worse. George got it handled, and though it took longer than it would have had Cowan been riding her old RT, we got her back on the road in plenty of time for her to achieve a 29th place finish. It’s ironic, I suppose, that the one bike we
had to really work on wasn’t even a BMW. It’s perhaps even more ironic that we worked on it back in the comfortable sur- roundings of our own shop, rather than try- ing to work in the tight confines of the unfamiliar trailer shop. It was rewarding to get Cowan back on the road and know she’d be at the finish along with our BMW riders. When the dust settled, there were 12 BMWs in the top 25 finishers of the 2015 Iron Butt Rally. Only two of the BMWs that started the rally, the 2003 K 1200 LT and the 2015 K 1600 GTLE, went out due to issues with the bike. When you look at the per- centages, just 6 percent of the BMWs that started the rally failed to finish due to mechanical issues. The mechanical rates of failure for other marques were similarly low, with Honda coming in at 4 percent and Harley-Davidson at 8 percent. Kawasaki showed a 33 percent failure rate, or 50 per- cent of the Concourses that started—cer- tainly a skewed number due to the low number of Kawasakis entered. Triumph had two of their five riders drop out, but not due to mechanical problems. Yamaha was the big reliability winner, with not only 100 percent of their riders not having any mechanical issues, but 100 percent of their riders finishing the rally and placing from 2nd to 65th. It’s not a huge surprise that bikes and rid-
ers drop out mid-rally. The Iron Butt Rally is an extreme test of rider and motorcycle. It’s not enough to be smart or tough or have great endurance. You have to have those attributes and more to make it to the finish line, and you have to know how to use them to win. Those who finish the Iron Butt Rally are truly among the world’s toughest riders. I was happy to be able to help some of them along the way. I don’t dream of winning a rally like this, so putting a tire on or track- ing down a fuel leak is as close as I’ll ever get to actually participating.
September 2015 BMW OWNERS NEWS 49
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