The Iron Butt Ride Report

For those who don't know, the Iron Butt Association is a group of long distance riders, who offer a number of ride certifications. The "beginner" Iron Butt ride is the Saddle Sore 1000, which is 1000 miles in 24 hours. Certification means you rode the ride, completed the documentation, sent it in, and it was verified by the IBA. In return, you get a nice patch, pin, and/or license plate frame, plus bragging rights. The IBA has pretty strict requirements. By design, it's not exactly easy to get an IBA certification. This is the tale of my first SS1000 attempt.

I spend Friday night at Joker's house (and they made me a fabulous dinner, for which I haven't thanked them profusely enough) and we agree to get up early and be on the road by 5:30 am. We're off to bed at a reasonably early hour.

Morning arrives, the alarm goes off. I hop into my riding gear, check all the last minute things that need to be checked, and we're off! We even get out by the time we wanted. By the time we get to the Coachella Shell station and tank up, the receipt reads 5:37 AM. Now, the clock is ticking. We turn onto I-10 eastbound. The sun will rise in less than an hour, and the deep purple sky on the eastern horizon drains imperceptibly of color until it's a bleached white, and then the gold and red tones of dawn greet our east-turned faces. It's not too terribly cold (I am not wearing every single layer possible, but close) and the wind, which can be fierce out here, has remained calm for us. A good start to our long day of riding!

Our first stop is just across the Arizona border, where gas is about forty cents cheaper than California. We whip in and out of that station so fast, you'd think it was a NASCAR race or something :) We're both feeling eager to pile on the miles, so early in the day! (The receipt has no timestamp on it; I think we get out around 7:15.)

The next gas station, we finally stop for a little breather and a bite to eat. Gas is at 8:30, and then it's breaktime. Neither Joker or I like to eat a big breakfast, so we set out without a meal, and I'm now snacking on powerbars and getting some caffeine in. I must admit that I am a coffee addict and will get a wicked caffeine headache if I don't get my daily allotment. Here, in Tonopah, we blow a lot of time standing around, but I am not worried. I have pretty meticulously charted this run, we're stopping for gas every 100 miles (a little bit of overkill, but it's a better-safe-than-sorry strategy in case of headwinds) and I've built a fair amount of farting-around time into our schedule and a big cushion at the end, in case anyone needs to take a nap somewhere along the trip. We eat into our nap time a little bit, which is no big deal.

Joker takes over the lead (I've been riding lead so far on this trip) and she sets a good comfortable pace. Her speedo is broken and she doesn't know how fast she is going, which is much less of a problem than you'd imagine. (If everyone is passing you, go faster. If you are passing everyone, go slower. That's about it, LOL.) Her bike is much larger than mine so if she forgets and twists the throttle she can leave me in the dust, and she pulls away from me a couple of times, and backs off a bit when she notices that I've fallen back a little. After a time, she gets the feel of the pace and my keep-up speed, and then that doesn't happen too much any more. We will trade off the lead position for the rest of the day, divvying up the work.

I've been warned there are road closures on I-10 in Phoenix, and sure enough the big electric signs are warning of dire consequences if we don't take the cutoff route, so we abandon all hope of going through Phoenix and take the Gila Bend detour. AZ Hwy 85 takes us south to I-8 east, which rejoins I-10 in Casa Grande on the other side of Phoenix. Here we stop for gas at 11:20 (at a stupid Exxon where four out of eight pumps were marked "out of service") and find ourselves fighting some traffic when we get back on the road. The corridor between Phoenix and Tucson is always bad, it seems, I guess it's just too many cars and too few lanes. It's not terrible but enough to keep us alert, for the cagers are driving city-aggressive instead of open-road-laidback, changing lanes frequently and tailgating and trying to pass on the right and all that nonsense. It doesn't really clear up until past Tucson, when suddenly there are few cars and we can relax.

Next gas stop, at 13:10, is Benson AZ (this is the part of Arizona where Bisbee and Tombstone are located.) A few miles later, as tempting as it is to stop and visit THE THING?, we press on and head into New Mexico. Our turnaround is twenty miles across the border, and we really need to stop and have a decent meal. We've only been snacking so far today.

