Iron Butt
 

So a few local guys have been planning an iron butt for the beginning of summer. Springfield, MO to Birmingham, AL and back. It will be 530ish miles each way with a rest at Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in the middle. Here is the route we will be taking.


For those of you who have done rides this long, what have I probably not thought of? I will have a tank bag and am borrowing saddle bags from a friend. We are going to try to stick together as much as possible, but wont have a designated lead rider or sweep. Every person is going to have a map with recommended places to stop for gas, if there are long stretches without a gas station, etc. I plan on taking a ton of water, rain gear, etc. I will probably try to borrow a friends GPS, just to be safe.

Guys do the Lake Michigan loop here. I think that is about 1000 miles.

I think one of my friends from St. Louis took a trip on his VFR800 up around the great lakes one time.

I've done two Iron Butts. A 24 hour/1000 mile on my TLR, and a 36 hour/1500 mile on my Hayabusa. Let's see. Where do I start.

1. Wear ear plugs. Thank me later.
2. I think you'll find that any more than 2 people is 1 person too many on an Iron Butt style ride. Everyone has a different pace they are comfortable with, and everyone wants to stop at different times for fuel/food.
3. Don't lollygag too much. You'll have time to relax, but since this is your first, you'll be surprised how quickly it will pass by. If you can make it work, great.
4. If you do want to certify it through the Iron Butt association, study carefully what they will require you to send in. It may not seem like much, but when you're on the road, it should be second nature. Take a little notepad to log your notes on, as well as enclosing them in a zip-lock bag to make sure it doesn't get wet. Take a pencil. Also, keep a separate zip-lock bag for all of your receipts. You will need those. Don't forget your start/end paperwork. If you stop for more than 15 minutes, you're supposed to record that. Documentation documentation documentation. I can't stress this enough.
5. Take bananas and sour patch kids candy with you. The bananas are good and healthy, the sour patch kids are good to chew on when it's 3am and you're pretty tired. :lol:
6. If you think it will start to rain, stop and get your rain gear before it does. PVC rain gear is 10 times harder to put on *after* it's started raining.
7. Don't overthink it too much and have fun!

Thanks a ton for all of the advice man. This is pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

Have you looked at the Iron Butt's website yet? If not, you should. They have the forms you need and spell out how you need to document everything.

Frogg Toggs? Ugh. My best friend had some of those and they were a waste of $50. I'll stick with my Aerostich. :lol:

One thing I did forget to mention. Doing a ride like this *is* mental. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. I'll give you an example.

The 24/1000 I did on my TLR. Left Suches, GA at 8am. Arrived Oklahoma City at 4:30am. I was flat exhausted. We also had to stop for a couple of hours due to super heavy rain. I wasn't the seasoned rain rider I am now and I've definitely ridden through worse than that.

When I did the 36/1500 on my Busa a couple of years later, I left Oklahoma City at 9pm Friday night and arrived back in Oklahoma City at 8am Sunday morning. I made it with 45 minutes to spare. At the 1000 mile point of the trip, I was in western Kansas and I was still fresh and good to go.

Here's something I do that might help you out mentally. Don't think of it as *Man, I gotta ride 1000 miles.* Think of it as *I have to ride XXX to the next gas stop.*. In my case, I break it up into 200 mile segments, since that's about where I stop for gas. You'd be surprised how much easier it is mentally when you think about it like that.

Having ridden on the back with him for long trips.. this is probably the best piece of advice. :dthumb:

Thanks a ton. Do you normally ride with an mp3 player or anything? I am thinking about selling my scala rider team set and buying a chatterbox to replace it. I know the guy leading in planning this trip has one, so I'm sure talking some would make it much easier and make the time pass quicker.

On my trip up to indy (right around 500 miles of interstate), I did the same thing about breaking it down into the shorter segments. 1000 is a lot more than 500 though, physically and mentally.

Ok, my thoughts on the Chatterbox. I know not everyone feels this way, but I'll give you my opinion. Take $150 out of your pocket. Set it on the ground. Set it on fire. you will get more enjoyment out of that than a Chatterbox. I had one. They are junk. The *only* time we could hear each other was if we were stopped *next* to each other at a light, and there wasn't any wind.

I do use the iPod portion of my iPhone. Do you have good headphones? If not, I'd suggest not wasting your money on anything but Etymotic ER-6i's. I think Shure makes something comparable, but I've not tried their product.

Koss Plugs are what I've got right now. They are pretty much a ear plug with a tube down the middle of it for the sound to come through. Pretty good sound quality for an earplug style and are pretty damn loud.

:lol: I said good headphones.

I guess Koss is a subjective thing. They hurt my ears. My Etymotics are gold. They're also $80. This is one of those cases where you do get what you pay for.

