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Re: IBR notes &....Re: [ST] Updated Sprint-ST???



On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Tom Emberson wrote:

> As far as the IBR, I am too following it! One thing to note, 
> while the FJR only accounts for something like 6% of the IBR 
> field, and BWM around 50 or 60%, their have been over 100k 
> BMW's sold, while under 3,00 FJR's sold before the start of the 
> IBR. With the number of BMW's failing to finish this year's 
> rally, it will be interesting to see what the mix will be next 
> time..

Well, day 10 is up
http://www.ironbutt.com/ibr/2003/day10.htm


	Will the Last BMW Running Please Turn out the Lights?

	BMW motorcycles constituted about 50% of the starting field. 
	Tonight they constitute more than 90% of the mechanical 
	breakdowns. Jeff Earls' K1200LT ground to a halt late today in 
	Dickenson, North Dakota with a rear wheel bearing failure. 
	Earls, riding the entire distance with John O'Keefe, was having 
	a magnificent ride, grabbing every bonus that meant anything on 
	the final leg. With any luck he and O'Keefe would have been 
	close to a Top Ten finish. Now he's just another DNF.

	Had enough of BMW rear end collapses, have you? Not quite. Don't 
	forget to count the rear end of Jim and Donna Phillips' K1200LT. 
	It dropped dead earlier today as they were going up Pikes Peak 
	in Colorado, the largest individual bonus on the entire leg. Had 
	they made it to the top, they would have guaranteed themselves a 
	Top Twenty finish. Instead they nursed the bike back down the 
	mountain, caught a ride into Colorado Springs, and bought an 
	1800cc Gold Wing.

	It gets even uglier. Yesterday Jim Owen, who stood 8th in Maine, 
	took a photograph of Eric Jewell and Brent Ames in the process 
	of replacing the alternator belt on Eric's BMW R1150RT at the 
	Shanksville, Pennsylvania bonus stop. A few hours later the belt 
	on Owen's R1150RT failed. He had no replacement, couldn't find 
	one, and will be lucky at this point to finish the rally at all.

	Mike Kneebone and I sat in the hotel room tonight and reflected 
	on the string of BMWs that have bitten the dust in the last ten 
	days. We shook our heads. Between us we have around 800,000 
	miles on these bikes.

	"If you're looking for something to write about in an epilog," 
	he said, "this is it."

	He's right. BMWs could easily finish 1-2-3 in this rally, a 
	tribute that will be due far more to the talented singers than 
	to the ugly song. In the 2003 IBR BMW's song has been the shriek 
	of alternator belts coming apart and the wail of ear ends 
	seizing. Don't play it again, Sam.

Who ever heard of an alternator belt on a bike :-)

t.


/*************************************************************
 Thomas Emberson, Dallas, TX
 '00 Yamaha WR400F (self abuse in style)
 '01 Suzuki TL1000s
 '03 Yamaha FJR1300

 sold: '98 ZX6e, '99 ZX9r, '95 EX500
 killed by rocks: '01 BRG Sprint ST (18 months old, 25,152 miles)
*************************************************************/


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