Iron Butt 1500/36
Saturday before leaving Sarasota, I stopped at several fuel stations to inquire as to which ones would be open at 5:00am Sunday morning for my departure. I noticed that some of the attendants were looking at me funny, then realized that they probably considered the request odd, and after looking out at the roach bike, they probably wondered what I was up to. I finally found a Texaco station in Sarasota that was open 24 hours. The Iron Butt Association requires a starting and ending fuel receipt that includes the date, time, and street address of the station in question. The in between receipts only have to include the date, time and town. Now that I found a station, I had to buy a couple of gallons to test the receipt (couldn’t fill, or would have had to ride some out to check the receipt at a different station), leaving room to fill in the morning.
I filled at this Texaco station in Sarasota, FL at 5:34am October 21, 2007 and headed out. I intended to head north on I-75, cutting northeast on I-4 to Daytona, up I-95 to Jacksonville, then across I-10 to New Orleans, then up I-55 to Sikeston, MO, then Hwy 60 to home. Traveling on I-4 in the early morning (still dark) and I notice that the rear of the Venture is wondering side to side quite a lot. It gets worse with speed. I decide that the pavement must be grooved (it’s dark, I can’t see for sure) and keep going with the intention of checking into this further during the next refill. Before Orlando we are routed off the highway. With no directions posted, I follow a local delivery truck and he quickly gets us onto an outer road continuing in the proper direction. I noticed that when I leaned into the exit ramp and let off the throttle that the rear end seemed to track left, hitting the throttle made it track right. I wondered that the axle or swing arm pivot was loose. I didn’t want to stop and once straight, I jerked the bike side to side to check the response and it seemed OK. On the outer road we passed a mini van that was rolled over on I-4. I assume this was the cause of us being redirected. Things such as this would be impossible to plan for, and on a trip of this distance, probably far too likely. Back onto I-4 at the next ramp and back to speed. It’s now daylight entering Orlando and the rear of the bike is getting really squirrelly. I stop and find that the rear tire is flat. I don’t care much for the feel/feedback or wet weather qualities of the Dunlop K491’s, but to their credit, they will run fairly securely on a flat, they are so stiff.
Pull off the next exit to a fuel station and begin the process of plugging the tire. The tire is hotter than crap. The air fitting on the station air pump won’t go onto the tire valve, as there is not enough room between the hub and the valve stem for the air hose fitting to go onto the valve stem. I use the CO2 cartridges that I had packed, but am not doing real well at getting it onto the valve stem either. The tire has been so hot from running low on air pressure that it only tears further when plugs are installed. I had passed a Harley shop a few miles before and asked the guy at the station if it might be open and he handed me a phone book. The answering machine stated that they would open at 11:00am. Right now it is 6:39am. Oh well, I guess that there is nothing more to be done. As I rode with the flat back to the Harley shop (despite my personal preferences a hearty Thank You to Dunlop), I thought that I might just buy a tube, as I had tools to install it myself, with the only challenge to be getting the bike onto the center stand on a curb, or similar, so that I could drop the wheel out from under the rear (After getting home, I chuckled at myself for not thinking to just chuck the bike onto it’s side and changing the stupid thing. It is so rough that it wouldn‘t have mattered one bit). Yet I wondered how much this overheated tire might be expected to survive, as it probably should not be trusted now. Then I chastised myself for not replacing it before I left, as I had been riding it with a plug for several months. I know that none of the tire manufacturers recommend plugging a tire beyond temporarily, until the bike can reach a place to obtain a permanent repair (install a tube or replace the tire) and not to exceed 50 mph while the plug was in. Riding long distance is much different than riding 20 miles one way per day. Much more tire heat, much greater chance of being in a more compromising situation when it finally does fail. Not to mention that I had ridden well over 50mph for the majority of the miles.
