Bogley

[double moo]

Ironbutt 2006
September 29, 2006
Mike, Dave, Scott

Dreaming

One day back in August Dave walked in and stated we need to plan a date for another ride trip. Knowing how hectic his schedule is I simply told him anytime worked for me. After some looking through his calendar we settled on Friday October 7th. As usual we changed this date more than once over the next couple of weeks. So it was eventually agreed that on September 29th we would take the day off and ride out for the weekend.

Within the next week Dave called saying that as long as we were going why not try for an Ironbutt ride. I was instantly in! We talked on and off about the logistics involved. Which route, best times to ride, alternate bailout points, etc… We spent time individually on the Ironbutt Association website soaking up their years of experience while trying to sift through what aspects fit our riding style.

You see, riding style is what makes for a great riding partner, makes for great trips, and keeps you in synch. Luckily for me Dave is the best riding partner ever. We are so opposite off the bikes… yet so in synch while on the ride. We ride and matching speeds. We look at the same gaps for passing. We fuel up on parallel mileage. We can walk in to any restaurant in America and order for each other – which comes in handy when nature calls and you’re in a hurry!

Dave had a neighbor who wanted to join us. I agreed to have him join us but had reservations. I don’t know if I didn’t want Dave to find a new riding partner or if I truly was just apprehensive about adding baggage to our lean & mean dynamic. I countered by asking if Scott could join us. Scott was one of Dave and mine’s good friend’s son that we had known since he was just a kid. He had bought his GS earlier this spring and was racking up the miles. I had taken Scott on his first, and possibly longest, road ride shortly after he picked up his bike – a roughly 500 mile over-nighter. We knew Scott had years of dirt bike experience and probably better stamina than either of us – but as yet he wasn’t road worthy. Dave said “why not?”

Planning

We talked about many different routes. We laid out plans and contingencies, one after another. If weather becomes a factor we head south to warmer climes? If road construction persists, which alternate routes to detour onto? Where would be best to ride after dark to avoid wildlife casualties? Do we leave in the middle of the night or try to get a good night’s sleep and bolt in the morning? And so it went for a couple of weeks. Finally we settled on a route heading southeast through the Four Corners area then west across Arizona heading back up into central Utah culminating in a final 300 miles of Interstate in the dark. We would leave just prior to dawn leaving time for the sun to be up before heading over our first pass – Soldier Summit. Contingencies were in place for the unknowns and we felt ready.

Dave’s neighbor bowed out – I felt good about this. Scott was definitely in – now I wondered if we should have invited him… did I just mess with our dynamic. We set up to have lunch with Scott the week before the ride to talk through our planned route. Scott showed up with 4 other guys that work on his team at the office. I was slightly edgy about this. Dave was late… was I the only one to defend our intent to keep this a small group. Scott introduced us all and as we sat down he noted that one of the guys was a rider and was thinking about joining us – better one than four. As we talked his friend admitted he was new to riding in the past few months. He noted that the two of them had completed a couple hundred mile trek a week before. I refrained from asking what they did after breakfast. Dave joins us late and agrees to let the new guy join us. I was hoping he would play the bad guy and veto the addition… why didn’t I do it myself? it was after all my ride too. After lunch I brought Dave up to speed on the portions of discussion he missed – we agreed to see how it played out as the new guy still needed to run it by the wife.

Wednesday morning – 2 days to ride time – Dave calls me to let me know that he was at the shop talking to a seasoned long distance rider about our trip. This individual told him that if you hadn’t regularly knocked off some 500 plus mile days that you shouldn’t consider an ironbutt. Dave noted that we would need to call Scott and discourage the new guy from coming. I told him I would take care of it. I called Scott and started to lay out my reasoning; he let me go for a few moments then said that the new guy had bailed out as of that morning. I wish he would have stopped me earlier – I think he wanted to see if my reasons concurred with his own. So it was set – Dave, Scott, and I would ride into the sunrise Friday morning.

The weather was expected to be clear and sunny. The down side would be the temperature extremes. Soldier Summit was known for getting cold quick and for some wicked snow storms – while Kayenta Arizona is still hot this time of year. We had to prepare for temps ranging from mid 30’s to mid 90’s. I elected to wear my mesh jacket with the liner in and throw on the heated vest. I would also wear the polar fleece bottoms under the riding pants as well as throw in various back up clothing… just in case. Both summer and winter gloves would be required – as would both a balaclava and a cooling wrap for the neck. I’ve never planned for both a winter and summer ride for the same day. Glad I did…

Riding

6:12 Friday morning and I’m sitting in Ray’s driveway waiting for him to sign my Starting Witness sheet. Actually waiting for Scott to show up... I didn’t want to bother Ray until he could sign us both out together. 6:15 Scott shows up right on time – Rays does his quick duty and by 6:20 we are on the road… well at least as far as the gas station where we will meet Dave – maybe 5 or 6 miles away.