We pull into Lordsburg NM around 14:55, get a Subway sandwich and have our first long sit-down of the day. It is oh-too-easy to not eat on the road, and we probably waited one stop too long to get a real meal, 'cause we'd both started fading a bit. I take the time to text Stormy to let her know we've reached the halfway point. Once fed, we both are feeling pretty good. We've come a smidge over 500 miles, which is how far I travel on a typical summer vacation day. Not today, though. I'm not feeling too tired or sore yet, but I can feel it coming soon.

Now, we turn around and come back, hitting all the same towns for gas along the way. Benson 17:15, Casa Grande 19:05. Here the sun has gone down and we'll be finishing the last 300 miles of the run in the dark, which is sort of a scary thing. We reduce our speed by another notch and keep a sharp lookout for critters. I do see what I think is a coyote on the shoulder of I-8, but we flash by so quickly it's hard to know if I'm right. Joker is leading, and she takes us through the Gila Bend detour. Coming from this direction, it's the most confusing road even in daylight, and it's only worse in complete darkness, confusing signs that are hard to read, and poorly painted lane markings. Thankfully I've been through here before and also she is paying attention to where I am pointing for her to go. We make it through and roll into the Tonopah station around 21:10.

Now, with only 200 miles to go, each leg is getting a little slower and each break is getting a little longer. My hands, wrists and shoulders are really starting to ache, especially on my throttle hand. I take my last turn at the lead, and steadily roll through the western Arizona desert, which is spectacularly dark and empty. No moon; it'll rise after we finish tonight as only a waning sliver. A few miles outside of Quartzsite AZ, a coyote runs out on the road in front of me, then retreats to the shoulder as I begin to swerve. The jolt of adrenaline is huge, but thankfully it's not a close call at all. I am very happy that we have seen no deer (the bane of motorcyclists.)

Gas at the AZ-CA border around 23:10, and Joker leads us on the last 100-mile leg home. We are both awfully tired and just want the thing to be over already, and the end is almost in sight! We finally hit a little bit of the weather that we've luckily avoided all day ... suddenly winds kick up, and we get a little spatter of rain with under 50 miles to go. We slow WAY down for that. An electric sign warns of high winds and low visibility ahead. Thank goodness our destination is right where the interstate comes down out of the mountains and onto the valley floor; we're going to miss the blowing sand that plagues the entire Palm Springs area some days. I am quite happy when the lights of the valley come into view, it's just the final roll down the hill now and off at the first exit, pull into the Shell station where we started this ride so long ago, and we officially stop the clock with one final gas receipt that reads 1:20 AM. Mission accomplished! We've completed our IronButt run in under 20 hours, and both of us were tired but not zombie-heads at the end.

I'd do it again :) just not two days in a row, not yet. I think I need to do a little training before taking that on, or at the very least get a throttle lock to give my poor right hand a break!

Femmoto

Just got back from Femmoto, a women's-only track/demo day out at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. What a BLAST! This was really my first chance to seriously try out a sports bike (well, Sparky did let me take her Honda around the block once, but I barely got out of first gear.)

Femmoto invites a bunch of different manufacturers to the track - then you sign up ("fill out your dance card") and go 'round the track on up to five different machines. Each trial lasts, oh, four or five laps around the Classic course, which is the LVMS road course.

My first bike was a Ducati and I did NOT get along with it at ALL. Perfectly fine bike but the ergos were exactly wrong for me, and I hated it. Second bike was a 250cc Buell Blast which was akin to buzzing around on a lawnmower, and pretty laughable. But then ...

I took a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R out and fell in LOVE. Now THIS is the experience I was looking for at Femmoto! I started to get the hang of how one hangs one's butt off the seat to set up the corner and that's when the day got REALLY fun. I am still far far far from good at riding that type of bike but started to feel the rhythm and flow and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

I also tried out a Ninja 650 which has a much more upright riding position than the ZX-6R. Nice, not exactly my cup of tea. Then, for my fifth ride I was signed up to ride another Buell, but ditched it to instead swipe another ride on the ZX-6R (you're not supposed to ride the same bike twice, but no one checks that carefully) because it was just that much FUN.

If I had a spare $8K I'd love one of those green babies in my garage :)

Blue-Green belt test - Oy

The results first: I passed. Yay!
It was tough.

