There's Absolutely No Excuse ::(John Ryan)

[Don Eilenberger]

For newer members of the club who don't know about John, he was first 
and foremost a great club member, always enthusiastic about anything the 
club wanted to do and often the only one to ride to a meeting in major 
snow storms. John didn't believe in cars, and didn't own one.

John came to the club after answering an ad I'd run in the Internet BMW 
Riders marketplace looking for a seat pan for an early K-bike.  He'd 
recently inherited a K75 from his uncle, and it came with some spare 
parts.  He insisted on bringing it down to me - and he showed up late 
one night with it, refusing anything in return. We hung out in my garage 
for a few hours talking bikes and rides.  At the time, John hadn't found 
out about endurance riding.  He ended up joining the club after our 
meeting, and told people he finally found a group of people with the 
same passion for riding that he had.

John accompanied me to a Square Route Rally one year, where I introduced 
him to a few people, most significantly Jim Shaw who had recently 
completed a 50CC (coast to coast in less than 50 hours) - one of the 
first Ironbutt association challenges.  John and Jim ended up talking 
late into the night, and by morning John was hooked, and he and Jim 
became fast friends. I think Jim looked at him as the son he'd never had.

That was the start of John's passion for IronButt challenges, both 
existing and new ones he came up with.  John quickly became a star in 
the endurance riding community and had completed a number of legendary 
rides, and came up with a number of challenges that haven't been broken. 
The book is John talking about riding and some of the fun he had doing 
outrageous challenges, and as Roger mentioned - people who became close 
to John through his love of riding.  John and I remained close friends 
until his untimely death - I'd talked with him about 2 days before on 
some GPS things we were looking at.  He was on his way to our 
3-Club-Rumble when he had the accident that killed him.

As far as John's writing - he wrote a number of articles that premiered 
in our newsletter, later to be shared on the Internet, and one or two 
eventually in this book. A few of his best stories (IMHO) only appeared 
in the club newsletter, one in particular about a Super-Bowl weekend, 
spending time transporting bets in the parking lot of the stadium (if I 
remember right in Texas) to some bookies from people attending the game.

When we have finally a person to person meeting, I have a copy of the 
book I'd be happy to loan out (provided it is returned...) but I'd 
suggest that the book is well worth the small money that Aerostich is 
asking for it, and I'd encourage you to buy it.

John and I shared the birthday of June 24th - and it became a tradition 
to get together on our birthdays, leading to somewhat epic rides he did 
just to get to dinner.

Jim McFadden has a wonderful "typical" John story - that never made it 
much beyond our club.. Jimmy, if you're reading this how about sharing it?

Don

On 2/4/2021 6:25 PM, Roger Trendowski via NJSBMWR wrote:
> Dennis ... thanks for spreading the word..  Its an excellent book with 
> sections written by friends. All writers described adventures with 
> John... all well written.  I had no idea that john was such a good 
> writer too..   If he only stayed in one place long enough to write.
>
> Roger t
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rds335i <rds335i at gmail.com>
> To: njsbmwr at casano.com
> Sent: Thu, Feb 4, 2021 5:43 pm
> Subject: There's Absolutely No Excuse ::(John Ryan)
>
>
> https://www.aerostich.com/there-s-absolutely-no-excuse.html 
> <https://www.aerostich.com/there-s-absolutely-no-excuse.html>
>
>
> Regards, RD Swanson

-- 
Don Eilenberger
deilenberger at gmail.com

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