Hi All,
Trusting you are having a Happy Easter.
TL : DR (I find myself getting verbose at times, so here’s a summary if you want to skim)
- Change happens (For a variety of reasons)
- We (IBA Australia Management) have previously asked for a review, and for good reasons (which I will detail below) it was knocked back
- We need to live with the umpire’s decision, and to that point I have absolutely no intention of re-litigating over a 37km/ approximately 6% reduction in maximum distance between Dated Business Receipts (DBR)
- I accept that, at the margins, this might require a tweaking of some peoples ride planning, and execution there-of
- The IBA has documented its position on how to cope with the unexpected during a ride (which I will also step through below)
For the removal of doubt, before a ride check and see if the Documentation Guidelines have changed.
The link here (
https://www.ironbutt.com/themerides/documentation/ ) is largely the OG old school approach.
This link has the info for IBA Premier Certification
https://www.ironbutt.com/premierapp/
And here is the link for individual rides
https://www.ironbutt.com/themerides...T1HgOcsFULHM55yQ5BnV3N6l4NqXOK51KHiCCZ0vC6IGI
(Noting that the pages for the “Australian Centreline”, “Western Australia End to End Gold Challenge”, “Heaven to Hell Gold” and “The Ends of the Earth” rides still incorrectly list 600km as the DBR max distance requirement. I will check-in with the IBA in the USA to get them corrected, since we don’t have edit rights on the US IBA website.)
And now for the long winded version….
Change Happens
When I did my first Saddlesore back in January of 2000 cash was king and my finish receipt was a grease stained handwritten one by the crusty proprietor of an old school garage (long since closed) in Cowell, Sth Australia. Google Maps was 5 years away from launching, and petrol prices in Australia were under $1- per litre.
There was no Australian specific IBA rides, and the primary/(perhaps only?) means of communication for Long Distance/IBA Riders was Joe Denton’s LDRider List.
I’m not sure when handwritten receipts were removed as meeting requirements, but I do know the introduction of the GST in Australia in July of 2000 led to the widespread introduction of computerised retail “Point of Sale” systems, so let’s assume sometime after that. For a while it was relatively common for receipts to have a wrong time (and sometimes date) though this seems to be much rarer these days. And locations on some receipts can still be a bit mis-leading, particularly in remote areas. I suppose we can thank the ATO (Australian Tax Office) for Australia in general getting it’s act together on receipts.
As 2003 rolled around and we completed the first 50CC here in Australia there was a lot of discussion on relative distances and timings for the Melbourne to Darwin run. Given distances were (relatively) the same, we thought we’d try and complete in the same time frame, while acknowledging the benefit of the (then) unlimited speed opportunities in the Northern Territory.
With that completed our collective thoughts turned to Sydney to Perth/Freemantle version. This was some 250/300 kms longer, and with a 100/110 km limit end to end. Was 50 hours or 60 hours more appropriate? Wanting to align with the US versions, 50 hours was the aim, and that’s been the standard since.
I wasn’t privy to any discussions Davo might have had with Mike with respect to changing the DBR rules, and so can’t comment on whether they were to overcome a specific gap on a specific route, or a more general relaxation. In any case the outcome was a more general relaxation.
Regardless, over a number of years the variety of different 50cc option’s in Australia grew, and at the same time the IBA was expanding its chapters/branches around the world. At some point (possibly to do with certification delay complaints?, but also given the now wide reach of the organisation) there was a desire to simplify the variety of rides and rules. This led to a cap of (I think 5) varieties of 50cc in Australia, and the (Re) introduction of the 350Mile/563Km DBR requirement.
There are many parallels I can point to where strategy or other changes have pivoted because growth/growing pains let things get in front of what an organisation can handle. Close to home for me is the ANZ Bank. From 2007 to 2015 it was a “Super Regional” grow into Asia at all costs strategy – since then we’ve been on a years long simplification drive, selling non-core businesses, reducing the hundreds of variations of products and offerings to a handful of fit for purpose ones, I could go on.
I’m sure almost all of you could think of examples in your workplace/industry and/or the wider world.
Change for Good
The introduction of Spotwalla and associated standards-based technologies & devices has opened up a variety of use cases in our communities. Tracking of individual and group rides, SOS capability, two-way messaging in remote areas, to name a few.
Add in a (relatively) high-resolution camera and the (seemingly but not quite) ubiquitous mobile internet in our hands and it’s not hard to see how they, combined with the ability to share a downloadable set of GPS co-ordinates, and some programming wizardry has seen a refinement in verification procedures over recent years.
Digital tracking / verification is the future, that is here now. =;^))
I have adopted (admittedly later than I could have given I work in IT related roles…=;^))) to this new preferred ride verification process. And, given the benefits (turnaround times/digital life/certainty of evidence) some people have adopted to the new process quicker, while others will continue to follow the paper-based process. And that’s fine. Change takes time to filter through, the more diverse the group, the longer the change process.
At the end of the day, one of the main reasons the simplification/standardisation /alignment of DBR rules occurred was to improve the verification experience of our volunteers, and the knock-on effect of quicker certification turnaround times to riders. Another would be to minimise the maintenance of IBA webpages and the desire for consistency.
While we’re on change for good we’ve seen local certification get off the ground, which has been helping with some of the Australian contextuality that sometimes get lost in translation. To be clear - this does not mean we get to go open slather on Australian specific rules…
Ride Planning
it has always been a challenge to obtain fuel, or a DBR, in the 10pm to 6am ish timeslot on basically any road that isn’t on a major freight route that also doesn’t have a population base. That’s not an Australian specific thing. Parts of western and northern USA, and large swathes of Canada come to mind.
Ways that’s been solved for in the past.
For a 1 day rides:
- Additional research, perhaps someone has already solved how to prove you were in xyz at 3am
- A different route/strategy that includes more major highways and/or
- A different departure time to accommodate fuel availability
For Multi day rides:
- Elements of research, route and departures times above, combined with timing sleep during those hours
I acknowledge that there will be edge cases where people may face the choice between needing to be somewhere at a particular time, or the desire to go a particular way, with the desire of an IBA ride certification. We all face constraints in our day to day lives.
Part of the attraction of long-distance motorcycling for me is that puzzle solving/optimisation of routes amongst constraints, and I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say we’re happy to workshop ideas for how to document rides in strange places at strange times.
Coping with the Unexpected during a Ride
Copied from the IBA Documentation page here (
https://www.ironbutt.com/themerides/documentation/ )
“In the real world we all deal with the unexpected. You come to an important turn-around in Wyoming and the station is closed and the pay-at-the-pump will not give a receipt. There is no other open businesses in sight. Document you position as best you can.
-Most smartphones have the option of including “location” in the form of latitude/longitude as metadata in a picture.
-Take pictures to prove you bought fuel and of the business with the address (if possible) in the frame. Do what you can to prove you were there at a particular time“
To which I would add, despite widespread country branch closures =;^(, the big 4 banks (and others) allow each other’s customers to use any of their ATM’s fee free. How will we accommodate the removal of this option when we move to a completely cashless society? Maybe more reliance on phone camera metadata? Mandatory Spotwalla?
Or something new, like the mandatory reporting our electric motorcycles will need to provide to the authorities so they can work out our road tax bills…… =;^))
Any factual errors in the above are all mine.
Ride Safe.
Derrick