Reaching the Harley shop, I am pleasantly surprised to find people there. I learn that they are having a two day
October-fest thing that starts at 12:00. That if they can help me, they will. I park the roach in the far end of the parking lot out of the way and walk into the showroom. A fellow asks if he can help me and I tell him that I am looking for a tube. I am thinking only of the quickest method of getting back on the road. He tells me that only salesman are there, no parts guys yet, but that the shop guys are there and to follow him. The shop manager was named Curly and he made it clear that they didn’t start until 10:00am, which was fine (I, of all people, completely understood). I sat outside as they rolled bike after bike out and visited with the Thunder Mountain Chopper rep and simply watched things as they developed. At 9:45am the bikes had been rolled out of the shop and the doors went back down and it appeared that the day was beginning. As more and more people were rolling in, I didn’t want to be too aggressive, but definitely didn’t want to get shoved to the back. I went to Curly and simply reminded him (prior, I had no direct contact with him, only the fellow who walked me back had and Curly was in an office out of my sight) that I was sitting out front and needed some help with a flat, though I was in no hurry. I had decided by now to replace the tire, why take a chance? Compromising safety would be stupid and a tire could be installed in the same time required to install a tube. I told him that when he was ready for me, that I was out front at a picnic table. He asked what I needed and I explained to him that I was headed for Missouri and had a flat. He asked what bike and I responded that “I needed a 16” tire.”. He asked “on what,” I told him Yamaha and he said that they didn’t work on Japanese motorcycles. I can’t say that I hadn’t expected that and didn‘t take it personally. It is very hard to make money in a service shop, and working on stuff that you aren’t familiar with is a quick way to no profit. Not to mention the liability issues. I responded “I understand, I own an independent shop and I don’t do much with Harley’s, but it is Sunday morning, what are my options?” He hesitated and I followed “Here’s the deal. I have done a hundred rears on these Ventures. I am willing to rent a lift from you and do it myself, I will pay you and help, or I will pay you and stay the hell out of the way.” He said “alright, take it around back and see what Steve says”. I pull the roach in the back beside a man with a very pretty Harley who was dropping it off for a first service. What was really odd, no one seemed to give my roach a second glance. Steve even kept a straight face while writing the ticket. I went through the spiel that I had given Curly and began pulling the bags. Steve pointed to a lift for me to lay my jacket and bags on. I asked if I might speak with the fellow who would work on the bike and Steve took me over. I told him that I was confident that he could do the work, but here is the badda-boom, badda-bing for removing and re-installing the wheel. That the nice thing would be that this was the only bike that he would work on all day long that he didn’t have to worry about scratching anything on, that I would leave him alone and would be out front if he had questions. 1 ½ hours later I was on the road again with no plan to continue the 1500/36 hour ride. I appreciate Curly and Steve taking care of me, they treated me fair on pricing as well.
I left and intended to take the highway from Orlando northwest to I-75 and head home. Passing the entrance I realized that it wasn’t an Interstate, but a toll road instead. For whatever reason, I have an issue with those, especially digging for change with gloves on while riding a motorcycle. Instead, I went past the exit and decided to eat at a Burger King. While eating, I realized that if I could sacrifice some sleep that night, that this thing was still doable. Remounting, I headed for Daytona Beach, resuming the original plan.
Coming into Daytona traffic picked up speed and I stayed with it. A fuel stop in St Augustine provided brief entertainment. I had worked my fuel stop down to the following process.
1- Roll into the parking lot and kick the bike into neutral while rolling up to the pump
2- unzip left jacket pocket while still rolling and pull out credit card. I had emptied this pocket of any other items so that I would not accidentally knock something out and lose it.
3- slide card through processor on pump
4- while card is getting approval, remove left glove, key from ignition, and open fuel fill lid, unscrew cap
5- by now, pump is approved and ready, fill with fuel
6- install cap, close lid, hang up pump handle, pull receipt and verify that it contains all the necessary information, open right saddlebag and mark chronology on receipt, record stop in log book, reinsert everything into a plastic zip lock bag, close the saddlebag, install left glove, start bike and get going again.
Anyway, pulling into the lot there were a bunch of American iron sitting at the pump beside the one that I aimed for. As I rolled up, I nodded (the generally accepted greeting of riders around the world), but the guys raised their noses and ignored me. Fine. As I am filling, two of their apparently cobbled up bikes won’t fire and they attempt to push start them (have I mentioned that even though mine looks like crap, it starts easily?). I am watching out of the corner of my eye. One guy mounted on the seat, two pushing against the sharp edge of the bobbed rear fender. When the guy lets out the clutch the rear wheel locks momentarily, causing the two pushers to trip over each other, then the motor hits and lengthens their arms while they are trying to not fall, and not on each other, then it locks again and screeches the wheel resulting in both pushers falling to opposite sides of the bike they are pushing. The one on my side rolled right under my right saddlebag. It reminded me a lot of Larry, Moe and Curly. I was smiling, but thanks to the full face helmet, they couldn’t know. He got up, still ignoring me, and shook himself off while looking around the parking lot to see who else had seen. He then walked off like nothing happened, like a “man“. They were started and going before I got the log book filled in and I hit the highway right behind, soon putting them in my rearview mirror, then out of sight. For owner’s of American Iron, please don’t take this personally, I would have felt the same if they had been riding Japanese motorcycles, as I don’t understand, is it really too much to ask to acknowledge another motorcyclist, regardless of what he is riding? It’s just the civil thing to do, return a greeting in a parking lot. Sheeez! After all, the fellows at the Orlando Harley shop proved to be absolutely top notch people.