1000 miles isnt an iron butt. LOL I would love to take a whole week off and see my vfr takes me.

You can knock out a few miles

A couple of years ago, I took 25 days off work and took off on my Busa. I went from Oklahoma City to Key West to the eastern end of Nova Scotia to Chicago and back to Oklahoma City. I logged a little over 8,000 miles. :D

It was a good trip! I do a summer trip of at least 2 weeks every year, but that one is my longest to date.

Watch out with the energy drinks, they work great for a while, but the let down at the end is worse than anything else. If you get to the point where you think you need one then stop and take a nap. i use a screamin meanie, set it for 20 minutes and ride away. i guarantee that you won't sleep through the alarm.

any info on that trip? Id love to consider something like that.

Listen to Tracy, get something else. The Koss are excellent for short to medium trips. They hurt like hell after any kinda long distance. They push pretty awful against your ears, and after 8 hours, it feels like torture having them uncomfortable bastards in, especially with the helmet resting against them. Spend the cash on a good set of headphones that are small and still have excellent sound. It'll make a huge difference at the 7 or 8 hour mark. I replaced mine with some smaller Sony earbuds that sealed off better than the Koss and didn't have any parts that could rest or be pressed against the ears.

My cheapo skull candy ear buds work great all day. You just need to take them out every so often to air out your ears. LOL

did an iron, it is all about breaking it down to smaller sections and not thinking about it as one huge trip

Just Google Lake Michigan motorcycle loop

For $80 I would rather spend a little more and get custom molded ear plugs that NASCAR drivers use for their team radio.

http://www.racingelectronics.net/ind...item=ear_molds

I've never used ones like that.. how good are they from the noise isolation standpoint? The main reason I like the Etymotics so much myself is that the wind noise is almost totally gone with the foam attachment, and even more so with the flanged attachments (though the flanged ones always hurt my ears). I would assume they're pretty good if NASCAR drivers use them.. I can't imagine a race car being even remotely quiet. :lol:

When is this trip T? I am right in the middle of moving but after I get done I am going to need to unwind. E-mail me some specifics! I won't be able to check a PM. This going to be a day down, a day at Barber, and a day back? I think I can get free, may even try to get my buddy Bryan to come up and join. We do 300-400 miles a day and made it from the Dragon in NC to AR in one day once although I hurt for 2 days. Our last trip together was a lil over 400 mile loop so we are used to the pain...

Trip is this friday. Leaving here at midnight. Plan is to get to Barber at 10 at the latest. I'd be glad to have some of you guys meet us there and hang out for a bit. We will be leaving at 2 at the latest, depending on how long it takes us to get down there.

Good luck... and have a safe trip!!

Thanks a ton. It's going to be a blast.

Good luck! I'll be curious to hear how it went once you get back!

I'll probably post about it after I take a good long sleep.

Just a thought on your plan, you definately need to leave extra time on the back end because there is more traffic in the afternoon/night on a Sat than in the morning.

Yeah. We are planning on giving extra time on the way back for traffic, fatigue, etc.

Well, we are leaving tonight at midnight. Did a thorough pre-ride check on the bike last night. got an inverter fitted up under the seat and the chatterbox hardwired to that for power. Everything is 95% ready to go.

Be safe! Rubber side down, and keep the speeding tickets to a minimum!!

Good luck! I'll look forward to your rants on the Chatterbox and how useless it was! :lol:

lol its just borrowed so i'm not out anything if i don't like it.

Good luck, holmes. Fight the good fight.

I'll try to. I'll post up here after I get back. Maybe after I pass out for 18 hours though.

Get out of bed! You've been home almost 12 hours!!!

Where's the pictures!!!

Glad you made it home safe and sound, hope your butt is in one piece. :D

We left at midnight and got to Birmingham at around 9:30 AM. Turned around, took our time, and hit 1000 miles at 9:17 PM. Got home 70 miles later at 10:30 PM exactly.

The three of us had a great ride. I was on my R1, and the other two guys were on a 1999 Suzuki Bandit 1200 and a Connie 14. My ass and back would hurt for about 10 minutes every time we took off from gas stops. My clutch hand is still tired, but other than that I am good.

I think we averaged about 20 minutes at each gas stop. Got off of the bikes, smoke, hang out for a bit. Stopped and got free starbucks just outside of Memphis (a little over halfway there). In B-ham, we decided not to go to the Museum since we would only have a couple hours. We went to the Ducati, BMW, Triumph dealership for about 30 minutes and then ate at McDonalds on the way out of town.

