There be Dragons Here

 July 28^th and 29^th, 2001

  Bun Burner Gold

So, two factors besides my insanity have conspired to get me to attempt a Bun Burner Gold (1500 miles in 24 hours, www.ironbutt.com ).  One, it’s been a couple of years since my SaddleSore1000 (October 24, 1998) and everyone seems to now be wanting to do this Iron Butt thing, so I figured I could get some more certificates.  Two, Terry Mc found the LDRiders mailing list and says I should re-subscribe and how we should do a BBG together, etc, etc.  So, he gets the thought in my head, then three, Don comes and says he’s going to get to 50,000 miles first on his tri-sport TLR and that I should be ashamed of my big barco-lounger (R1100RT) and not having enough miles.  Ok, that’s it, war is declared. I may not be fast, smooth, even very good, but man, I can sit on my a$$ better than anyone I know. (ask my boss. J )  So, I figure I’ll get a nice route for 1500 miles, run it as a Bun Burner (1500 in 36 hours) and then Terry and I can run it together as a BBG after I figure out if I can do this.   I’m a big combat tourer, 500 to 700 miles a day for days on end, no problem.  But honestly, when I ran my SS, I was pretty beat.  The first 800 were easy, but after that I was toast.  Would I be able to do 1500?  Guess we’ll find out.

 So, I wanted to do a good route, with some two lane to keep me interested but some interstate to make some time.  I wanted to go north where speed limits are reasonable and  I’ve always wanted to see the Missouri Breaks area of Montana (Fort Peck Lake) after reading some article about it somewhere.  I do some work on mapquest and tada, 1620 miles by a big loop.  Hmmm, so I keep tweaking and running and working on it.

So, I sit down and work out my gas stops to both be around 200 miles and document my corners.  (which you have to do for IBA certification, to prove you made the corners).  So, my longest run would be 238 miles and the shortest only 77 and I ended up with 11 total stops, including the end.  So, then I sit down and figure out what I need to do to do a BBG.  Since this is supposed to only be a training run for a BBG, I figure I’ll time out where I need to be to make a BBG and if I get more than 20 minutes behind, I’ll punt and go for the BB  which I need/want/desire anyway.  I figure I always want to be safe and this way if I’m tired I can stop and sleep and still pull the BB easily.

 Well, once you start writing the times down, it becomes really obvious that this is going to be REALLY hard.  I mean really seriously hard.  You flat have to haul the mail for 24 hours straight.  There is no fiddle around take pictures, eat lunch kind of time built in.  Woof, now I begin to see why there aren’t many BBG finishers on the big finisher page.  I mean, I knew this was hard, but until you put some numbers on your route it really doesn’t hit home.  Well, I’ve learned a lot since my SS and ridden a lot more and the bike is tweaked more than when I did that, so I hoped this would be pretty straightforward. 

 I made plans to meet Terry Mc, Hunt and June at the Amoco near my house.  I knew the Amoco had good time stamps, it was close and I needed 3 witnesses for a BBG (You only need one for a BB).  I wanted to run this under BBG rules for the practice and just to make sure if I did pull a BBG that I wouldn’t screw myself by not getting the right stuff.

Get these guys signatures (thanks for coming) and put the old credit card in and fill the bike up.  And we’re off.  5:57 starting time according to the pump, 5:55 according to my official BMW rally clock.  Next Stop: Douglas Wyoming.  It’s all I-25 up to here and I’m trying to stay reasonable and doing between 80 and 85 indicated (10% off, so that’s about 75mph) and somewhere around Johnson’s corner this stupid woman just changes lanes and rolls over right on top of me.  WTF?  Big bright light in your mirror?  Did you think it was the sun?  Stupid.  give her the wave, etc.  Nothing motivates you to get down the road like some good anger.  Not 2 miles later another lady in a big Ford Bronco gets on the freeway and goes straight over to the left hand lane.  Where I am!  With no traffic around!  WTF?  Bam, that’s it, I’m outta here, set the old throttle hand at 95 and I’m gone.  I’m away from you psychos.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 Putter through Wyoming (land of well, not much), come down through Chugwater and there is this statue of a Cowboy on his horse on the bluff looking down.  Very neat, looks real, esp. with the sun behind it.  As I go towards Wheatland I look over at the old gas gauge and it only shows one bar.  Huh?  Running out of gas would be bad, but I’ve only got 177 miles or so, I know I can go 250, I just did it the other day.  Damn, well, better safe than sorry, pull off in Wheatland (8:10), grab some gas, write the stuff down, check the receipt for all the goodies and figure out which station is open after midnight.  Only took 4.5 gallons, so obviously the gas gauge is lying.  Damn, could have made Douglas.  Oh well, easy on, easy off and I’m back on the road.