Anyway, I digress. Rain had been in the forecast while riding along the coast on I-10. Northern Florida went smoothly and by staying with the quicker traffic, the time frame required stayed within reach. I was real keen on the time frame, as I could not afford any more issues, I was out of spare time. I filled just west of Pensacola, FL and then the rain came hard. It was impossible to see anything traveling through Gulfport, MS. Traffic was moving at 45mph on the Interstate and there were brake lights everywhere. With the rain suit on, it wasn’t a big thing. But I was concerned with getting rear ended. Everyone watched for everyone else though, and we made it with no close calls, though the speeds were necessarily low.
I had chose to go south around Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, simply to be absolutely certain to get the required mileage in before reaching home. This required a fuel stop in the middle on the south side to prove to the IBA that this was the route traveled. Winding through New Orleans working towards I-55 a New Orleans police car passed me traveling at a higher than posted speed. This was around 9:15pm (it was dark) and I was a bit road numb. I watched him go and picked up speed a slight amount. Shortly after, in a right hand corner, coming onto I-55 (which is essentially a bridge for the first 5-10 miles over the west end of Lake Pontchartrain) I am concentrating pretty hard to stay within my lane (third from right) while a guy in a car is passing in the outside (to my left). He has his throttle mashed and the exhaust is making that hissing sound that they make when the exhaust is plugged up and you are calling on the motor to deliver all that it can.
Rounding the corner onto the very beginning of the Lake Pontchartrain bridge (I only realized exactly where we were later), I see no taillights ahead, only some glowing red things in the road and blackness past them, three or four cars on the far right that are heading back towards me, down a ramp, and one additional car sitting in the dark in the second lane behind one of the glowing things. I hadn’t yet begun to slow, but decided that something didn’t look right and slowly did. By the time I downshifted to third gear, I realized that the glowing things were flares and that there was one in each lane. That the car that sat there (while it didn’t have any flashing lights on) was a policeman, or traffic guy, and that he was standing beside the car, having walked away from the people who had just driven out the ramp. He is standing there with a flashlight and only one reflective strip on the very front of his shirt, and the guy on my left has not yet lifted the throttle. This policman/traffic guy is watching me and waving his flashlight at the heavy footed guy. I hear him yelling “STOP, STOP, STOP !” at the guy. The heavy throttle guy begins to slow, but runs clean over one of the flares. He does stop and the policeman is waving his light at this guy, while looking at me, I decide that there is probably more interest in the other guy than in me and I proceed slowly for the exit ramp as I realize that there must be a wreck ahead and that I could be sitting in traffic here for hours. As I am digesting this, and hoping to stay within what the policeman wants, I run onto a low concrete curb, the type that separates an entrance lane from the traveling lane. Not a big deal, as I simply rode up onto it, but a measure of how tired I was getting, because I didn‘t see it. I think that the policeman’s concern was simply that I followed the cars, rather than attempt to drive past on the highway.
I proceed down the ramp and pulled up behind a few cars headed by a double trailer UPS truck. We are now at an intersection and there is a police car with lights flashing in the middle, and no one seems to be inclined to move any direction. I am thinking that that car with the flashing lights would have been somewhat handy up above on the bridge. Now THAT would have got my attention, rather than trying to figure out the flares. Suddenly the flashing lights police car takes off in a hurry headed south. I guess that the guy up on the bridge had radioed as to what a poor place to stop traffic this was, and this guy was heading to a better spot to stop it. After he disappears, the UPS truck pulls across the intersection and heads north. As I pull up to the intersection, there is no stop sign and I find the intersection to be poorly marked. In fact, if I hadn’t had someone to follow, I would have pulled onto a divided four lane headed north in a south bound lane. Suddenly I realized just what was going on. The bridge (I-55) had just been closed and the few cars that were stopped were waived off the side, going the wrong way down and entrance ramp onto the old highway. The policeman with the flashing lights had simply stopped everything until they had a handle on things back up the road, then left us to take care of ourselves. I was glad that I hadn’t reached this spot 10 minutes earlier, or I WOULD have been piled into the group that would be delayed for hours while cleanup was going on (or 12 minutes earlier and been in the wreck). On the lower road, there are signs that this road is now closed as Lake Pontchartrain is covering it. I am thinking that if it is, knowing how flat this area is, I am willing to continue for a distance in pavement, until it is hopeless. As we continued, there were signs of debris over the road from where the water had been, but we reached the next entrance ramp to the bridge (I-55) without having to cross that issue, thankfully.