06:32 We pull into the Draper Commons station and initiate our first fill-up and date/time stamp of the trip. Tank filled and looking for Dave... wasting valuable time. I pull off the pump to wait at the station entrance. To my Surprise Dave is waiting for us… How’d I miss him on the way in? Been there 10 minutes waiting for us – better hit the road! Next stop Wellington, Ut.

We headed south down I-15 to the Price exit in Spanish Fork. The weather was clear and a little cool but not bad at all. I felt somewhat smug in our plan so far as we headed up the canyon with the daylight canceling the darkness – less chance of road critters. Just before hitting the top of Soldier Summit Dave pulled us over into a parking area on the left side of the road. He just wanted to let us know that the temp gauge on his Caponord was reading 31 degrees. He reminded us to be careful and watch for wet spots and shadows. Coming down off the pass we were headed right into the sunlight – blinding at times – irritating at most others. This wasn’t a miscalculation; in fact we had discussed it happening and had decided that a short time into the sun here in the morning and again heading towards Hurricane this evening would be worth handling in order to make the trip we wanted to ride. An inconvenience sure, but not unplanned.

8:18 Wellington. 2 hours and 115 miles into the trip. Everyone feeling good and ready to roll. Filled up the tank and got no receipt! Had to head inside to get one from the attendant - took a quick bathroom break while I was in there and hurried back outside. I changed my satellite radio from music to comedy thinking it would be good to switch up throughout the trip and maybe save on the monotony – 20 minutes later I was wishing I had left it alone as I feel better riding to music. Just before Green River Dave was leading, then me, followed by Scott, we were keeping up a good pace and occasionally passing traffic when a white car blasted up behind Scott. He was following too close for my liking and I kept watch him in the rear view mirrors. I couldn’t tell if it was an unmarked Highway Patrol or not. Scott seemed unfazed by this. When there was a break in oncoming traffic the white car blasted past us – A new Dodge Charger with state decals on the doors but I didn’t see what dept. Obviously not too concerned with us… or our speed.

9:55 Moab - and breakfast. We rolled through town to the south end stopping at Smitty’s for breakfast. We were quickly seated… which was the last quick thing to happen in there. After waiting way too long for a waitress we had pretty much decided to leave when she showed up. We asked about how long we might have to wait. She said we were behind a big group and it would be a while. We explained our ride and noted that maybe we should head out to another restaurant; she said she would check with the cook. She came back noting they would try to hurry – which in fact turned out to be the case. Still I felt we had wasted too long there by the time we got back onto the road. We agreed to stop in Monticello – some 60 miles south – to fill up and get our next time stamp.

11:11 Monticello – Fuel stop and date/time stamp. We felt that every time we had a change of direction we needed to fuel up to verify our location. Here in Monticello we will be turning east towards Dove Creek and then onto Cortez, then south to Shiprock, NM. As we were nearing Dove Creek I pointed out to Dave the route that leads north to Naturita. What a great ride that was! It was tempting to head north and see where we would end up today… but completing this Ironbutt is the goal! We got to Cortez and elected not to stop for a fuel up date/time stamp. From Monticello any route you take to Shiprock is about the same mileage, so we just kept on going. Also it gets a bit old filling up every hundred miles.

13:33 Shiprock – the far southeast corner of our route. We stopped here for fuel date/time stamp as we were changing directions to head west into Arizona. As we were starting to fuel up we were approached by various Native Americans begging for money – each had their sad tale and only needed enough for something to eat. I feel sad for these folks but have learned over the years that giving is not helping – so I had to tell them no… which leaves me feeling a bit uneasy. After fueling up Dave noticed that the time stamp on the receipts was wrong. We each went in and had the attendant correct and initial our receipts. Unsure whether this would be enough Dave suggested we head next door to the Taco Bell and get a drink so that we would have a correct time stamp. This felt a little weird… paying for a $1.29 drink with a credit card. After sucking down the drink it was back out to the parking lot to be accosted by more folks wanting money. A total of six beggars hit us up in the 15 minutes between filling the bikes and getting a drink.

Rolled out of town to the west and throttled up for a while. There is a whole lot of nothing out in this area. A bit further heading more northwest we got into some nicer scenery – kind of on the southwest end of monument valley. Looking to the north were some nice spires and other monoliths. No time to stop and take pictures! Approaching Kayenta I noticed we were just about ½ way done, making good time, and feeling fine. As we were heading past Kayenta we had a semi truck and trailer pull out in front of Dave – who was leading. Dave bolted around him on the left leaving Scott and me an illegal pass – typically I wouldn’t have gone for it but I didn’t want to get stuck behind this truck doing less than 30 mph for long – No traffic to speak of so I went for it with Scott following.