 Get off the freeway in Douglas and go north on Hwy 59.  Flat and boring but obviously the train route because there are at least 10 coal trains all rolling towards or from Gillette and the Powder River Basin.   Somewhere along here there was a big old grass fire going, it had maybe 2 acres burned as I rolled through it and a.  it was hot, and b. with the wind it was going to get a lot bigger.  Yes, it was windy on this stretch, I had hoped to get further through Wyoming before the wind kicked up, but no luck.  As we approached Gillette (in a large convoy of cars and pickups), we all of a sudden slowed down to 55mph, in a 65mph zone.  Hmm, can’t have this, off the pickups go, I follow and at the front of the line we pass two Harley’s putting along at 55.  I’d be embarrassed to ride a bike that can’t even go the speed limit.  I grabbed gas in Gillette at about 180 miles and 10:45am because I knew I couldn’t make the next stretch to Miles City on this tank.  Grab gas, some water and a candy bar (this is about all I ate all day, bottle of water at each stop and a candy bar or a small bag of chips, no time, no time. tick tock tick tock. On a BBG, the clock is not your friend.). 

 As I get back on 59 towards I-90, the sign says go straight for Hwy 59, and I swear my map says go west one exit.   $hit, I really need to get a GPS.  Fine, I follow the signs and get totally screwed.  The signs lead us all the way through town (at 30mph with all the stoplights being red) and then curves back out to the freeway and the next exit.  Dammit, there goes 10 minutes.  Go up and then turn off on Hwy 59 again and go north.  The sign says Broadus Mont. And I’m thinking 'what the heck is  Broadus Mountain?  I only see a town of Broadus here on the map.'  About 10 minutes later I get it.  Broadus Montana!!!!!!!  Duh.  Go past a couple coal mines (gee, you think this is coal territory?) and go through a neat stretch of road.  Up and down, through the mountains and valleys and having some fun.  Get into Broadus, clean my faceshield of all the bugs while still on the bike and gone again up Hwy 59 towards Miles City, MT. 

  Within a mile, the sign says road construction and we go around where they are removing a mountain, ok, no biggie I say and off I go again.  4 miles we later I see one of those flashing signs with words on them and I see it says something about cycles.  Hmmm, bicycles?  Get closer, it says Motorcycles Beware / Pavement Ends.  $HIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hard on the binders.  WTF?  Sure enough, no pavement.  They are rebuilding the road and instead of building one side while leaving the other open, they have torn up the entire road and left a dirt path.  And not just for 1 mile or 2 miles, no for 20 MILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.  Ugh.  This kills my average speed, probably did around 35/40mph through this whole stretch.  Ugh, it finally ends and then it’s a cool road again.  BTW, all these two lanes in Montana are cool and neat with outstanding speed limits (70mph), but no shoulders at all, and obviously pretty remote.  I bet on the stretch from Gillette to Broadus I passed a grand total of 15 cars, going the other way, in 96 miles!  Zip into Miles City around 1pm.

