Introduction
This was originally posted on a motorcycling forum. It's been edited slightly for the blog.
A year of thought, several months of half-baked planning, two months of bike prep, dedicated planning efforts and psyching myself into actually doing it; a week of riding, a week of recovery, a week to do my certification submissions...and now, months later, a ride report.
This ride had two segments, east and west. The east segment had two parts as well, a last minute bit of planning made the east leg a potential two certificate ride event. The west segment had already been planned as a two certificate ride. As I has read online, it seems that many times they seem to be planned this way, and it seemed that many are successful. I would plan mine the same way.
I won't bore the reader with much of the planning minutiae, as it's not that much different than any other rides I've been on...except the part where you're really wanting to be certain that there's a place to sleep when the day (and evening, and night...) of riding is done.
The east ride was at first simple. There are over 100 different Iron Butt Association rides that can be certified. One such ride (a 'themed' ride), starts about 150 miles west of home, in a desolate stretch of desert on the road that takes local and regional travelers into Mexico.
The community of Why, AZ got it's name from the fact the desert dwellers there originally wanted to name the town after the major intersection of two state highways formed a shape similar to the 25th letter of the alphabet - Y. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats in the transportation department 80-odd years ago couldn't deal with this anomaly of naming and forced the townsfolk to choose something different. They did - "Why".
Sixteen hundred odd miles away, and some time in the past, there had to be a similar discussion in another community south of Meridian, MS. It seems that they answered with "Why not?"
Some time in the recent past, a fellow long distance motorcyclist managed to put together a ride that describes perfectly what we do and why we do it. "Why are you taking a 5000 mile motorcycle ride in a week?" "Well, why not?"
East - by going west to start!
Friday, October 14th, 2016
On a warm October Friday afternoon, I gave the dogs a treat, then headed out to the garage. The 2006 Goldwing has given me over 100,000 relatively trouble-free miles to this point. I'm now really hoping that I can get another 5000 or so out of her. Many have ridden multi-day rallies on bikes much like this, so history is on my side.
Since this is such a unique trip for me, and having seen a similar video on YouTube, I thought "wouldn't it be great to record a photo every 30 seconds, then stitch them together to create a video?" So, the last week and a half I was learning how to work my new-to-me GoPro camera, along with making sure the mount would be trouble-free. I didn't get much of a chance to really try it out - until I made that ride out to Ajo, AZ, where I would sleep overnight. You’ll see that place name a few times; it’s pronounced Ah-o, not A-jo!
Once I filled the bike with gas, I headed over the Tucson Mountains, then south to the Tucson-Ajo highway. My absolute final check of my first segment of route would be made on this ride. Would I take the more rural road east, or would I take the slightly-longer, but much more traveled route via Gila Bend? Knowing that there'd been months of road construction along this highway meant this needed to be one of those last-minute checks.
(You may notice that there's more than a few of these last-minute items built in. The ability to 'bail-out' was baked into my planning; not that I didn't think I could make it, but more that there's always a way out, if it's planned)
After three hours and about 150 miles, I've arrived at my residence for the next few hours. A quick bite to eat, then getting settled into my lodging for the night. I get checked in, and have the clerk/owner sign my start witness form. I then asked a couple of others to sign who were also lodging there for the evening; none would sign the form. No problem, one good signature should be okay for this ride - I hope.
A couple of hours mucking around with my new GoPro camera and software on my laptop, and a short video was made & posted on YouTube on the ride out there shared only with family. Now, I know this setup works, and the mount location (left passenger grab rail) is about the best spot on the bike in short time; we go with this.
Then...the lack of sleep. Why, AZ is roughly 20 miles south of Ajo. So, doing the math in my head, if I want to leave at 2am, I need to leave by 1:30am, which means waking up at 1:10am, which means I need to sleep - NOW!
Yeah, right. I may have gotten 90 minutes of sleep. Tossing and turning...am I really up for this? I recall reading other ride reports with other riders experiencing similar issues with lack of restful sleep before a big ride - especially if it’s one of your first. Why should it be any different with me?
Story continues here (click)...
