Triumphrat

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 04:13 PM

I just completed a Saddlesore 1000 this morning. I'd been planning it for a while, and got to be early Monday night. I planned to get up at 5, and be on the road around 6. I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at what turned out to be 0130. I persevered, however, and eventually got to sleep. It seemed like it took 7 hours to get back to sleep (Saddlesore! Saddlesore! Iron Butt! Iron Butt! Today!), but I was actually asleep when the alarm went off at 0500. Much less alert than I had been at 0130, I got up and got ready. After a good breakfast, I was feeling great. My wife and best friend both signed the start witness form at 0603, and I was at the gas station to fill up and get my first receipt at 0620. I got the receipt, and the blasted thing didn't show a time! Not good! I went inside and had the clerk write down the time and initial it. Just make sure, I also took a picture of the time and mileage on Misty's dashboard.

I was off. It was cold. I really hadn't expected it to be this cold. It's June, after all! But June in the high desert. I was really, really glad I'd let Mr. 675 talk me out of taking the mesh jacket. That would have been bad.

The sun was up as I headed out. I got to see something I hadn't for a long time; the morning light on the Jemez Mountains and on Camel rock.

Getting through Santa Fe was a slog. Every light was perfectly timed. To hold me up. It was good to get on the highway and start making some time. Not by speeding, though. I had decided on a 'the more haste, the less speed' approach to this ride. High speeds mean lower mileage, and over the course of 1000 miles, lower mileage means more stops, and wasted time. Wasted time is the enemy. Low speeds would also mean I didn't have to watch for policeman (not that I usually have to watch for policemen, you understand). There was some construction on I-25 north (which heads south out of Santa Fe - it's that kind of town), but it didn't really slow me down. I must have gone through 12 - 18 construction zones yesterday, and only one or two of them actually had anyone working in them. Fine with me.

Those are my favorite speed limit signs of all time, by the way.

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 04:42 PM

When I was almost to Wagon Mound, New Mexico, I finally saw the sign I was looking for; 84 south. And my first sign for historic route 66 (see pic below). "Hey, that's right, most of my route is along old route 66! Cool!" I hadn't thought about that before seeing the sign, but I liked it. The Mother Road was going to host my first Iron Butt ride.

I'd never ridden this stretch of 84, and it was nice. There were lots of cool old ruined adobe buildings. The scenery was better than my originally planned route, 284. The internet said there was 30 miles of construction on 284; the 'follow this chase vehicle' kind of construction. And I'd always wondered what this part of 84 looked like anyway. The north half is nice. The south half is this:

Pretty mind-numbing, but I did see a roadrunner (and it did run pretty fast before taking flight) and some pronghorn antelope. Didn't have the camera ready either time, if you can believe it.

I noticed on this stretch that the rain cover over my tailbag was flapping a lot. I reached back and pulled it back down into position as best I could. This was important, because a) the chances of rain were not insignificant, and b) my Iron Butt forms/log were in a ziplock tucked under the rain cover.

The next turn was onto I-40, a stretch of interstate I've driven more times than I like to think about. Never ridden it, though. Yee ha.

Note the clever use of the date stamp to help document the ride. I'd never used it before on this camera, and I was assuming that it would give a time, not just a date, but oh well.

About 30 miles west of my first stop (Tucumcari, New Mexico), I noticed the tailbag cover was flapping again. A lot. I tried to pull it back into place, but no joy. I immediately wondered what had happened to my documentation. I convinced myself that I felt it in the small of my back, so I kept my seat glued to, well, my seat. That wasn't fun; the occasional pegstand is a big part of my long distance riding technique. By 15 or 20 miles from Tucumcari, I saw in the rear view mirrors that the tailbag cover was entirely gone. That's when I lost hope for the documentation. Curses. I can duplicate most of it on my own, and I can get my witnesses to recreate their portions of the form. That will have to do. Surely I'm not the first idiot to lose his forms during an Iron Butt ride. Surely? How about hopefully?

My first gas stop was scheduled for 15 minutes in Tucumcari, NM. The low fuel light didn't come on until I was almost in Tucumcari; that was good to see. It gave me faith in my mileage estimates for the trip. I had scheduled my gas stops just over 200 miles apart. I pulled in right on time. I documented the stop time/distance/location, gassed up, hit the porcelain, and was back on the road 5 minutes ahead of schedule! Sweet! You never really consider how long a gas stop takes until you have to plan for it and document it the way an Iron Butt ride requires you to. This receipt, and every other in the ride, had a time as well as a date, naturally.

