Iron Butt Ride

Hi,

I know I asked this before, but can't find the post, but who would be interested in trying an Iron Butt ride? It is 1,000 miles in 24 hours so it would be best to just ride up I-5 or another interstate. I think Scott said he was interested and a few others said no. I just figure if we want to do this we may want to think about this before December.

Thanks,

Yeah, I'm interested. Are you thinking about this year? I was thinking about next spring to get some more "practice" in.

I've been looking at routes and one that looks pretty good would be to go north on I-5 to Sacramento, east on 80 to Reno, south on 395 to Barstow, west on 58 to Bakersfield and then north on I-5 back to the start. This would make for some interesting riding while you're still a little fresh and then become more straight and easy as the day wore on.

Scott

Jeff, If you go as far as San Diego, I would consider it. My family is there and it would be good to say hi. Keep us posted.

Next spring would sound good too. Maybe we can do a 500 mile ride where all we do is ride and not to site see or anything else. This would give us a way to work our way up too. Bonnie, how far is San Diego?

Would anyone else be interested in maybe doing rides to work our way up?

Jeff, Going down 5 it is about 525 miles from my house. I can check on my Garmin for the exact mileage if you need it.

Scott, Did you say "Barstow"? "Bakersfield"? Why not Victorville and 29 Palms? LOL
That route is not exactly on the Top Ten Most Beautiful Highways. I admit that I have a vested interest in going to San Diego but why Barstow and Bakersfield? If we have to be on the scooters for that many hours why not pick a route that is worth seeing? Just one person's opinion.

Actually, a down and back to San Diego on I-5 looks like a better plan. According to Google Maps, from my house to San Diego it's 440 miles via I-5. So, to make it a 1K from Tracy, I would also have to do a loop north to Sac and back to get it over 1K miles.

The other loop that I looked at wasn't designed for beauty, but just a route that would be over 1K and return on the last leg ( when most tired ) on I-5.

So, keeping that in mind, I think that the route down and back to San Diego on the freeways is probably safer, easier and offers more places to stop, rest, fuel, etc...

So, where would we want to start from?

Scott

Scott, You are a good man. Since Jeff is planning this trip, we can start wherever he decides is best for the riders.

Scott & Bonnie,

I think a good starting point would be by you Scott, at I-580 & I-5. By the time I get there I would already have about 40-45 miles and so would Bonnie probably. Then it would just be a straight shot down their and back. Would we like to do a 500 mile ride first just to see what it is like? I would be up for that too.

Also, would others like to join us? We can pick people up in Fresno or along the way, or riders from other areas could just meet us at I-580 & I-5. Here is a link we all need to read up on so we get credit. There are things that must be done and verified for it to be approved as an official Iron Butt ride.

http://www.ironbutt.com/about/default.cfm

I would be interested.

From Redding I would go to Mohave and back to just go over 1,000

Today while riding my scooter to Livermore I started thinking about this ride. I have a question ~ Let's say we average 65 MPH during the riding time, that is about 15.5 hours. Now we add on breaks, gas, and meal stops. When do we sleep? Say we leave on the ride at 6AM, that means that we would drive most of the night to get back in 24 hours. Has anyone figured out the logistics yet?

Yeah, it all starts to add up.

Here's what I've looked at so far:

1) Average speeds:
- 65 mph => 15.5 hours
- 60 mph => 16.6 hours
- 55 mph => 18.2 hours
- 50 mph => 20 hours

2) Gas stops:
Based on 160 mile range/tank: 6 stops
6 stops @ 10 min/ea = 1 hour

3) Food stops:
30 minute stops every 4 hours = 6 stops
6 stops @ 30 min/ea = 3 hours

Total time for gas and food stops is about 4 hours. So, if we could average 60 miles/hour, we would have about a 4 hour buffer left to find some place on the road to rest and still have enough time left.


Scott

What I have read from those who have done this, you need to start at about 4 am to get back at about 10-12 pm. I'm not sure if we would need to take 1/2 breaks to eat. I'm not one to ride on a full stomach, but maybe everyother stop for gas we could take 30mins to gas up, drink some water and maybe munch on some food. Just a thought though. But we would need to start early in order to do this. If you have had a chance to go to the Iron butt site I think they have some info. We may want to avg 70mph though when we do this.

If we go 70 mph it will take approx 14.5 hours and if there are 6 stops then maybe we could stop for 30 mins each time for a total of 3 hours. So that would be 17.5 or 18 hours rounded up. If we start our ride at 4am then we would be back by 10pm. This way I can go sit in a hot tub after. One thing we may want to think about is to see if there are any places to get those 10 mins massage's, just one though. We have a mall that does this and it feels great and it is really quick. It would help relax us too. Just a thought.

A Vespa rider did an iron butt in 18.5 hours.

He left from Napa to Baker and back.

He left at 3 am and got back around 10:30 pm.

He did this on a Vespa GT 200 with a 2.5 gallon tank and stopped for gas 14 times.

Besides riding time he took no 30 minute food breaks just quick snacks and gas and go.

He planned this out to use 3 days. One to prep, one to ride, and one to relax.

Check the link:

http://www.modernvespa.com/forum/topic10223?highlight=1031+miles

That's good info.

To keep it a little more manageable, I think that we could make every other stop ( every 4 hours ) a longer stop like Jeff proposes. This would still give us plenty of time left over.

Steve, would you meet us on I-5 near Tracy, or what are your thoughts?

I was also thinking today about how to cover the additional 100+ miles that I would need to cover by leaving from and returning to Tracy. So, I thought that I could ride west first to meet with Bonnie and Jeff and then return through Tracy to get to I-5. Even with that distance, I would still have to go all the way to Galt on I-5 and then back to Tracy in order to get to 1,000 miles.

This will turn out to be quite the adventure. I'm looking forward to it!

I just found this list of Iron Butt Approved Witnesses so that we can arrange with them to have our start and finish times witnessed, if we want: http://www.saddlesore.com/witness/witness.htm

Hi,

Here is a map of the ride down to San Diego. I just did the ride down since we would just reverse course back. The total trip is about 498 miles. I used Concord as the first point since Bonnie is coming from there. I will be coming from Fremont and it is just a couple of miles less than Bonnie's start. Scott you would need to maybe ride to meet us or ride north to meet whiteknuckler who is coming from Redding, to get more mileage to even it out with Bonnie and myself.

I figured it is about 7 hours and 38 mins down , without breaks. I didn't even figure in gas breaks but the Points C, D, and E all have gas stations at those locations. I just thought that Point A is the start point for all, depending on where we are coming from, so we should all have a full tank starting off.

http://tinyurl.com/4d2wpd

Maybe you can all look at this and see what you think. Of course anything can be changed.

Here's a route plan for that route based on stopping every two hours for either gas or rest or both:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/5/27/1932734/1010%20Independence%20Dr%2C%20Iron%20Butt%20Route.pdf

Scott,

That sounds good too, to stop every 2 hours. It would make it easier on all of us.

So when are ya'll doing this???????
John G

We are shooting for the spring, so we can get in some more "practice" to get ready.

Hey, Scott, if you'd like to get a little practice in, leave your house at "0 Dark 30" tomorrow morning and meet TomH, Bonnie, Gene and me in Walnut Creek for the ride to Woodland for the "Ride for Kids". We'll be leaving Walnut Creek at 8:00 a.m., Sharp!

Anyone else that would like to join us is welcome!

Thanks for the reminder. It's tempting, but already have plans with my bride for tomorrow.

Have a good ride and take lot's of pics!