20180201
This was originally posted on a motorcycling forum. It's been edited slightly for the blog.
A year of thought, several months of half-baked planning, two months of bike prep, dedicated planning efforts and psyching myself into actually doing it; a week of riding, a week of recovery, a week to do my certification submissions...and now, months later, a ride report.
This ride had two segments, east and west. The east segment had two parts as well, a last minute bit of planning made the east leg a potential two certificate ride event. The west segment had already been planned as a two certificate ride. As I has read online, it seems that many times they seem to be planned this way, and it seemed that many are successful. I would plan mine the same way.
I won't bore the reader with much of the planning minutiae, as it's not that much different than any other rides I've been on...except the part where you're really wanting to be certain that there's a place to sleep when the day (and evening, and night...) of riding is done.
The east ride was at first simple. There are over 100 different Iron Butt Association rides that can be certified. One such ride (a 'themed' ride), starts about 150 miles west of home, in a desolate stretch of desert on the road that takes local and regional travelers into Mexico.
The community of Why, AZ got it's name from the fact the desert dwellers there originally wanted to name the town after the major intersection of two state highways formed a shape similar to the 25th letter of the alphabet - Y. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats in the transportation department 80-odd years ago couldn't deal with this anomaly of naming and forced the townsfolk to choose something different. They did - "Why".
Sixteen hundred odd miles away, and some time in the past, there had to be a similar discussion in another community south of Meridian, MS. It seems that they answered with "Why not?"
Some time in the recent past, a fellow long distance motorcyclist managed to put together a ride that describes perfectly what we do and why we do it. "Why are you taking a 5000 mile motorcycle ride in a week?" "Well, why not?"
East - by going west to start!
Friday, October 14th, 2016
On a warm October Friday afternoon, I gave the dogs a treat, then headed out to the garage. The 2006 Goldwing has given me over 100,000 relatively trouble-free miles to this point. I'm now really hoping that I can get another 5000 or so out of her. Many have ridden multi-day rallies on bikes much like this, so history is on my side.
Since this is such a unique trip for me, and having seen a similar video on YouTube, I thought "wouldn't it be great to record a photo every 30 seconds, then stitch them together to create a video?" So, the last week and a half I was learning how to work my new-to-me GoPro camera, along with making sure the mount would be trouble-free. I didn't get much of a chance to really try it out - until I made that ride out to Ajo, AZ, where I would sleep overnight. You’ll see that place name a few times; it’s pronounced Ah-o, not A-jo!
Once I filled the bike with gas, I headed over the Tucson Mountains, then south to the Tucson-Ajo highway. My absolute final check of my first segment of route would be made on this ride. Would I take the more rural road east, or would I take the slightly-longer, but much more traveled route via Gila Bend? Knowing that there'd been months of road construction along this highway meant this needed to be one of those last-minute checks.
(You may notice that there's more than a few of these last-minute items built in. The ability to 'bail-out' was baked into my planning; not that I didn't think I could make it, but more that there's always a way out, if it's planned)
After three hours and about 150 miles, I've arrived at my residence for the next few hours. A quick bite to eat, then getting settled into my lodging for the night. I get checked in, and have the clerk/owner sign my start witness form. I then asked a couple of others to sign who were also lodging there for the evening; none would sign the form. No problem, one good signature should be okay for this ride - I hope.
A couple of hours mucking around with my new GoPro camera and software on my laptop, and a short video was made & posted on YouTube on the ride out there shared only with family. Now, I know this setup works, and the mount location (left passenger grab rail) is about the best spot on the bike in short time; we go with this.
Then...the lack of sleep. Why, AZ is roughly 20 miles south of Ajo. So, doing the math in my head, if I want to leave at 2am, I need to leave by 1:30am, which means waking up at 1:10am, which means I need to sleep - NOW!
Yeah, right. I may have gotten 90 minutes of sleep. Tossing and turning...am I really up for this? I recall reading other ride reports with other riders experiencing similar issues with lack of restful sleep before a big ride - especially if it’s one of your first. Why should it be any different with me?
Story continues here (click)...
20180201
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