Back on I-40.

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 05:03 PM

Before long I was in Texas. My first state line of the day:

I amused myself watching (and occasionally photographing) the sights on the highway and alongside it.

Yes, those are Cadillacs planted in the ground. Good thing the lens cover issue didn't persist. I may have had to call off the ride.

The next town was Amarillo. I got there by morning. On the far side, I saw my first sign for Oklahoma City. 253 miles. And that wasn't even the halfway mark. Seeing that sign made the magnitude of this ride sink in in a way that it hadn't yet.

More landmarks. The tallest cross in the Western Hemisphere:

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 05:11 PM

The leaning water tower of Britten. It's outlasted the town, if what you can see from the highway is any indication.

After the previous 100 miles, this is remarkably picturesque scenery:

My next gas stop was Shamrock, TX. Mapquest was invaluable for planning gas stops. Their tools make it easy to pinpoint the stations. Much easier than in Google Maps. The adobe building in the middle of this picture is a Conoco. On a normal ride, I'd have stopped for a half hour photo session. Not this ride.

I was ten minutes behind schedule leaving this gas stop. No problem. Next landmark; the Oklahoma state line.

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 05:19 PM

On long highway stretches like this, you dance with the same partners for quite some time. I'd been riding around this van for quite some time before I saw the sticker. Cool sticker.

I hit the 500 mile mark at 14:09, according to the camera.

So, about 8 hours for the first 500 miles. I should be done by 22:00, right? Good thing I had calculations like that to keep me occupied. This stretch of highway is pretty vacant.

I also had my iPod. I turned it on back in Tucumcari. It had been too loud, so I turned it down a bit in Shamrock. The music really helped pass the time. The earplug function wasn't nearly as good as my regular earplugs, so I was getting a lot more wind noise than usual. Quieter songs were pretty much lost. And the wind noise gave me a bit of a headache.

I passed a really cool old Ford being trailered down the highway:

It was immaculate. I went through a couple more construction zones - I'm not mentioning them all, they really weren't much of an issue - and then I was in OKC.

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 05:26 PM

I love it when they mark lanes like this:

The fuel light came on a little past OKC. While passing a semi, I caught a glimpse of myself in one of his mirrors, and found a new way to take self portraits.

I'm the dot in the mirror that's farthest forward.

I stopped a little earlier than I'd meant to for the next gas stop; it was a more convenient station than the one I'd identified. This was a big stop; gas, food, chain lube. There was plenty of room in the shade in this station, so it was a good place to lube the chain.

It was 5:30 central time when I pulled away. It had started to get hot after I got through OKC, and I had opened the sleeve vents on the jacket. I swapped to mesh gloves at the station. I was still feeling really good; I was over 600 miles at this point, and everything was going great. I passed my planned gas stop about 30 minutes late, which still seemed pretty good to me.

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 05:36 PM

At this point, my next big milestone was the Missouri line. That was exciting, because my final destination was in Missouri. Here's a landmark McDonalds:

The highway from OKC to Missouri is a toll road. I'd brought a roll of quarters, because the unmanned exits require exact change. I kept the receipts from the manned stations as further proof of time/location. I still can't figure out the idea of having toll roads in the great plains.

The sun started setting between Tulsa and Jopin, Missouri.

Just before I got to Missouri, the low fuel light came on, quite a bit earlier than it had so far (169 miles). I wasn't sure if I believed it, but I didn't want to run the risk of just ignoring it. I entered Missouri

And deviated from my plan by stopping at the first gas station I came to. The light had been premature; my mileage hadn't really changed, so I could have stayed the course.

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 05:51 PM

After that gas stop, I was still only about half an hour off of original schedule. I had a piece of masking tape on the piece of CF trim to the left of my fork, with the planned gas stops and their departure times listed. It was very helpful for keeping me appraised of my progress.

There were lots of enthusiastic policemen on I44 in Oklahoma. I saw three who had people pulled over. The only other policeman I saw on the whole ride was a Texas state trooper who had several people out of their car and sitting by the road next to the Cadillac ranch.

I was feeling great after that gas stop (not that this was a new development; I'd been feeling great all day). I passed the 800 mile mark, and got very pleased with myself. Life was good.

"I'm over the 800 mile mark! Only 200 to go! Not a drop of rain, either!" I may have even thought something as stupid as 'this is too easy!'

Dumba$$.