Getting very, very tired at a fuel stop in Fernwood, MS, I drank 1/3 of a Dr Pepper (don’t drink much, you will just have to stop to get rid of it) and ate a honey bun outside a truck stop. I hadn’t eaten or drank all day except at the Burger King in Orlando, other than a few sips of water from the Camel Back. I can say that you certainly meet the most colorful people at truck stops at 10:52 at night. Coming through Jackson, MS I was fighting sleep hard and knew that it was time to stop. I was getting cold as well as the temperature had dropped. I stopped in Glucstadt and got a room at 12:45 with instructions to the desk clerk to provide a
5:00 am wake up call.
5:00 am, a quick shower, get dressed, throw on the snowmobile bibs, load the bike to learn that it is sprinkling, go ahead and put on rain gear, and on the road by 6:06am. Filled with fuel in Batesville, MS. Sat on the curb and drank 1/3 chocolate milk and ate a small pack of white sugar donuts before continuing. Riding through Memphis I noticed a severe howling coming from the ladies mini van next to me and wondered how in the world she could drive that thing without hearing that sound and having it checked out when I realized that it was MY bike! It seemed that it was coming from the speedometer on my bike and that it would start doing this at random, but only quit if I nailed a pothole and jolted it hard. I was hoping that the cable would break, but it held with the noise only getting worse until the speedometer needle blew out somewhere around Dexter, MO. The odometer continued to work, though it quit sometime after this ride was over. Leaving a gas stop in Blytheville, AR the Venture began jumping out of second gear. This was an issue with the 1983/84 Ventures, but I had assumed that it started gradually and got worse with abuse. This one started all at once under very gentle throttle and was real bad right off. The fuel mileage had also gotten worse since New Orleans and the bike didn’t seem to have the power that it once did.
Temperatures continued to drop and it had started raining off and on just south of Memphis. I was wearing motocross gloves and they were wet, a bank clock showed temps in the upper 40’s, wind and water was blowing up my sleeves. My hands were cramped and the fingers would not straighten when I pulled off a ramp and changed to the winter gloves that I had worn when I had originally left in the rain. I had the foresight to strap them onto the rear of the bike while riding in Florida so they would dry, but had not had the foresight to put them on. So here I stood beside the road, within time to reach the goal, barring flats, crashes, or any issues and I could not get my fingers into the dry, but finger hole-kinked up gloves. No matter what I did, I could not get them on. I finally gave up on getting my fingers in the holes and simply used them like mittens and pulled the clutch with the palm of my hand and took off. The throttle rocker on the throttle made acceleration possible. I made it to the end at 2:30. The Iron Butt Mileage was 1,615 miles.
I didn’t hate motorcycles when I got home, but I sure as heck didn’t want to take on any more challenges right away. The next morning the bike sat and I drove the van. The following day when I started the bike, it was hard to start and it missed on a cylinder. I later learned that it had burned an intake valve. That motor had had water in it when I received the bike and I was sure that I could hear a rod knocking across Northern Florida. The motor has since been replaced with a 1300 motor, which has more power, similar fuel mileage and better transmission parts. It still looks like a roach, though. The bike gave me all that it had and got me home and we were successful. It is now pedigreed, and I really don’t care what anyone thinks of the appearance. As I write this (8 months later), in effort to capture the memory before it is gone, I wish to explain that I have raced dirt bikes in nearly all forms of competition and used to be pretty tough. I know that age has softened me a bit, but still have a lot of mental strength. Despite the “tough” expectations that I had, this was more difficult, and in a different way than I could ever have imagined. My ear plugs had begun hurting after several hundred miles, so I removed them, the sleeve on my jacket flapped in the wind and drove me nuts, my underwear hurt, I developed a knot in my back and rode the last couple of hundred miles with the right hand on the throttle and the left on the rear passenger grab rail to alleviate the stress, my hands cramped and wouldn’t straighten out for several hours after I arrived home. I love the KLR, but could never have done this with it, though I am sure that there is someone who could. Doing the 1000/24 was very good preparation for the remaining challenges.
I now consider the possibility of going for a 1500/24, but if I never do, I won’t feel like I missed anything. I do, however, have the highest respect for the guys that have earned their way into the Iron Butt Association and feel privileged to stand alongside them.