Last summer, we had some bad news for long-distance motorcyclists: The Iron Butt Rally, the world’s top “motorcycle touring” competition, for lack of a better description, was going to be canceled. But now, as spring of 2025 approaches, we see that this classic long-distance riding event (which many Canadians have competed in) is back on the schedule.
From what we’ve seen posted on the Internet, Paul Tong will be rallymaster in 2025. The 2025 rally will run June 16-27, and will begin and end in Coralville, Iowa. Last we heard, they were still working out the checkpoints. The registration window closed weeks ago, so if you wanted to get in on the event, too late. But you can keep the dates in your back pocket and watch the Iron Butt Rally’s progress when it’s running; if organizers run things similar to past rallies, they’ll have tracking update to show where everyone ends up.
It will be interesting to see how the new rally leadership works around the difficulties that confronted the previous management team. For years now, insurance has been a tricky situation for the rally to manage, so that’s a major problem for the new team to figure out. And because the rally is so massive—historically, IBR events have dozens of checkpoints and cover many thousands of kilometers, all on carefully chosen roads, and all fitting within a theme—then the IBR leaders have a lot to figure out in a very short time. There’s a reason this event only runs every couple of years; it’s a lot of work.
But however it works out in 2025, it will be good to see this event back on the schedule.