There were a LOT fewer people at this test than my last one - I guess August isn't a popular month for promotions! USSD tests the purple, blue, blue-green stripe, and green belts together at headquarters (everyone works out together for the first half hour or so, then the higher level belts split off and use the smaller room and the purple and blues use the big room.) As a blue belt, testing for blue/green-stripe, I'm a lower-rank in this group. There were maybe eighteen or twenty blues, and twenty-five or thirty purples. Quite small compared to some tests. It was shorter, too, because of the fewer people ... only four and a half hours this time.

Master Taylor, highest-ranked guy in the dojo and the Head Of All Instruction dude, was in a cranky mood today. Oh, it's very very very bad when the Chief High God Instructor is cranky. He decided early on that everyone's side kicks were crappy. (Well, they were.) So he has us drag out the folding chairs for his favorite excruciating drill - throwing a well-formed and well-aimed side blade kick over the back of the chair. It's easy to do once. It's hard to do a hundred times, especially when you come under the Master's watchful eye, 'cause it really starts to hurt.

After that, it was on to forms. We performed our katas and pinyans a bunch of times and got graded on them. Y'know, I just realised I never did pinyan 3 today! They never asked for that one. Well, that's OK, it's not my favorite ;)

Then we paired off and did our defensive manuvers. I got paired off with a nice older gentleman named Walt ... seriously, this guy was 65 years old, so I smacked a little old man around for a while today! Hee. That was different.

Next we did a gauntlet drill - moving down the line and blocking/counterstriking versus attack after attack after attack. The gauntlet line was about twenty people long. I forget how many times I went through; ten or more. Eeee, that really redlines the ol' heartrate by the time you get to the end of the line, I had a major stitch in my side. Thankfully, after the gauntlet, we all lined up at attention and Master Diaz had a little two or three minute lecture for us, so I had a moment to catch my breath.

Then, the instructors holler "go put on your sparring gear" and this is the point where you know you're in the homestretch, but the worst bit is right in front of you. They save sparring for last, wanting you to be tired so they can see if your technique falls apart (it usually does.) There was only one other woman at blue belt level, so we knew we would fight each other. We had to wait until the very end for it - we were the very last pair called out. Oy. I was critiqued as being too aggressive; all attack and no defense. This will surprise my sensei when he hears about it. He usually can't get me to go on the offensive enough. I need to work a LOT on this area; probably my worst part right now.

Then, finally, blessedly, we're done. They have us all kneel, talk at us a little more, and award us our belts. As always, the new belt is strange and stiff and hard to put on. It takes months of work and sweat to break them in and make them comfortable, and now I start that process with the blue-green.

2006 Day 15

One last day to roll home. I've traversed these parts of Arizona and California enough that they have become familiar, and today I am prepared for the daylong heat of the eastern Cali desert. Yes I am lovin' this coolvest. I pull in mid-afternoon, glad to be safe and home. The aw-shucks sadness of the end of long road trip is easily assuaged by dreaming of the next ride. :)

2006 Day 14

More I-40 westbound. Most of northern New Mexico is at a little bit of altitude so the summer heat is pretty bearable. I sort of think I am going to get as far as Williams or Ash Fork, but it's dusk approaching nightfall as I roll into Flagstaff AZ, and I opt to stop for the night. Even though the hotels are pricey, I'd rather pay a little extra than risk riding in elk country during crittertime.

There is a HUGE traffic jam in the opposite lanes right outside of Flagstaff, and I never do figure out what's going on. People are getting out of their cars so it must be a dead stop, all lanes shut down. I find a room quickly and check in before they can come back and snap up all the vacancies! LOL

Next: Day Fifteen

2006 Day 13

Westbound on I-40 for miles and miles and miles is pretty boring, but that's how I'm going home (this is what I get for choosing to go home in four days instead of five.) Stormy and I start off decently early, and reach El Reno OK by early afternoon, which is where we part company. Then, I hit the road and just keep going until the sun's going down and I reach Tucumcari NM. Long day.