We waved Scott through to lead for a while. He kicked it up a bit and we made some good time across the reservation. We passed a couple of groups of riders – the first group of 3 being on cruisers and riding slower than the motor homes! The second was a pair on BMW GSs – they gave us a wave as we passed on through. I can’t remember why, but I needed to stop for a moment to fix something (stereo I think). We were only 20 miles or so out of Tuba City, where we had planned our next fuel stop. I couldn’t get Scott’s attention by flashing my lights so I finally pulled over at a parking area for a sight seeing spot. Dave was back a few lengths and followed me over. 30 seconds later we were on the road again.

15:57 Tonalea (Red Mesa). 2 miles down the road we saw Scott sitting at a gas station as we blasted past. A block later we whipped a "U" turn and joined him. Scott was shedding clothes as we were full in the desert now and sitting near 94 degrees. We decided to fuel up here as long as we were stopped. After fueling we headed in a grabbed a snack to tide us over for a while. Our intent was to eat dinner in Hurricane, UT which was still 220 miles and 4 hours away.

We rolled out of Tonalea heading west through Tuba City to Highway 89 where we turned north. Highway 89 is just a little bigger than the last 150 miles but it felt like a major road compared to it. We headed northwest on the 89 alternate to Navajo Bridges – what a beautiful sight. I have been here many times in the past and it is always breathtaking to see the Marble Canyon and the bridges spanning them.

16:37 Navajo Bridges (AZ time – actually 17:37 on our zone). We stopped at the visitor center to take a bathroom break and stretch the legs a little. While there I decided to pick up a pin for my Christmas stocking (Something my wife started several years ago, we collect pins from the places we travel to and place them on our Christmas stockings as mementos of the past year). After stretching for a bit we were at it again. We were fast approaching one of my favorite areas to ride – Jacob Lake and the Kaibab Plateau.

We will be climbing form the desert floor to nearly 8,000’ feet over the next 30 miles then down again to Fredonia. As we left the desert heading into the first climb the road was banked on all the ‘S’ turn corners making for some nice twisties. We passed a couple of GS riders again –we found out later that Dave knew one of them form NAU! As we climbed the temps dropped – we had left Navajo Bridges at a little over 90 degrees and it would drop to mid 50s on this pass. I was leading and feeling good – temps actually were not too bad – Dave later noted that he was freezing up on top. Heading down the far side we were following a semi truck and trailer that was making good time… in fact, with the sun partially in our eyes I was not willing to go as fast as this truck was going – nice of him to block for us!

17:50 Fredonia (AZ time – actually 18:50 our zone). We pulled into Fredonia heading north and hit the first gas station we came to – Judd Auto. I noticed as I was recording the mileage that I had a bust at the last stop. I questioned Dave because mine didn’t make sense. His worked, so using his numbers I calculated mine backwards and corrected the error. All is well and we were headed out again. A couple blocks north towards town and we hit our turn to the west on 389 towards Colorado City.

During our planning for this trip we had wanted to be to Hurricane before dark so as not to cross this section with the deer population that wanders the road. The sun was setting and we had 60 miles to go. No too much of interest on this section of road. I used to drive it often to go hiking or fishing when I lived in St George 12 years ago. We made reasonable time but had to keep it in check as the sun was heading down and we were headed right into it, sometimes riding with my left hand blocking the sun. As we made our final drop into Hurricane it was finally staring to darken up. Scott was leading and had made a pass or two that we didn’t have room to make. As we got to the bottom of the hill, and into Hurricane, Scott was pulled of to the sidewalk and was changing his visor to clear for the upcoming darkness.

19:55 – Hurricane. We headed a couple blocks into town and found a Taco Bell for a quick bite, where I changed my visor to clear also. Dave was wearing his Schuberth so he didn’t need to change his lense (that really is a nice helmet!). A bite to eat and a quick discussion as to where we would fill up next – we elected to head to the freeway entrance 10 miles away so that we could verify our route – there is the option to head north out of Hurricane and cut 18 miles off the route – we felt that we needed the extra miles to make sure we were over the 1000 mile mark. Dave started 40 miles ahead of Scott and I so he didn’t need the extra… but we did!

20:32 – Hurricane & I-15. This stop marks our last corner point of the trip – where we will head north and just bomb straight up the freeway to home. We left the station with the temps reading 81 degrees – we knew it would cool quickly as the sun had just set and we would be climbing from 2700 to 5400 feet in the next 40 miles. Sure enough it got colder in a hurry. 25 miles past Cedar City I was leading and couldn’t take it anymore so I ducked off at a rest stop to put on winter gear. I stripped down and added some polar fleece to my legs then put on the heated vest. While waiting for the others to finish I blew my nose on the ground to try to clear out the nostrils and breathe easier. As we got going again my nose kept running – bad enough that I had to keep opening my visor to wipe it – wipe the nose… wipe it on the pants… over and over again – this was getting old.

