Hopeless Class - The Book, an Airhead in the Iron Butt Rally

[r60IBR]

Some of you may remember that I rode my 1976 R60/6 in the 2007 and 2009 Iron Butt Rallies. 2007 was a debacle, and even though the Airhead did well, I was a DNF (did not finish). In the 2009 rally the Airhead and I finished ahead of 42 other riders and ended the rally with over 523,000 miles on the 33 year old R60. After 2 1/2 years I finally finished a book about the Airhead, the Iron Butt Rally, and me. It's called Hopeless Class. That's where the organizers put me due to the age of the Airhead, the high mileage, the low horsepower, and my previous DNF.

The book is about the adventure. It is written for non-riders, riders who couldn't give one whit for long-distance riding, experienced Hedz and Iron Butt folks. The R60 ran beautifully, and except for the sidestand/left foot-peg breaking off at midnight on day 4, and a saddlebag getting torn off and dragged for quite a few miles on day 5, it never hiccuped . I rode 19 hours a day for 11 straight days at near full throttle, got 43 mpg overall, and burned a quart of oil every thousand miles. After the eleven day, eleven thousand mile rally ended in Spokane, WA, I rode two,1,350 miles days in a row in order to get home to North Carolina in time to be at work the day after labor day. I love my Airhead!

If your so inclined, Hopeless Class is available at amazon.com or can be ordered through your local bookstore. Paperback or Kindle.

Thanks for the bandwidth.

Joel Rappoport
1976 R60/6
IBA #397

[TexanRT]

Joel, I just added your book to my kindle library and we are looking forward to the reading your story. Congratulations on getting it published. We followed the last three rallies daily. I remember there were lots of people tracking your progress. The reports and forums were great but I've always wanted to know more from the rally participants themselves. Now I will. Thanks.

[tommcgee]

Received for Kindle. Thanks for making it available that way. I can no longer deal with print books cluttering my life.

[bluehole]

Just ordered the book. Eager for it to arrive and jump right in!

[rhyeks]

Joel,
I spoke with you about 30 minutes before the start of the IBR in Spartanburg. Even though I am sure you had plenty going on, you took time to speak with me -someone you didn't know at one of the most stressful times imaginable. Thanks for your time in Spartanburg and for writing your book. I will be ordering my copy soon!

[68820]

Here's a direct link to the book, Hopeless Class by Joel Rappoport. It sounds like a great read based on the "Look Inside" preview provided by Amazon.