 Grab some gas in Miles City and the receipt is wrong, my clock says 1:15, the receipt says 12:15.  shoot, go inside, buy some water, get another receipt.  It says 12:20. Bah, I’ll deal with it.  One third done now, I think to myself that this might actually be doable.  Off to Glendive via I-94 and I have to buy gas in Glendive too to document the corner, despite being only 77 miles.  It’s ok, at Glendive, it’s been 8 hours and I get to remove my ear plugs.  Woohoo, take those out, put some new ones in and away I go.  So far, my longest stop has been 11 minutes (Wheatland) and Glendive took less than 5.  Off I go on 200S to the town of Center.  This is a railroad route and it winds its way up a valley,  Turn left onto 200 west and OMG where did this wind come from?  Killer 40 to 50mph wind blowing to the northwest. (not out of, but towards, weird) and basically a perfect crosswind.  Great.  This section of road is like rollercoaster road in the springs.  Uppppp and dowwwnnn and upppp and downnnn for 30 miles.  Pretty wild, especially because every time you come to the top of a hill you get blown sideways about 5 feet, no matter how hard you prepare for it.  Grab a right and go north on hwy 24.  This is taking me into the Missouri Breaks area itself and I’ll end up at the dam for Fort Peck Lake.

 The Breaks are pretty wild. Think South Dakota Badlands and multiply the size by like 400 million.  Amazing, insanely rugged country and I bet they get some killer winters up here.  I wanted to stop and take pictures, but there were no shoulders and the wind was blowing a good 40 to 50mph still.  Good thing for all that daily wind training on 93 on my commute. J   Go across the dam.  And hey, with my dam fetish, that was cool, although going across the highest thing around while the wind whips across the lake wasn’t all that cool.  Figure I’ll snag gas in Fort Peck.  No gas stations.  Huh?  How can you have a lake without overpriced gas?  Maybe they are off the road a bit, but I didn’t see any.  This also screws me, because I need a receipt here to prove I came up 24 instead of going up 13.  Crap.  Oh well, I don’t know what else to do.  The speed limit is 45mph across the dam and 30 mph by the spillway.  How’s that for proof?  So, I was going to get gas in Glasgow, but since I’m screwed anyway, I figure I’ll go on to Malta and save a stop.  I have to buy gas in Malta because it doesn’t look like there is anything for 200 miles after that.  And if I can save a stop I can save a good 10 minutes.  Woohoo, so through Glasgow we go and due west on hwy 2.  Right into what’s causing all this wind, a great big huge black ugly looking cloud.  Joy. :-(  Hammer time, get me to the gas station on time.  (is that a song?)

 Make ummm, some good time and roll up into Malta (5:26pm) at a combination Conoco/Taco John’s.  (just thought that was funny) and grab some gas, still very windy and still very ugly looking storm, but so far it's still dry and I get to go south, where it looks cleaner and not so ugly dark.  I hope.  Now mind you, it’s been very windy and I've been making good time.  In 210 miles I took 5.7 gallons.  Woof, less than a gallon to spare.  Off we go south down 191.  Not 10 miles out of town a car coming towards me is flashing his lights.  Hmmmm, I slow down and come around the corner and there is a cop arresting somebody.  Gotta be a drunk driver.  Nothing says “I’ve been on Cops” like being arrested with no shirt on.  J  Putter by him and off we go again.  You know you have been really making good time when you putter at 60mph and it feels like you could get off and walk faster. J   

The countryside through hwy 191 is pretty wide open and I can see the storm off to the west.  I see some big lightning strikes and am really thinking, “I need to go south, go south as fast you can” and about 5 minutes after I see one strike, in the same area all of a sudden see big clouds of black smoke.  Think I just saw a fire get started.  Hmmm.  Down 191 and climb down into the Missouri Breaks on the other side of the Wildlife Refuge.  Some seriously steep hills here, they even have runaway truck ramps. Back up out of the Breaks and down to the 19 cutoff towards Hwy 87 south and into Roundup.  Somewhere along this stretch I actually got a couple of raindrops, but nothing major and the wind finally died down.  That was really nice because I could finally rest my wrist again.  With the wind like it was, no way could I lock on the throttle.  Go through Roundup up and down the Bull Mountains and into Billings. 

 Grab gas at Billings.  8:12pm, 1046 miles in 14 hours 17 minutes.  Not too freaking shabby if I say so myself.  I think to myself, I’ve got this nailed.  I can do this.  I’m ahead of my time clock by over an hour and I’ve got 10 hours to do 500 miles.  I can do this.  I can get a BBG!!  Holy crap, I can do this.  Woohoo!!!!!!!!!  I grab a soda for the first time all day and drink half of it.  I want to hammer as far as I can before the sun goes down, I figure I have about an hour.  Billings is a very industrial town, obviously a major railroad crossing and lots of refineries and such.  I didn’t realize that it was so industrial.  Don’t know why, just didn’t   On to I-90 towards Buffalo WY.  I’m on the home stretch now. 