Next: Day Fourteen

2006 Day 12

Time to saddle up and head home. Stormy and I will ride together as far as Oklahoma, which will be a nice jaunt ... she and I ride well together. It's an uneventful day, just makin' miles westbound, and the rain is off and on but never heavy. I cover my T-bag with the rain fly, but don't bungee it down, and discover that if a loose rain fly flaps in the wind for a few hours, it'll tear itself to shreds like a flag in a hurricane. I borrow a bungee from Storm to correct it, but too late, the damage is done. Then, at the penultimate stop of the day, I forget to re-hook one end of the bungee after getting into my bags, with the predictable result of a bungee dangling from the sissy bar will get itself wound up in the rear wheel. We arrive at a hotel outside of Little Rock and I find the rear axle tightly wound up in what's left of the red elastic. Jeeeeez. Thankfully the only damage has been to the bungee itself, which has been dismembered and shredded. Coulda been much worse, I got lucky on that one. It takes a little time to get the remains out of the wheel. Jokes ensue about rubber-band-powered Hondas. ;)

Next: Day Thirteen

2006 Day 11

No big riding today, just a little local Pigeon Forge shopping with the gals. Amazon business today. There is celebration in the evening as Lisa becomes our newest Sister - welcome Nemo!

Next: Day Twelve

2006 Day 10

Head down to Chattanooga today, to see the Chickamauga battlefield. Stormy and Joker accompany me. The battle site itself is sprawling; part of the road follows the Union entrenched line and the Confederate soldier ghosts charge out of the woods on my left, in my imagination. We run out of time (I would have liked to dwell a while on Lookout Mountain) when the weather starts to threaten quite severely. Here comes the thunder.

Somehow I've gotten turned around - usually I'm a good navigator, but the mountains have confused me - and I lead the gals in the wrong direction, and even get on I-75 heading the wrong way. Takes me three exits to realise my mistake, and we turn around, only to head into a dark-looking storm filled with streaks of crackling lightning. In less than 10 miles I pull us off again, in a Circle-K parking lot, to discuss what we collectively want to do. We vote to don our raingear and go on. Looks like we're gonna get hella wet.

The downpour really comes when we are navigating the hairiest part of Chattanooga proper - I-75 merges with I-24, and trucks are changing lanes, and lanes are appearing and disappearing. Visibility is cut to almost nil, with the driving rain and the spray from the tires. I ride with my visor open and my glasses down on my nose, which is the best I can do and still I can see almost nothing. This is some of the scariest riding I've ever done, and lookit here, now a truck is coming over into my lane. My options are: a) stay where I am and get squashed, b) nail the throttle & try to get out of the way, or c) brake hard and risk a wreck from behind. I choose acceleration. Stormy goes with me, Joker can't, and we lose her in the traffic & zero visibility. I just want the hell OUTTA HERE and apparently Stormy feels the same way, she signals me to exit. Unfortunately the next offramp is a big swoopy curving one so Joker won't be able to see us getting off the road. Ah shit. There's a BP a half a block up and that's where Stormy and I take cover. This rain is so bad, the CARS are pulling off. We end up waiting for half an hour for the rain to slack.

Turns out Joker rode it out, and got out of the rain after ten miles or so. She is pissed at me for losing her, and I feel bad, but honestly don't know what else I could have done. Sometimes, all the choices suck.

I'm more happy than I can possibly express that everyone has made it back safe and sound.

On our way back, finally out of the rain, Stormy and I stop for fireworks at a local pyrotechnic stand. (My favorite? A 16-load combo box named "One Bad Mother.") We have LOTS of fun setting them off for the 'Zons after dark, while also trying to evade the security guard who has come to stop us. Hee hee hee.

Next: Day Eleven

2006 Day 9

A bunch of us decide to go ride Hwy 129, the Tail of the Dragon, so we head out in the morning. We get a little lost on the way; wait, do I turn right or left to stay on 73? The sign says both!! (Tennessee roads can be notoriously confusing.) We eventually locate the Foothills Parkway, which leads us to the overlook. We stop for photos, then ride the 11 twisty miles down to the resort. Man, the burgers at the Gap always taste so good. It's only later that we find out that Stormy didn't know she'd been on the Dragon ... she was worrying if the road was this winding, how bad was the Dragon gonna be? LOL

We buy shirts, stickers, souvenirs to commemorate our Dragonslayer status, and then head back to Pigeon Forge via the Cherohala and Tellico Plains. Stormy's had enough of twisties (she's not feeling too hot) and opts against returning the way we came. No problem; this longer route ends up being a little faster anyway.

Next: Day Ten