XLNT Ride to Iron Butt Dinner Party

[Stuart_O]

Just returned last night from a fantastic ride from Phila. to the Iron Butt Assoc annual dinner party, in Jacksonville, FL. This is my fourth dinner party, alway the first week in March, always dicey with the weather. It had snowed a couple inches on Wed, the day before our departure, and was about 20F for the morning of our departure. In past years I had always ridden down there alone, but this year I had 3 friends along.

Considering the snow and very cold temps we decided to push back our departure til noon this past Thurs, and met at a rest stop on I-95 in Newark, DE, about 40 miles from my home. We had agreed to ride comfortably and stop for the night in NC. Next morning we had an easy (brisk) 450 mile ride, arriving the hotel in JAX by about 1 PM.

Unfortunately, at our first fuel stop north of Washington we noticed some oil dripping from my Sprint. I had just done a valve check (@25K miles) and had only a short ride after the service work. I didn't take us long to strip off the fuel tank, airbox, etc, and see that some oil was weeping from the rear of the valve cover. My bad - when struggling to get the cover back on I must have disturbed the seating of the gasket. 30 min later we were back on the road, and no more oil leak. Only slightly embarassing!

The dinner was excellent - about 250-300 Iron Butt riders including some very old folks who just ride on. Define old: A great grandmother who has finished 3 Iron Butt Rallys (that's about 11,000 miles in 11 days), and expects to do about 100,000 miles this year ending April 15 (she has 14K to go but is confident).

5 of us departed JAX at 5 AM on a spirited ride up the east coast, stopping every 220 miles for fuel. 4 of the 5 of us have fuel cells but we decided 220 miles was time for a stretch. Neil Blangiardo "Effervescent" continued to his home in Queens, NY for his maiden Iron Butt Saddlesore 1000 certification.

My 03 Sprint ran so well, so smoothly, made the trip a pleasure for this rider. My fuel mileage ranged from about 42 to about 49 mpg.

I will post some great photos on my web site in a few days.

Stuart Ostroff IBA #11000

[omaz]

Glad to hear that the old girl is giving you such excellent service Stuart. Ride on!

[iceman]

I take my hat off to you.

I have just finished a trip that inluded some 500 mile days and I cant imagine getting back on the bike and doing another 500 miles after that.

You've got a great bike for it though :-D

Grant

[Stuart_O]

The real hard-ass riders do a more extreme ride called BBG (Bun Burner Gold) which is 1500 miles in 24 hrs. This requires riding at illegal speeds so no one talks about the details!

One of my IBA buddies did a 100ccc (coast to coast to coast) insanity ride. Myrtle Beach, SC to San Diego and back to northern Florida in 90 hrs and 10 min (you are allowed 100 hrs and he was really pissed that he didn't break 90).

At the dinner one of the speakers said that 2% of the vehicles on the roads (in US) are motorcycles, and about 1/4 of 1% of these are Iron Butt Riders. Now about 25,000 certified members.

[ This message was edited by: Stuart_O on 2007-03-11 13:04 ]