IBA R65 riders

[Semper Gumby]

The Iron Butt Association is a group of longdistance motorcycle riders.  They sponsor a long distance 11 day ralley every two years.  But they also have shorter rides that my be done outside of the ralley format if you are interested.  A lot of these are "design your own" rides.

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

The "List"  http://www.ironbutt.com/rides/rideslogin.cfm

There are only nine R65 riders that have completed an Iron Butt rides.  They are

Saddle Sore 1000  (1000 miles in less than 24 hours)
Dwane Vickstrom      Charlotte, NC         09/18/03  BMW R65            1,048 miles
Joan Marie                Seattle, WA            08/17/02  BMW R65            1,039
Aimo Kujala             Evijarvi, FINLAND     06/24/02  BMW R65            1,004
Baxter Wood            Roanoke, VA           07/31/01  BMW R65            1,058
Pablo Carral             Coronado, CA          03/04/00  BMW R65            1,015
Nicholas Woloszyk     Scotts, MI               09/03/99  BMW R65            1,119
Wm Brennan-Dubbs  Lakewood, WA          08/05/98  BMW R65            1,333
Dave McQueeney     Baldwin Park, CA      06/29/85  BMW R65            1,000+
Dave McQueeney      Paramount, CA         05/01/83  BMW R65            1,000+

Bun Burner 1500  (1500 miles in less than 36 hours)
Dwane Vickstrom   Charlotte, NC          09/19/03  BMW R65           1,547  Note the date above!!!
Baxter Wood         Roanoke, VA            08/01/01  BMW R65           1,522 Ditto!

50 Hours Coast to Coast (Atlanta to Pacific ocean or reverse in less than 50 hours)
Me                        Atlanta, GA              09/2006  BMW R65            2,393  (44 hrs 36 minutes)

Another excuse to go riding!  

BTW - There was a Georgia rider on an R60/5 (with Luftmeister fairing) that finished the 2007 IBA Ralley!!!!!

[NC Steve]

Wow Bill, you R65'd it 2393 miles in 44 hours? Impressive!! You must have a helluva seat on that thing! 8-)

BTW, in the Ironbutt category, that's our very own Joan Marie in #2 position too.  

Mucho congrats to you both!

[Justin B.]

I never knew that list existed until a year or so ago.  I wish I would have known about it when I rode from Ft. Hood, TX to Fairbanks, AK, back in the late 70s...

[Joan]

Whoa! Cool list! I was completely flabbergasted to see Dave McQueeney rode R65's! He is a real peach of a guy, first met him riding in Alaska. Neat-O!

And yeah, the IBA certifications are a good excuse to help you plan your next long ride, to be sure. I'm REALLY glad you did your CC when you did. The price of fuel is never going to go down! And time off to do it...

I asked MK if I a CC from the Pacific NW coast (Cape Flattery) to the Gulf Coast would be acceptable (and would save me a whole lot of travel time to/from San Diego and Jacksonville). Sadly, no. Pooh.

Maybe someday, when Gram and the old kitties are gone...  

[Bob_Roller]

Semper Gumby,

What kind of rest / riding schedule did you set for yourself on your 50 CC ride ?

[nhmaf]

Wow, Bill - coast-coast in under 50 hours is quite an achievement even in a cage !
What DO you have for a seat on that R65 ?!?!  Inquiring minds want to know !!

[awaffa2003]

I hope you guys know that i'll be beating those records soon...when i get my licence.

[Ed Miller]

Hee hee, go for it Harrison.  I hope you have a Russell Daylong saddle.  Though if you're young enough to only now be getting your license, you have an advantage right there.  

I don't even like to go that far in one day in my car, so I'll not likely ever be in the running.  My record is 31 miles in about 6 hours, but that was on foot.

