Part 2: In Part 1, Alan Rider described the workings of the 10-n-10 Rally and what drove him to give it a try in the first place. In Part 2, he describes the mental and physical toll that he paid by committing to 18-hour days in the saddle.
A Reason to Roam
While the chance to hang with like-minded motorcyclists is great, most long-distance riders will admit this opportunity to rub shoulders and bend elbows is only part of the endurance rally’s appeal.
Though I can’t speak for everyone, my experience in the 10-n-10 convinced me the real allure here is the handy excuse they provide for us to indulge our wanderlust. After all, it’s this insatiable curiosity that explains why long-distance types are always ready to ride that extra 100 miles, for no other reason than the possibility there might be something interesting—a view of snow-capped peaks, the smell of new-mown hay, a funky café that serves up a mean slice of pecan pie—around that next bend in the road.
This desire to go out to see what we can see inevitably leads us wanderlust-prone types to cultivate the ability to cover great distances with relative ease, partly through building up a tolerance for long days in the saddle and partly through modifying our bikes to make them both more comfortable and more functional. This gradual process yields one distinct benefit: When you’re able to ride coast-to-coast in a couple of days, this big country seems a whole lot smaller.
While the 10-n-10 Rally definitely wasn’t easy, the big smiles on display at the finish line tell you most of us would do it again in a heartbeat. If you’d like to learn more about how you can get in on the fun of the 2012 running of the 10-n-10, visit www.utah1088.com.
The first half of my 10-n-10 ride was a perfect example. Leaving Salt Lake City, I made a beeline for a bonus location on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Standing on that beach watching the sun rise over the Atlantic just a few days after leaving the starting line was as much of a reward as the 8511 points I earned for going there.
That bonus was just one of more than 300 individual destinations our esteemed rallymaster provided in a rally pack that ran more than 40 pages. Unlike other 24-hour and multiday rallies where this information remains a closely guarded secret until just hours before the start, we all received the bonus listings via email a full 30 days before the rally start.
The beauty of this approach is that it allowed each of us to plan a route that suited our riding styles, experience level and interests. Since most of us—myself included—had no illusions of scoring a top-10 finish, the rally became an opportunity to squeeze a year’s worth of everything good about two-wheel touring into 240 action-packed hours.
Easy it Ain’t
While endurance rallies give our penchant for rambling some structure, it’s a decidedly less romantic aspect of these events that motivates hundreds of folks to plunk down their entry fees each year. Namely, the highly concentrated challenge they offer.
Now, before you misinterpret that, let me point out that I’m not necessarily talking about the inevitable competition between the handful of big dogs going all-out to earn a spot on the podium. No, the true beauty of endurance rallies like the 10-n-10 is that, within clearly defined parameters set out by the rallymaster, all the riders get to define that challenge for themselves.
Take my experience in the final days of the 10-n-10, for instance. After getting through the first seven days of the rally with nothing more than a few assorted aches and pains, I was laid low by a nasty case of heat exhaustion somewhere around the 800-mile mark of Day 8. Eventually, I managed to get back on the bike; but later that night, knowing that I couldn’t safely ride another mile, I checked into a cheap motel and called the rallymaster to tell him he might have to put me down as a DNF. Mentally and physically spent, I was seriously considering pulling the plug and heading for home.
When I woke up the next morning, I still felt plenty hammered. But as I began to load up the bike, my stubbornness kicked in and I became determined to rise to the challenge of knocking out the last 1500 miles I needed to be counted among the finishers of this first 10-n-10 Rally.
As I pointed the bike toward Salt Lake City, it occurred to me that I’d found the last of the answers for that pesky “Why?” question. Namely, that endurance rallies offer us something that’s all too rare in everyday life: a chance to find out what you’re really capable of by taking on a challenge of such epic proportions—whether it’s winning your first multi-day rally or just dragging yourself across the finish line—that you’re not entirely sure you can pull it off.
Crossing the Finish Line
When I rolled into the hotel parking lot Sunday morning, I was torn between feelings of satisfaction with having accumulated the 8000-plus miles I needed to be considered a finisher and disappointment that I didn’t make my goal of riding the full 10,000 miles over the course of those 10 days.
But the more I talked to the other riders—most of whom didn’t reach the 10,000-mile mark, either, but were every bit as happy as I was just to finish—I recalled what one cigar-chomping rally veteran had told me 10 days earlier with an impish gleam in his eye: That when it comes right down to it, endurance rallies are really all about having fun. Looking back on my 10-n-10 ride, I can tell you that that may just be the simplest explanation of them all.