The R1 did well, and we had it set up well for the long trip. Chatterbox's worked well, Tracy. Not well enough to hold a conversation or anything, but enough to point things out and communicate between bikes. Couldn't beat em for the music though. I had sirius radio hooked up to the bike which fucking rocked. We hooked up a three-output car cigarette lighter power thing in my trunk and plugged an inverter into one, which continuously charged the chatterbox and the sirius radio into the other one. I had a little handheld GPS that I just used for speed. I forgot to turn it on till we were leaving Birmingham, but when we got to Memphis, our moving average was 81, and when we got to the other side, it was still 73.

Biggest rant about the ride was traffic in Memphis. My friend got pushed off of the road onto the shoulder by the concrete median by some car who wanted over. I got brake checked twice. Fuck memphis.

We consider it a success. We all made it back and stayed together, didn't get tickets and didn't have any accidents. The tickets one is surprising since we ran hard the whole entire time.

Yep, never lost anything in Memphis. And they can keep Elvis. :D

On another note: We are already in the planning phase of another one. 1561 miles from here to Las Vegas.

Tentative plans:
Day 1:
Leave at midnight. Head through Kansas on I-70 (straight shot to denver. most boring road in the world) and then cut down to vegas at denver. Arrive a little before midnight. Iron Butt complete.

Day 2:
Sleep till whenever we feel like waking up. Get an In-N-Out burger. Spend the day hanging out with people.

Day 3: Leave at midnight and head back via I-40. Maybe stop halfway through and just make 2 700 mile days out of the trip back, or a 1000 day and then a 400, who knows.

you're crazy

yes.

:lol: Maybe.

However, t-rock just learned a very important lesson. The country just got a whole lot smaller. I tell people all the time there's no place in the US I can't be in 2 days if I want to. It's a nice feeling knowing that.

try living on the east coast and saying that :lol: no way in hell would i try one of those CC50 runs :tremble:

Although your rather long day trips has motivated me to do the same. I am toying around with a trip to main to hit a brewpub for lunch and bring some refreshments back home with me ;)

Tom

Very true. We were looking last night, as Vermont and Maine were the only two states in the continental US my friend hasn't been to on a bike, and Maine is only 23.5 hours from us. It'd take a little longer for Washington, but 90% of the US. is within a day of me. We talked about taking that train from KC to Cali with the bikes, riding across the US, then coordinating with one of the guy's friends who is a trucker about shipping the bikes back and we'd just fly.

Hell, LA to jacksonville is just under 2500 miles. Not impossible. Not easy, but not impossible.

when you start thinking about trips in thousands of miles, you are offically a bike nut

You speak from experience. We are hoping to do a trip up to maine this fall or next spring if you want to join.

Congrats! I'd love to do something this adventurous but am not too sure about what I'd be like on my own. :panic:

I'd much rather do it with one 2 two people with the same riding style. More than that would be too many and probably result in a power struggle. I don't have the motivation to do it on my own and would probably cut my days short and make the trip last twice as long.

Ya it's something I'd love to do with only one other person...or possibly two. Anymore than that and it would get annoying (as I found out on my Gap trip).

The right combination would make for an excellent road trip!

I'd love to do a trip and hit a lot of states and have a lot of forum members do short jaunts of it with me. I think that would be an absolute blast.

It is. :D That's what I've been doing for 5 years now. That might be why the Busa has 53k on 'er!

need to talk to osp, he might be down too:boobs:

Awesome. I need to meet that guy sometime anyway. I'll try to get the other guy who is doing these with me on TWF.

Tell me when you do the ND, MN, WI trip. I'd like to join if you and your friend aren't opposed.

You're fucking crazy. Only 23.5 hours???? :wtf: I get 20 miles into a ride and my back is begging me to stop.

It was funny on this trip. It was me on my R1, a 28 year old on a Concourse 14 and a 36 year old on a Bandit 1200 and I was the one in the least pain still.

If you push through the pain one time, you will be good to go for hours.

Wait a few years. You'll change your tune.

Some people just suck it up and deal better. :lol:

I have a few 1000 mile days under my belt, more 700 and 800 mile days than I can count, and a Iron Butt Bunburner. My most recent 1000 mile day was 3 weeks ago. Oh yeah, I'm 37. How much longer should I wait before it's time to change my tune? :lol:

Easy, grandpa. :lol: I did 150 Sunday...I paid for it. I could barely walk the rest of the day. No fucking joke. And that was with the freshly installed "S" pegs...which are an inch lower. I'm about at the end of my rope with sportbikes.

Yeah, but you're not normal. :lol: :nee:

BTW, you can post here, but you can't respond to my text? :skep:

Uh oh. She's on to you. Sign off, QUICK!

He's usually good about replying to my texts.. but I sent him one half an hour ago, and no response. :scratch: :shrug:

He might be getting his ass chewed on by the bossman. :lol:

Thats never good.

Replied, replied, and replied. :lol: Sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrry.