference by then! We were started at minute intervals and I started about tenth. I had already passed a couple of other participants by the time I got to Junction 14 a few miles from the start. As soon as got on the motorway I changed my plan because I got on the M6 and stayed on it, missing out Sandbach and Jodrell Bank – partly because I wanted to get some distance under my wheels and partly because I thought a lot of people would be starting with those and I wanted to put some distance between myself and anyone else so I was not distracted and could get settled into my own ride.

I rode into Forton Services near Lancaster at the same time as Mick Ingledew on a big black Harley – I had overtaken him about 20 miles previously and then been wondering for the past ten miles whose headlight I could see tracking me! I quickly took my picture of the 1960s service station tower and headed along the M6 to the next junction and then off towards Morecambe.
My next bonus was the statue of the comedian Eric Morecambe on the seafront. I had seen it several years before so knew exactly where it was. I ran from the bike to the statue, took my photograph and ran back to the bike – suddenly I saw a big pool of liquid underneath the bike and panicked as I assumed it was petrol leaking. As I got to the bike I was relieved to find it was orange juice – I had forgotten to close the seal on the drinking tube I had left hanging out of my tank bag!

From Morecambe I headed north into Scotland – I was heading for the Thomas Telford memorial at Bentpath in the Borders. It was not worth a great number of points, but I figured it was worth the time effort in dropping off the main road, and I thought it was the sort of control others might miss out and which might, therefore, make all the difference. I was working on the basis that quite a few people would be doing the same route as I was and getting the same big points bonuses in Scotland, so I had to pick up as many extra ones along the way as I could. As I got into Scotland the temperature fell but I was too focused to stop properly and just threw my heated vest on over my jacket – it seemed to be warm enough. I also nearly lost the front end of the bike outside a farm where they seemed to have thrown a large bucket of whitewash across the road. It took me weeks to get rid of the white paint spattered across the front of the bike!

It gradually warmed up as I got into Scotland and I remember flying along the road going past Loch Lomond, overtaking everything. I stopped briefly at a petrol station just outside Fort William to take off my heated vest, check the bike over and eat a Snickers bar. There was oil leaking from the left hand side of the engine and most of that side of the bike, my boot and trousers below the knee were covered in a thin layer of oil. I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, so topped it up and gave myself a mental note to check it regularly. It only leaked a little, and I later found out it was the oil pressure sender switch leaking. At the time it was just something else to worry about.

It was nearly 12.45 by now, and I seemed to have come a long way but had only been to three controls in nearly 7 hours, and had not gained a lot of points yet, and I had to check my route and reassure myself I was going alright. I had passed a meeting of about a hundred riders in Fort William itself – they were doing a ride for charity and all had pink vests on. They rode past the petrol station and I then spent the next twenty miles having to overtake them all. As soon as I got past them all I got to the turning for the Isles and pulled into the Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge. There were a couple of other participants there already, the first I had seen for many hours. I put my towel down in front of the memorial and it blew away as I took a photograph – the same thing happened again, then a tourist standing there offered to take my photograph holding the towel for which I was grateful. However, when I checked my photographs at the finish his photograph was not there – luckily mine of the towel blowing away was just enough to get me the points! I had already learned to make sure I protected all the photographs I took – new note to self, check all photographs taken to see what they show!

The road to Skye is one of my favourite roads and I really enjoyed it in the sunshine. I caught up with a guy on a GSXR and we had a good ride for a few miles – I could overtake him going through corners, but he blasted past me on the straights. Eventually the road got very twisty and I managed to get away from him (or he may have pulled over!). Shortly after that something of a reality check – I came round the corner to find the traffic stopped and a group of bikers clustered around a blue Kawasaki lying in pieces on the edge of the road. Nobody seemed badly hurt and there were plenty of people there so I carried on, stopping to tell more of the group waiting at the next junction what had happened.

My next bonus was the much photographed castle at Eilean Donan. I pulled up next to Dave Badcock on his golden Harley Ultra and we took photographs of each other holding our towels in front of the castle. We were both going on to Skye. We did not agree to ride together but I sat behind him for the next few miles, mainly because of the glorious noise coming from the exhausts of his V-twin. We crossed over the Skye Bridge which is a great bridge but always makes me feel slightly disappointed, as I can remember when you had to get a ferry to get on to Skye. More remote, more romantic then, but easier for us now! I stopped for petrol in Broadhead, and luckily checked my petrol receipt – I had been given one for 60 litres of diesel! I caught up with Dave on the road through Skye. There seemed to be lots of riders coming towards us, off the island (I remember most clearly Paddy McCreanor’s bright yellow Honda Goldwing), and I did worry that I was behind time and these riders, as we must be following similar routes.