  I go as hard and as reasonably quickly as I can while it’s still light out, because I know once it’s dark out I won’t be able to go as fast.  By the time I reach Hardin it’s pretty dark out.  I flip on the PIAA’s.  Oh yeah, baby. Finally, 2 years after I put them on I get to really use them.  Daylight.  No one coming the other way seems to be flipping their brights at me, so I’m leaving them on and that seems to work.  I can run 75mph and still stay ahead of my lights.  Sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  No way could you do this with stock headlights.  The fastest I can run with the stock headlights is about 60.  There is no way you could do a BBG without additional lighting.  There are some mountains between Hardin and Sheridan because it keeps curving and such.  Of course, I didn’t see any mountains.   I did however see all these campfires on this hill. I’m thinking, why so many campfires in such a small place and why would people build a campfire on a hill?  Aren't most campgrounds down by the river?   As we get closer, I realize they aren’t campfires, it’s a forest fire!  Wow, wild.  Zip into Sheridan and figure I’ll get gas.  I learned a new trick here.  Get off at the signs for the weigh station.  Anything with a weigh station definitely has a truck stop around.  It works.  BTW, Exxon stations kick a$$.  Pay at the pump, every one of them has time, date, place on them, with correct times.  And everyone I saw was open 24 hours. Sweet. 

 Off to Casper.  Figure I’ll stop in Casper because they will definitely have gas stations open, and then make Wheatland at the same gas station as my earlier stop and then I’m home.  Yeah this is mine.  I own  this, I definitely have a BBG in the bag. I’m going home.  Boy are Terry and Hunt going to be pissed when I wake them up. (they were too, hahahaha)  Stop in Casper at a Exxon (I’m learning) at around midnight and away I go again.  

 Somewhere between here and Wheatland I hit the wall.  Big time.  With a thud.  Here come the dragons, and I now begin to have a glimpse of the real Iron Butt guys.  You really do start to hallucinate.  Those damn orange signs on bridges that say how high the bridges are?  Man, those suckers come out of nowhere and look like they are going to hit you.  I need to stop.  I’m beginning to see headless horsemen instead of white lane markers.  This is not good.  Must rest eyes.  DO NOT CLOSE EYES.  Blink, blink, blink, open face shield, close face shield,  ugh.  I need a rest area.  Rest area, rest area, sing "lalalalalala", open face shield $hit, rest area, rest area. Finally, a sign “Rest Area 2 miles”  thank god, thank god thank god, go 2 miles, see another sign “Rest Area Closed”  F(*&KKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!  Now, here comes the anger thing again.  Anger does wonders for keeping you awake.  Next rest area 36 miles.  I can do this, I can do this, hmm, can I park on the side of the road?  No, I decide that’s a bad idea.   Soon, the sign comes up “Rest Area 2 miles”  Thank god.  Roll in, slowly, not wanting to pull a Terry (coming into a rest area at 90mph) and see the picnic table, roll up to the table, take off helmet, lie down.  Wham.  Out like a light.  

Wake up with a jolt, the people who were in the rest area are gone, I wonder how long I’ve been out.  I feel a lot better.  After checking the bike clock it turns out that I’ve only been out 10 minutes, from 1:50 to 2am.  I had to stop, I knew I had to stop.  I had been going 75/80mph, and as I got tired I could only keep awake enough to do about 60mph by the time I pulled off.  Ok, back on the bike, (it’s cold now too, grab the heated vest, grab the sweatshirt, etc), and go the big 11 miles into Wheatland and grab some gas.  Ok, drink some water and I’m gone again. (and by the way, no way could have made that next 11 miles)  It’s exactly 100 miles from the Amoco that I start and end at to the Wyoming border and thus I can see the miles counting down to the border.  Boom, I’ve got this. I own this, I'm going to get a Bun Burner Gold!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah Baby!!! 

I feel better.  This is a relative thing, better.  Better than dead I suppose, but not by much. J  100 miles to go, 2 hours at most, maybe under 1.5 hours?  Yeah, easy, I can do this.  Kinda.