[Lowen]

I did over 2,000 miles in 48 hrs once long ago on a 81 Suzuki GS 450 T .  My vacation was almost up, I'd spent all my cash, and all I had was a Mobil card for food and fuel. At age 21 I'd hop on the bike at a moments notice and head cross country with only the cash in my pocket and whatever would fit in a knapsack. These days I'll spend a couple of weeks planning my route ,selecting the proper gear, and going over the bike before heading out on a long trip. Older and wiser is all well and good but it does not seem to be quite as exciting as young and careless.

[Justin B.]

I'm kinda in the same vein as Lowen, geeze, I hopped on my '73 450 Honda CB450 back in the mid 70s and rode about 1200 miles from Ft. Hood, TX, to Grand Rapids, MI, with just a couple hour nap on a rest area picnic table!  I didn't even change oil before starting the trek, just go...  Later I bought a BMW because I had always heard they never broke down and ran forever, rode thousands of miles without incident, and never greased an input spline until a couple of years ago.  Now that I know how fragile our machines are I won't even go on a 300 mile ride without doing a service!

Sure was more fun back in the old days...  :-?

[Semper Gumby]

Seat = Russel Daylong - Best 600 dollars I ever spent although I understand that Rick Mayer does a nice job too if you can show up in person.

My rest schedule was drive half way and then go a bit farther until I dropped.  Halfway was Kerrville TX.  I dropped in Ozona TX.  Otherwise The only other time I was off the bike was for food & fuel or a gear change (Rain, Mesh, Cold about every 250 - 280 miles).  I got two hours sleep in Ozona TX during a 4 hour off the bike period.  Every time I got off the bike I ate and drank something even if I felt like throwing it back up.

I"m writing a story about it.  When I'm done I will submit it here and also to the IBA and on my home site on www.bmwmoga.org.  8-)

I thought that was Joan on the IBA site!!    Glad to see I'm in good company.  BTW - that goes for the rest of you guys too!

[Bob_Roller]

Bill,

Did you keep a log of how much of that time was actually 'moving / seat time', and how much was 'down time' for fuel stops and the like ?

How about your speed, did conform to the speed limit, or did you 'push it' a bit in the more desolate regions of Interstate 10 in the western US ?

[Semper Gumby]

YEs I have the info somewheres....

As far as speed I was at or below speed limits all the times even when the limits dropped in constuction areas going through some of the Texas cities.  Exceeding my target speed (70mph) dropped my fuel mileage too much which necesstated early fuel stops.  I ended up stopping early for fuel for "other" reasons.  My R65 is not capable of warp speeds at sea level with all the gear I have on it.  Once the altitude got to 4000 MSL it didn't really have the horsepower to go the speed limit unless I drafted a truck going the right speed.  I spent a lot of time in the RH lane.

Here are the "trip"numbers from my GPS176C

Trip ODO 2392.5 sm  Stopped Time 6:06:14  Moving Time 35:35:47 Total Time 41:42:36  
Moving Average Speed 67.2 mph  Total average speed 57.4 mph  

The 44 Hour 36 minute time is from the date time stamps on my fuel pump reciepts.  For some reason the GPS thinks I did it in less time.  I know not why.  Perhaps there is a hidden flux capacity in my R65 electrical system that created a localized moving time dilation.    (undocumented BMW feature no doubt lifted from the BBC to compenste for the R65's reduced housepower output!)

75mph is my bikes top normal speed - Any faster and Mr. Scott gets nervous.

[Bob_Roller]

Bill,

Thanks for the additional info.

This thread has me thinking about a 1000 mile ride in 24 hours.

I did a Yahoo map route from Phoenix to Flagstaff, to Albuquerque, to Las Cruces, to Tucson, then back home in Phoenix.

Shows a route length of 1090 miles, and just about all of it is rural interstate with 75 mph speed limit in Arizona, and 70 mph speed limit in New Mexico.

The roads are all familiar to me from my road trips in the CRX. I know where the fuel stops , and restaurants, takes a little of the unknown out of the equation.

Did you have any roadside assistance coverage, like AAA, or some other provider?

