My son Matthew and I went for a nice little four day ride a couple weeks ago and ended up seeing a lot of beautiful country and earned our Iron Butt Association SaddleSore.
We left Seal Beach, California (just south of Los Angeles) at 11:20 pm on Sunday, June 22nd headed for Denver, Colorado for our IBA SaddleSore. The odometer read 29899 miles. Matthew had managed to get about three hours sleep just before we left, but I had only managed about an hour's nap. But I was pumped up and determined. We had a short stop in Barstow, California for gas, and made Las Vegas by 4:00 am. I've seen enough of the I15 from LA to Vegas so it was nice to get that part done in the dark. We watched the sun rise shortly before we got to St George, Utah where we stopped for gas and breakfast.
Before I go on too much, I have to talk about the bike. I have an '05 Yamaha Royal Star Venture, and that was just about the perfect bike for an Iron Butt ride. There may be better for one up, but with a passenger, I don't think you can do much better. The stock seats are as comfortable as can be imagined for both of us. I have the rider backrest from Utopia that I couldn't do without, and I made some armrests for my son because I knew he would be sleeping off and on. I took some arm rests off an office chair and used duct tape to attach them to the grab bars. They didn't look the best, but they saved me about 300 bucks and worked just fine. Matthew would fall asleep for about 15 minutes at a time before I'd get too nervous and jab him. I already had close to 10K miles on the current Avon tires, and after getting home still have plenty of tread left. I personally think bikes should get a lot better gas mileage than we do, but I couldn't complain too much. I think about the worst I got was in the low 30's when I was running at 90+ mph for about a hundred miles. When I could keep it to 70 mph or a little less, I'd get in the mid 40's. I was a little worried about the high altitudes, but I experienced no problems with power or mileage because of it. All things considered, and probably especially cost, the Venture is an excellent touring bike and I thoroughly enjoyed mine those four days.
Once into Utah, I decided to do a few miles helmetless. As we left a rest area, I noticed rain clouds ahead but couldn't tell if we would hit it or not. Of course we did. At first the cooling off felt good, and my shield kept most of the rain off my face. Then I started getting pelted and it kind of stung. I wasn't sure what it was till I looked on my shirt sleeve and saw ice bouncing off me. It was hail! Go figure. It only lasted about five minutes tho, and then the rain for about twenty more and we were in the heat again. At the next stop in the small town of St Joseph, Utah I put the helmet back on and kept it on. I enjoyed the feeling without for awhile, but it did cause more fatigue which I didn't need. We finally got into Colorado and stopped in Grand Jucntion for gas and a late lunch at 4:40pm. By now I was feeling the affects of little sleep, and those last few miles before Grand Junction were a bit of a blur. The road became more scenic after that, and I managed to wake up okay. We gassed up in Glenwoods Springs, and then the road became even better for a freeway. We passed through Vail and saw the ski slopes and the air was a bit cooler. All of the riding was high elevation, with the highest I think at about 11K feet. We started seeing a few deer on the sides of the road so I slowed a bit. Traffic started getting a bit heavier as we neared Denver, and about the same time the sun set and evening was upon us. We rode to the southwest part of the city where our destination was a Hyatt off the I25. We arrived at the hotel at 8:50 pm (our time) and had exactly 31000 miles on the odometer. That means the odometer put us at 1101 miles in twenty one and a half hours. Mapquest had the miles at about 1040.
I got the Front Office Manager to be our end witness, and the staff was all quite amazed that we had just come straight through from Southern California. I work for Hyatt and have a friend at that hotel, so he set us up with a real nice room with a jacuzzi tub. A quick shower and dinner came first, and then that tub sure felt good. I sort of remember letting my family know we were there safe, and then I was sound asleep. Matthew told me in the morning he had fallen asleep in the tub till about 1:00 am.
So I still have to send in my papers to IBA, but we did it. This is my second 1000 miles in 24 hours, but the first one was in 1981 and not certified. For those of you who have done one, I think you would agree that my 14-year old son earning his as a passenger is really quite a feat. I have to get back to work now, but I'll continue again later with our more "leisurely" ride home. I'll give a little heads up and say we did 2404 in four days. And yes, we did enjoy every bit of it. Okay, the triple digit temps on the last day was a bit of a drag, but other than that.....