 I see the sky getting a little brighter out and there is more traffic, I need to turn the PIAA’s off but I can now see behind other people.  I’m home, I can do this.  I get into home territory, it’s not even 5am, I’ve got more than an hour to go through Denver.  I’m there, I’m toast, but I’m there.  I know this road by heart, yes.  The little right hand bend south near Colfax in I-25?  Well, I was a little late on that one, so I decide to lower the  distance I’m looking out.  By looking out about 200 feet I can stay focused.  I think this is what they mean by sleep deprivation.  Saw only my 3^rd cop of the trip, he got into 6^th Avenue right in front of me and went off west.  I did a nice easy comfortable 60mph up 6^th (for the first time going that slow up 6th ever) and get off on Union.  Right turn, left turn, Amoco, same pump, get receipt.  Stop the clock.

Holy $hit, I made it.

 1,620 miles  (my odo,  verified by IBA, proving my odo is pretty darn close)

I get out the cell phone, call Hunt and say  “get up and sign me out.”  Ok, we’ll be there he says groggily.

Call Terry “get up and sign me out”

He whines “I don’t wanna”

“look, I just rode 1600 miles in 23 hours, get off your a$$ and come sign me out, this was your damn idea”

“ok, sigh”  I know that sigh is going to cost me a very expensive dinner.  (it did too)

Sign out, have some juice and such and off to bed I go.  

Ok, this is from Hunt (who signed me out).  I totally forgot about this:

"When I got to the station he is staggering out to the bike with a drink (under his arm) and eating a candy bar...  he sits down, eats his candy bar and then asks where his drink is... 

He was more whipped than I’ve ever seen him.  Eyes glazed, wide open, but not seeing much... the way you look at 5:00am Saturday morning when the phone rings and it’s your friend (I’m using that term loosely) calling to have you come sign him out.  :-)"

Oh, let me tell you how I love Sunday’s in the ‘burbs.  Hey, let’s fire up our Harleys at 8am.  Ugh.  And let’s do some pressure washing. Ugh, and don’t forget to mow the lawn at 8 in the morning on a Sunday.  Sigh. Don't these people know I've been up all night?  jeez.  :-)

 Postmortem:

Still need to send this off to IBA, but I’ve got the documentation, etc, and I’m well over 1500 miles.  The bike ran great, the tires did great and I did great for about 1400 miles.  At that point, the dragon came out of his lair and bit me but good.  Woof.  I think I have the barest glimmer of the real big dawgs who run the Iron Butt.  I have no idea how you do a BBG3000.  (back to back BBG’s), I mean I’m toast and I would have had a grand total of 1 hour to sleep before going back out.  No way.  I did however hammer out the first 1000 miles in 14 hours.  (yo, Terry, beat that. J ) and did really well.

This was a hell of a personal accomplishment, but it wasn’t really a lot of fun.  This was hard, hard work.  I didn’t stop for more than 10 minutes anywhere.  I never ate, heck, I never even got a bathroom break.  And yet, I only ended up having 50 extra minutes to play with.   I felt like the guy in Cast Away, the clock is always with you, the clock is your friend/enemy.   I should have found a slightly shorter route.  Taking 50 miles out of the route takes a good hour out of the trip.  

Amazing.  Brutally hard work, I think I begin to see some of these things in the stories on LDRider.   Oh well, I did a good job, and all the little things I've been working with for 3 years (stops, tips, bike, etc) really worked.  At 2 in the morning after being up for 20 plus hours, you better have your routine down or something bad is going happen.  I do need to get a screaming meanie to wake me up when I sleep.  The bike ran great, the PIAA's worked great, the gear was great.  Overall, I'm very satisfied with my accomplishment.

IBA note.  I notice I made the big board link (thank you Mr. Kneebone).  (www.ironbutt.com)  That website and all the stories on it is what got me started on this whole Long Distance Riding thing.  I wasted hours and days and weeks (don't tell my boss) reading every single story linked from ironbutt.com (make sure you read the Higdon reports).  I loved it.  I wanted to do it.  I had to do it.  And now, I have.  I hope you enjoy this report too.  

Brian