Something to ponder the next few months.

[Semper Gumby]

I have AAA but I don't have the motorcycle option.  In fact I rode on this ride without a safety net other than a friend's word that he would come and get me or the pieces if something went terrible wrong.  When I left home I left everything behind.  I didn't call my wife again until the aftenoon after I got to San Diego.

The gist of preflight planning for this is realistic expectations (be conservative).  Break the ride down into bit sized chunks. Know where the halfway point in the ride is for phycological reasons (once you have done half the ride either you say "O that was nothing" and continue or there is "no way in hell I'm going..." and you quit.  When I went to bed in Ozona TX for two hours I wasn't sure I could wake up again.  But after I did and had had breakfast and stepped out of the hotel room towards my parked bike in the morning twilight I suddenly realized that I could do it again.  That feeling got me past El Paso into the desert of New Mexico (when the heat came back).

Figure 15 minutes for each fuel stop and subtract that from your 24 hours.  Subtract a rest period if you are going to use one from your twenty four hours.  The time you have left is the time you are going to do the ride in.  Divide the miles you plan to ride buy the time you plan to spend on the bike.  This will give you an average speed.  It should be quite low.  See if this is within the realm of possibility on the equipment you plan to ride (the R65 of course) and the route you plann to take.

My alotted time for the 50 hours coast to coast including 8 fuel/food stops with a 4 hour rest period in 46 hours with a four hour buffer if something went wrong.  2400 miles divided by 46 hours is 52 miles per hour!  That was all I had to average to complete the ride in under the 50 hour limit.  Can you see why I thought I could do this?  My planned speed was 70 miles per hour - at or under the speed limit for 98% of I-10, I-12, I-10 (again) and I-8.  At 70 mph my bike averages 38 miles per gallon.  With 8 and a half gallons of gas on the bike that equates to 323 miles until dry or 304 miles till reserve.  I planned 300 mile fuel stops (this all changed due to a number of uncounted varibles i.e. Altitude, and alcohol in the fuel out west [I think] and heat which contributed to increased fuel consumption.)

I was confident in my math and I could see exactly how I was doing on the two GPS's on my bike: a Garmin 176C set for the tacticle situation (my next fuel stop) and a Garmin III+ set on the big picture (Halfway point Kerrville TX and San Diego CA the next day).  The III+ also was my backup if the 176C failed.

By the time I got to I-8 north of Tuscon I was almost certain that it would be a ~45 hour ride.  I could see my arrival time on the Garmin III+ (plus the food/fuel stops I had left).

Two things I wish I had was a one piece 3 season suit and a flip up full faced helmet.  It was a pain in the ass changing gear for heat, cold and rain - which it could do on a trip like this in the space of a few short miles.  You can't imagine how angry at the world you get when the temperature goes from 95 degrees on the desert floor south of the Salton Sea to 52 degrees in the hills above on I-8 in the space of five minutes just before midnight!!!!  It would have been nice to just be able to zip up a few zipper pulls and keep going through the Virga rain showers south of Tucson rather than freezing my ass off in mesh gear.  Also a flip up full face helmet would have been nice for snacking and drinking while riding.  It was hard to do this with my Shoie RF-1000.

About snacking: I muched on Beef jerky (I know - high salt bad) when ever I felt like it and I downed at least 1-32oz gatorade every time I stopped for gas.  I drank one 16oz Magnum energy drink in Kerrville when my personal gas tank was near the bottom.  That stuff is Baaaad JuJu.  It made me goofy on the bike.  And goofy on a long distance ride is really bad and when your body does crash it happens suddenly.  My eyes closed and...well...it scared the SH*T out of me.  I have never touched the stuff since or anything else that has similar list of contents.  There is stuff in those drinks that the FDA will probably one day ban.  Since that time when ever I do a long ride I bring apples (small ones) which are good for their easily digestible sugars.  I'm no expert on this but I know what works for me.