The main reason for going to Skye was that there were two big point bonuses, within quarter of a mile of each at Uig in the north of the island. We got to the first one, the sign for the Museum of Island Life, and I realised I did not have my rally towel. This seemed to be a complete disaster, as the towel had to appear in every photograph. Dave sympathised (after I had accused him of pinching it at Eilean Donan!) and reminded me of the rules: I could still take compete without a rally towel, but from now on I had to appear myself in every photograph, even if I later found the towel. This was fine now, while I was with someone else but what about when I was on my own? I followed the same tracks back and even stopped at the garage in Broadhead to see if I had left the towel there – I am not sure why since I could not have used it again but I was annoyed to have misplaced it, and that my system of having a place for everything and putting everything back in its place had not worked. I was also worried that I was getting more tired than I realised, to have lost something so important. I never did see it again, so perhaps it blew away somewhere.

Back on the mainland I turned north to follow the road right around the north coast of Scotland and headed towards Ullapool to visit the Museum there – again somewhere I had been before so knew exactly where it was. There was nobody else about but luckily I have long arms and found I could get a decent photograph of myself with the sign behind, by holding the camera at arm’s length. The day was still sunny and I had no worries about getting a photograph of my next bonus, Scourie Hotel while it was still daylight, a requirement of the rally book. I got to Scourie just before 7.30pm and met four other participants outside the hotel, including the only time I ran into Paul Vanderveen. I assumed we would all be going the same way from Scourie but after setting off I did not see any of them again until the finish.

The road from Scourie round to Thurso was the best part of the rally. I had driven the road several times before and knew it would be brilliant on the bike. Much of it is fairly wide single track with passing places, and the road winds in and out of bays along the coast so often you can see quite a way ahead and ride the road like a race track. In the 80 miles around the coast I only met 5 other vehicles. Not far from Thurso I saw there was an errant waypoint coming up on my GPS and realised it was a waypoint for the Round Britain Rally which I was going almost right past. However, all I had was the code 7550 – which meant it was worth 50 points, but did not tell me what it was or where it was exactly. I stopped and phoned my girlfriend, who was not at home. Luckily I remembered I had left a list in the car and she managed to find it and phone me back with the details. Ten minutes later I was parking opposite a drowning memorial in the small village of Portskerra.

I stopped for petrol and to check the oil level in Thurso. I was about to leave when another participant, Lee Whiteley pulled up on his Blackbird. We had a chat and decided we would go on to John O Groats, a few miles away, together. It was getting dark by now and we could see the lights of the passing ships as we pulled up to the signpost (or where the signpost is in the daylight) opposite the now closed John O Groats Hotel. We were both tired and Lee, who had missed going to Skye, was trying to work out if he had time to go back there. We decided we needed to get something to eat but there is not a lot around John O Groats in the dark so we headed south. By the time we got to Wick it was 11pm and the only place open was a Chinese restaurant next to a busy night club. We parked the bikes outside on the pavement and had a meal inside but did not eat a lot – partly because we felt if we ate too much we would end up feeling more tired.

After that short break we got back on the A9 and carried on into the night. At Inverness Lee turned off to head back across Scotland to Skye – I was worried for him because there a lot of deer on that road which were a real danger to bikes (we later found two other bikes suffered deer strikes – one rider was Mick Ingledew who made it back to the finish with a slightly bent and very smelly Harley, the other rider’s bike was written off).

I had a bonus to collect just north of Inverness, with the evocative name of Clootie’s Well. My GPS took me off the main road and onto some untarmaced road which became rutted farm tracks which made me glad to be on a GS. After a few miles I came out on some back roads and close to the bonus. The first think I saw in the dark and mist at Clootie’s Well was something hanging in the trees – there were rags and clothes tied to the trees, blowing around in the breeze and looking like ghosts coming out of the woods. I took my photograph quickly and got out of there as fast as I could. Two minutes later I drove past it again as I had set off in the wrong direction in my haste.

I had planned to take my rest bonus in Inverness but I could only find two petrol stations with nowhere even to sit down so I continued south on the A9. The road seemed endless in the dark and I had started to develop a head cold so I was coughing and sneezing the whole way. I was wearing all the clothing I had with me, and felt very sorry for myself. I thought that if I had somewhere to stop and put my head down I might not get going again, so I kept on riding.

One of the three IBR veterans riding the Brit Butt Rally was a German rider, Gerhard Memmen-Kreuger - he was definitely someone I thought would be doing well in the rally. As I rode down the A9 I saw a bike’s lights ahead, and getting closer saw that it was an R1200GS with German plates, it had to be Gerhard. I gradually overtook and then left him behind. I think that one move gave me enough of an impetus to keep going since it inspired me to think I must be doing quite well after all. I was however, getting very tired and realised I had to stop soon – I had planned to cut off the A9 to grab a bonus in St Andrews but decided to miss this one out and carry on until I found somewhere to stop for a few hours.

Eventually I came to the M90 at Perth and saw a sign for services about 10 miles ahead. I stopped at Kinross, north of Edinburgh at 4am. After buying a hot drink in the café to get my starting receipt, for 4.04am, I sat in a comfortable chair and rested my eyes. I could not sleep so I sorted out my paperwork, checked the route ahead and drank my cocoa. Having missed out St Andrews and so ‘lost’ 800 points I looked again at my route ad realised I had missing an obviously improved route. For some reason I had targeted the Humber Bridge after Scarborough and then crossing to three bonuses in Cheshire before finishing. However, there was a bonus in the centre of Sheffield I had disregarded – but going to Sheffield instead of the Humber Bridge gave me an extra 360 points, and should save me at least 40 miles and 45 minutes. I had no idea why I had not seen it while planning, since I worked out that if I went to Sheffield and then finished via Hyde, Jodrell Bank and Sandbach I could still reach my 40000 points target. I could only put it down to have been tired by the end of my planning. In the end I slept for about 45 minutes. At about 6am I went out to find Dave Badcock by his Harley in the car park. He had spent a few hours in the motel attached to the services (I had not even seen it) but had come out to find that his bike would not fire up. After a while the RAC man arrived and eventually got the huge cylinders to fire – I expect the rest of the motel were just waiting for a 7am alarm call! I went back into the services and got a receipt from the shop there – luckily I checked the receipt: it was 7.04am by my watch but the receipt showed ten minutes earlier. I went back into the café and got another receipt – this time showing 7.06am. If I hadn’t noticed I could have lost the 3000 points for the rest bonus!

I set off from the services in the cold Scottish drizzle, following Dave again but then realised I had forgotten to fill up with petrol and had to stop at the next services. My next bonus was the car park on Lindisfarne. The causeway to the island is only accessible as the tides go out. It was supposed to be open from 9.10am – I arrived at 9.15am and crossed, with water still covering parts of the causeway but only as deep as the tyres. I met Dave and a couple of other riders at the car park, took my photograph and remembered to get a car park ticket as required.

I had seen my next bonus, the Angel of the North before, as you pass it going north on the A1, but had never been to it – perhaps this explains the wrong turn I took trying to get to it – I ended up getting back on the main road and taking the more sensible option of following the road signs to it. The bonus was to take a photograph at the foot of the statue – just as well as close up this is the only part you can get into a photograph. There were lots of people around so it was easy to get someone to take a photograph of me. I set straight off again – it was 10.15am and I had worked out a target time of 2pm to be at Sheffield in order to finish around 4pm. This gave me an hour’s leeway before time penalties started coming in for anyone finishing after 5pm. Anyone finishing after 6pm would automatically be disqualified and end up as the dreaded DNF – did not finish.

The leg to Scarborough was the worst of the event – the holiday traffic was solid and I spent most of the route overtaking everything else on the road. I definitely felt like I was on auto pilot but I felt good in myself and the bike was running brilliantly. I think I surprised a good number of sports bikes on that road! Another mistake when I got to Scarborough though – the bonus was Ann Bronte’s grave and I had noted down that it was by a red wall in the churchyard at the top of the hill. I got to the churchyard, found the red wall, lots of gravestones but no Ann Bronte. I ran around the churchyard before returning to the bike and reading the actual bonus description in the bonus book – the grave was in another churchyard across the road form the church. Five minutes later I was back on the bike and riding out of Scarborough.

The road out of Scarborough was a good dual carriageway, followed by motorways and I made good time to Sheffield. The bonus was a pub called the Fat Cat right in the centre of the city. When I got to the centre I was confused- my GPS kept trying to send me the wrong way down one way streets and dual carriageways. I stopped and checked the address but I had it right. There had obviously been a lot of recent development in the area and the road system had changed form that I had mapped! Eventually I worked out a way out of the one way system and found the pub in a back street. As I pulled up outside it Gerhard was riding away – a real incentive to get going! It was 2.05pm as I took the photograph, trying to get myself, the bike and the hanging pub sign in the same photograph.

The A628 through the Peak District is a great road, and I felt confident and relieved that I was going to make it to the finish in time now, but conscious that it was extra important to keep myself focused and not relax yet. I met Gerhard again at the next bonus, a train platform near Hyde. There were two bonuses I was aiming for between here and the finish and I asked him if he was going to them – he said no, because he did not know the roads and was tired – I offered to let him follow me as I grew up near here and knew the roads well but he declined, saying he was going to the finish and left. I went the opposite direction, knowing I had to go onto the A5 to get petrol. Half an hour later I came out on the road a few miles from Jodrell Bank, and found myself right behind Gerhard again. We got into Jodrell Bank together and found Lee there – he had made it to Skye and back, having slept in a shop doorway in Kyle of Lochalsh for a few hours.

By then I was eager to get to the finish before tiredness and my cold overtook me and I took all the shortcuts I knew to get to Sandbach Crosses. From there it was two junctions down the M6 to the finish. It was as I got on the motorway that I experienced the first real rain of the journey as it poured down, which certainly made me concentrate hard for the last few miles. As soon as I got into the finish I signed in, saw my girlfriend, downloaded my photographs and had my paperwork okayed, and after exchanging a few comments with other riders, fell asleep in a chair. There is a photograph of me somewhere on the website with the caption ‘Look what the rally can do to you!’.

After a shower and change of clothes we had the rally dinner – nobody knew who had done well, but I was sat with one of the scorers who mentioned he had scored someone who had completed a really good ride and achieved a great score, and I knew he hadn’t scored my ride. Then he mentioned he thought the rider had achieved nearly 40,000 points – then I got excited – I was sure I had gained over 40,000 points.

The climax of the evening was the meeting held after the meal. After the rally team had been warmly thanked, the rally organiser, Roger Allen, and rallymaster, Chris McGaffin (also an IBR veteran) announced the rally results. Of the 46 starters, 29 had achieved a final score. They first called out the names of the riders who had been unfortunate enough to qualify as DNF, either because they had finished the rally but not achieved enough points or covered enough miles, or because they had been unable to complete the rally, through mechanical breakdown, accident damage or physical tiredness.

The finishers were each called out and presented with a finisher’s plaque. Then it came to the top ten, as the names and points achieved were called out there was an increasingly small group of us looking round at each other and wondering where we had come. Gerhard was 4th on his R1200GS; Paddy was 3rd on his Goldwing; Paul was 2nd on a K1200RS, having achieved 39,805 points and covered 1562 miles, and then I realised I was the only person whose name had not been called – I had won!

My final route was Forton- Morecambe- Bentpath- Spean Bridge- Eilean Donan- Skye Museum- Kilmuir Cemetery- Ullapool- Scourie- John O Groats- Clootie Well- Lindisfarne- Angel of the North- Scarborough- Sheffield- Hyde- Jodrell Bank- Sandbach- Finish. With the rest bonus and petrol log bonus my final score was 40,262 points, having covered 1505 miles.

It was a great weekend – I could not say I enjoyed every minute of it, in 36 hours you are bound to have some dark moments when you are cold and hungry and wondering why on earth you are doing this – but the event was good fun, I enjoyed my ride and was filled with a wonderful sense of achievement at knowing I had completed the hardest ride of my life. To compound this by actually winning the event was simply incredible and left me completely speechless (well, that and the cold!). The sense of camaraderie at meeting so many other like minded (i.e. mad!) people and the memories of the weekend will stay with me for a long time. If I were to identify where I think I won the event, it would be a combination of planning which was effective and adaptable, efficient use of time for stops, and above all perseverance in keeping going. But combined with this was a fair measure of good luck (and a lack of bad luck!). There were quite a few places where I could have lost points – not checking that photograph at Spean Bridge, checking my fuel receipt at Broadhead, losing my rally towel, getting another timed receipt after my rest stop – any of which could have lost me points and meant coming in several places down. I definitely learned things about myself from this event, and look forward to defending my title next year!