Yes, this is the classic 'stopped under a bridge to put on rain gear' picture. I'd noticed a few miles earlier that the sky was starting to look dark ahead. I started watching the oncoming traffic for windshield wipers (cars) and rain gear (motorcyclists), but didn't see any wipers or any motorcyclists at all. But soon it was obviously about to rain. I was also hungry, so I found a good bridge for shelter and pulled over to eat and gear up.

This was mile 813 according to my tripmeter. It was pretty much wet and/or raining for the rest of the ride. I pushed on into Springfield, MO, and decided to make an extra stop just to ensure that the leg from I-44 to I-70 was totally documented with gas receipts. As I pulled into Springfield, I was seeing some lightning far off to the southeast. But things looked better to the north. So I pulled off my rain jacket and stuffed it back into the tailbag.

Mistake. I headed north, and was a little surprised that the distance sign didn't mention Marshall, OK or I-70. But it did mention a town that was 116 miles away or some distance like that. "Do I really have to go that far to get to I-70?" Yes.

By this time, it was well and truly dark. The rain was intermittent, but occasionally hard. I was off the highway, going through wooded areas where I knew the chances of animals were pretty good. And I'd taken off my rain jacket.

Around mile 900-950, my legs announced they'd had enough. I started doing pegstands, in sets of 15. The first one of each set took longer than the next five. My legs were sore. My right shoulder was a little sore too, but not compared to my legs. And did I mention it was dark, and the roads were unfamiliar, and it was raining? This was a special kind of fun.

For the first half, I was in a loose cluster of cars. I liked it, because they swept the road ahead of me, and showed me where it went. We passed through a few small towns (and by small, I mean 'pop. 113' in one case). I almost stopped for a picture of the bike next to one of those signs, but I wanted to get those last gas receipts. I was estimating that I'd get into Columbia around 0100 or so at this point.

I was watching my headlight play in the trees along the road when I started seeing odd flashes of light in the trees. It took me a few minutes to figure out that they were fireflies. I also saw a live armadillo at one point. I didn't know they had those in Missouri. I'd seen two dead ones in Oklahoma; it was cool to see one that wasn't. They are weird animals.

HiDesert · 06-03-2009, 06:09 PM

Probably the weirdest thing I saw in this stretch of road was a house with actual, honest-to-goodness Christmas lights in the lawn. I mean a Christmas light tree with an angel inside it. It's June, for pete's sake. Of course, I may have been hallucinating. The last 150 miles or so were a bit of a forced march.

It was a great moment when I saw my first sign for Marshall. That was my next-to-last gas stop. The sign said 52 miles. It seemed like more. I wasn't really too physically tired at this point, but I was starting to get used up. The dark, rainy, unfamiliar roads had a lot to do with it. When I crossed I-70, there were signs saying road construction 10 miles. All the way to Marshall, in other words. Once again, though, it didn't amount to much. Lots of cones, and a great stretch of brand new, super-smooth pavement. I easily found one of the 24-hour stations I'd called in Marshall, and got my next-to-last gas receipt. I ducked inside to inspect the porcelain, and asked the attendant how far it was to Columbia. I was thinking 30ish. He said 52. Oh.

It only seemed to take seconds to get back down to I-70. I got on headed east, and started watching for signs to tell me exactly how far it was to Columbia. The first distance sign didn't even mention Columbia.

The next one did, and said 42 miles. But then the signs stopped mentioning Columbia. That really didn't make sense to me. And it sure seemed like more than 42 miles. But finally I saw signs for the Hotel I was/am staying at, and I turned off to get my final receipt and check in.

The man at the desk took forever to find my reservation and pick out a room, but I didn't mind. He was very helpful about witnessing my ending mileage and writing that up.

It was almost 0200 by the time I got to bed. Boy, did that bed feel good. And the huge bacon buffalo burger for lunch today tasted great. Yesterday's food intake was a few protein/granola bars, a slim jim sausage, and a ham sandwich from Subway.

So, 1072 miles by the tripmeter. 19:20 total time, with 98 minutes of stops, so 17 hours and 42 minutes of actual riding. Average speed, 60.6 mph. Fastest gas stop, 7 minutes (did that twice). I haven't calculated exact mileages, but I believe I got about 50 mpg for almost the whole trip.

The next level up is 1500 miles in 36 hours. Could I do that? Yes, I think so. One of these days...

Catenaccio · 06-03-2009, 06:13 PM

Congratulations! An epic accomplishment! Glad you're safe and refurbished.