22:56 Fillmore. We stopped at the north end of Fillmore for our last fill up and a snack. Dave noticed again that the time clock was wrong – glad he was paying attention! We had to take the receipts back in for the attendant to verify the time. She was very nice about it and wrote a note on the back of each receipt for us. Back into the saddle for the last leg of the day!

A little over an hour later I needed to go to the bathroom really bad! I was leading again so I pulled off at Nephi and ran into the truck stop to wiz. I left my helmet on – as we typically did on this trip. After going to the bathroom while washing my hands I looked up to the mirror and saw blood all over my face from the nose down. My excessively snotty nose had been a bleeder! I thought of the poor attendant in Fillmore who had been so nice to us and never let on that I was a bloody mess – maybe she was scared! Back in the saddle with 65 miles to go. As we were firing up the bikes Dave took the opportunity to tell Scott and me that he was past his 1000 miles already!

This last leg went by quickly – we were shortly in the Provo area and the freeway was lit again. It was also a little different riding with traffic again after 18 hours of little to none. Up over the Point of the Mountain and down towards Draper. As we neared the Bangerter Hwy turn off Dave waved us good-bye. We were all but done and Dave had another 40 miles to go. We got off at the exit and headed over the freeway to the gas station where we had filled up 18 and a half hours ago. As we crossed the overpass a raccoon darted out from my right – a slight swerve and I found another raccoon heading from left to right… nearly hit them both! I put in a thousand miles and nearly get picked off by a couple of raccoons at the finish line!

01:00 Draper – 2 minutes shy of 18 and a half hours ago we filled up here and hooked up with Dave to start our adventure. I finished before Scott so I walked over to his pump to say good-bye… we would head separate directions from here. Scott’s eyes were all bloodshot and he looked wasted. I asked if he was OK. He said he was tired but doing all right. As I walked back to my bike I wondered if I looked like that? 2 miles to home!

01:08 1129 miles since leaving I rolled into the garage and parked the bike. I pulled out the paper work that I had so diligently maintained throughout the trip so that my wife, Bonnie, could sign the final witness page. As she filled out the information I told her about my bloody nose and what the poor station attendant might have thought. Bonnie said that that explained the stain on my pants – blood all over my right thigh! Now I felt even worse about what the attendant might have thought!

Stripped down from all my gear, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. There would be time to recount the trip in the morning.


Just some thoughts after the ride.

I thought we chose well on the route. Enough scenery, twisties, and fluctuations to keep it mildly interesting - and keep you awake. Some have said that the easiest Ironbutt rides are all freeway - I think the boredom would have made me feel more tired/sleepy. The last 4 hours coming up I-15 were the straightest and flattest section and the most difficult to stay focused on.

Though I felt fine till the end I realized that I was making minor mistakes that can be attributed to fatigue. In the Orem area a nice pick-up passed us and I was admiring it - when I looked up I was 10' off of Dave's rear tire and gaining fast. Just some minor concentration glitches that can become deadly at 70mph.

Though I like to ride for the sake of riding... it is nice to stop and smell the roses while you are at it. When we rode to Canada this spring we had no real destination. We got up in the morning checked the weather and decided a direction to head - not sure how far we would go, what we would find, or where we would stay. We stopped and experienced some incredible things because of our free attitude. An Ironbutt ride takes this opportunity away - not that it's a bad thing... just a different experience.

Having a goal and doing whatever it takes to complete it is rather satisfying. Completing it with friends makes it even better. Though we ride in our own little cocoons of gear and helmets, with no real communication save for the occasional hand signals, each listening to our own music, we forge a bond by having survived this together.

It's called "adventure riding" for a reason - each of us has our own definition of an adventure. To some a jaunt over the Alpine Loop is an adventure - for others a weekend exploring the West Desert - still others must ride through Africa. This Ironbutt is just another adventure that pushes our limits and spits out stronger riders and people - and just maybe a little more in tune with their abilities and comfort levels.

[Joe Gardner]

Cool ride report!

[Capodave]

Great report...Trip Leader. :hail2thechief: Makes me want to go again....right now!

Here is the infamous start of the great ride to 'Wet' Canada last June with Double Moo.

[double moo]

two weeks to write a trip report... OK a bit long winded - but comprehensive none the less... and only 2 people bother to read it!










That is why we need a new trip leader...

Maybe someone on a faster bike....

An italian bike...

[Capodave]

It was good tho...I re-lived the trip thru the report. :nod: