Hi there Eric, I will have to admit I don't have a clue what it would be like to ride over 10,000 miles in 11 days. The tire thing has me scratching my head though? I'm sure there are plenty of tires out there that will go well over 10,000 miles. Are some of the guys starting out with used tires? My Beta was prepped with new tires, pulled apart and inspected clutch, tore down bike and inspected chassis, checked all nuts bolts, new brakes, etc. and I only did the baby 1000 mile run.
This ride actually intrigues me. It looks to be brutal. But I think if a guy/gal just wants to finish and not worry about the bonus points, it's doable if one was to train and prep bike well. I bet chasing after the ever changing bonus points is what bites people in the butt.
The big bikes have a hard time finding rear tires that last 10k. Again, no one is starting with used tires. There were a few riders that had perhaps 120 miles or less, simply from riding to the start from relatively close home bases. Virtually everyone got tire changes done at the start city, rode the odo check, (~40 miles), and maybe ran a couple of local errands before the start.
Very, Very few tires will last 10k miles under rally conditions with a rally prepped bike weighing in at 600-1000+ lbs. Especially running in unknown rally conditions, on many back roads in high ambient heat. I could not find ONE rear tire that consistently lasted over 10k miles back in 2008. So I tested and explored the Darkside and became the founding father to FJR Darksiding. 40k miles from a tire that had better traction and better slow speed handling, and was consistent in it's handling for the entire life of the tire.
Front tires on big ADV bikes don't wear nearly as fast. Most are not worried about the front tires. Even my FJR gave me much more front tire life than rear, with a few exceptions. Me880R tires barely gave me 10k and both wore out at the same time and they really sucked in the rain. And I had to run a non-standard size on the rear since the correct size was not available. Some tire brands will go 2 to 1 rear tires wearing faster than the front. This is why some will run a TKC-80 on the front for better traction and not worry about the mileage. I know lots of people that can get 10k from the front TKC-80, but none that can get much better than 4k from the rear. The 1190 rider was running K60 Scouts. He normally got more than 10k from them on his previous GS. I got 12k consistently on my Super Ten, but not in rally mode. In rally mode I changed the rear at checkpoint two even though I was running K60 scouts. Both of these tires are bias ply. It would have been really close for the original K60 I started with to finish the entire rally. I didn't want to take the chance. I suspect the 1190 rider suffered from back roads, heavier load, heat and more Hp than he was used to on the old oil head GS. All those factors contributing to shorter tire life.
Your beta weighs what? 300 lbs? It's not in the same class as full size sport touring, adv touring or full on touring bikes. Sure, the guy on the KLR might make the whole rally on one set. I think the Versys 300 guy may have even planned a tire change. He finished the rally on a stock Ninja 250 one year and did a bunch of cert rides on a NS-125. He likes small, light, minimalist bikes. He packs light for an 11 day ride too. Perhaps that was why he had the backpack, though it had 2-4 liters of water it in too.
The 2 up couple on a Super Ten was running Anakee 3 tires. They ran one set for 2017 and had lots of heat too, but different areas of the country and more major roads. They suffered a blow out, likely due to some road debris and not an actual failure of the tire or wheel, but possibly due to high heat and the weight of a 2 up loaded bike. We may never know. They were planning on running the rally with one set of tires.
One rider, who's won this rally twice and ridden it more times, went thru his tire(s) faster than expected and changed at the first checkpoint. If anyone would know their 'normal' rally tire wear, it would be him. Miscalculation on the kinds of roads they went on during leg one, and the heat the regions they rode in had.
Virtually no radial tire lasts 10k any more on big bikes. Some will, on some bikes, under average conditions. The IBR is not average. You don't know where you will be riding until the night before you leave. And that's just the first leg. At the first checkpoint the riders this year got the bonus pack for the rest of the rally. That's unusual. It's been done, but not since around 2001. The more back roads you ride, the faster your tires will wear. they aren't maintained as well as major roads.
Although the IBR slogan is 11 days, 11,000 miles, riders will ride from 9k to 15k or more. The higher mile riders rarely win. Efficiency usually wins the rally, along with some brute force miles. Meaning that a group of riders of equal or near equal efficiency will be in the top ten, and the winner will probably have ridden to many of the same bonus locations, but put in a few more miles and gotten another note worthy bonus. Others will have ridden more, but scored less.
Mileage does not make you a finisher. Nor a winner. Points do. There is a minimum number of points required to earn finisher status. Above that are bronze level, silver & gold. What challenges riders is planing a route they can ride that gets as many points as possible. What we've see so far is people making mistakes and losing points due to paperwork errors or simply biting off more than they can ride, then getting stuck just hammering back to the checkpoint on big roads with no time to collect any bonuses on the return leg of their ride.
A Good Plan™ will have base goals for the bonuses you want to collect on a route with mileage you believe you can do, with a buffer for the unknown. You will plan in what bonuses you will toss out if you get behind. Preferably low point bonuses, so you can still get the high point or medium point bonuses. You will have a spot, (or spots), in your route that are your benchmarks for when to cut things out, or add things in if you are doing better than expected on time and miles. And you'll have already identified what bonus locations you will add, should you be up on time when you hit your benchmarks.
Plan the ride, ride the plan. Sometimes it is just that simple. But often, the plan goes to shit, so you re-plan and attempt to ride that new plan. Repeat as required. Over 11 days there are a lot of variables. Flooding, snow storms, fires, road closures, typos in the rally pack, locked gates, etc.
What looks like a great shortcut, and Garmin routes you down, turns into a sandy two track with a locked gate you can't get around, within sight of the Hwy you were heading to... And it's 5 miles back that crappy road to get to pavement again so you can ride the 40 miles around to get to the Hwy again. You just lost two hours. Now the bonus you were heading to will be closed before you get there. Do you get a hotel and wait for morning? Re-plan, skipping that high point bonus that was the key to your plan and try to find equal points elsewhere with a new route? Or??
It's a traveling salesman problem, with a lot more twists. Most efficient way to get to all the stops you need to make, but logistically only the best stops with the highest return. Paying attention to the time restrictions of each bonus, if they exist, the realities of the required documentation and your own physical limits.
One rider called and said they were having a very hard time getting a good photo of Old Faithful geyser at 2am since they didn't have enough light to get the picture. It's not lighted like a Las Vegas fountain at night and it's in the middle of a very dark area inside a National Park. No, you can't just hit your spot and get the points, the bonus requires a picture of your rally flag, and the geyser, (and maybe while it's spouting for all I know). Put your big girl panties on and find a solution or wait until daylight.