Alan Leduc's IBA Experiences

The Iron Butt Association is dedicated to safe, long-distance, endurance motorcycle riding.

Iron Butt Association Membership # 8613

Bun Burner 1500 Gold
October 5 - 6, 2001

The Certificate

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Rules for the ride are on Iron Butt Association Website

The Bike

The Trip

I usually like to start trips like this in the early morning hours. However, a cold front was moving in and I decided that I should leave about 10:00 a.m. and take advantage of the warm day. The cold front was supposed to move out on Sunday. Since the late fall weather was setting in I decided that I would head south and then circle back north so a lot of my night driving (read that sun is down and temperatures are lower) would be in the south. I planned the route to go from New Castle, Indiana (my home) to St. Louis, Missouri to Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi to Birmingham, Alabama to Chattanooga, Tennessee to Nashville, Tennessee to Louisville, Kentucky and back to New Castle, Indiana. My mapping software showed this as 1530.1 miles. I had traveled all but the leg from Jackson to Chattanooga before and knew that as far as interstate riding is concerned, this would be a pretty good ride.

The night before the ride I hit the sack at 8:00 p.m.. Normally, I would not have been able to go to sleep this early, but I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. to study for a test (I was working on my last class for a M.S. in the field of Interdisciplinary Engineering from Purdue) so I was plenty tired. I had a good nights sleep and work up around 8:00 a.m.. My wife and I met my son (Chad) and grandson (Bailey) for breakfast. I ate light - hard egg on wheat toast and a small orange juice. Although I am an avid coffee drinker, I resisted. At 9:30 a.m., it was time to leave and track down a witness. Gave Mom and Bailey a kiss. Bailey stood at the restaurant door watching and waving as I left - grandkids are truly special.

I traveled to the local municipal center which houses one of our fire houses and our police department. I saw a fireman exiting the building so I ask if he would do me a favor. He said maybe. I explained my ride and the need for a witness. It ended up that he was an old neighbor, Chris Cole. The witness form was completed and signed at 9:52 a.m., October 5, 2001. I traveled to the interstate to fill up and get the official time stamp. I knew that this trip was not going to be a walk in the park so I didn't want to loose precious time at stop lights. I filled up at the Shell Station located at I70 Exit 123 (Indiana). The official time stamp 10:05:35. The unofficial temperature was 52 degrees.

I decided to take a small tape recorder and put it inside my jacket so I could get to it easily. This proved to be an effective way of keeping notes of the ride, if you don't mind listening to your own voice and a lot of wind noise. 

At 11:49 a.m., I had traveled 123 miles and was on the south side of Terre Haute, Indiana where I hit road construction. I had one lane traffic for about 4 miles but the traffic was moving along so I didn't have to stop. The foliage was really beautiful, making the ride very enjoyable, except for the temperature which had only risen to 55 degrees.  My fuel light came on at about 205 miles according to the odometer. My first stop was schedule for 227.9 miles which was still some 34 miles away. I decided that I would go ahead and try to make the scheduled stop. I also became painfully aware that my odometer was off more than I thought. The odometer problem had been reported on several of the forums, but I was not really aware of how far off it was. At about 1 mile from the fuel stop, I was getting really nervous. My fuel gauge was way below Empty and I had never seen it there before. I made it but required 6.533 gallons of fuel. I was not sure, but it seemed like my tank only held 6.8 gallons, this was close. Other than the gas mileage, the Wing was performing flawlessly. The head and cross winds were severe. I thought this might be why I was getting poor mileage.

At the stop, I stuffed a package of beef jerky in my jacket. I already had a bottle of water in my handle bar beverage holder, so I was ready for lunch. Darn that beef jerky really gets in your teeth. Maybe this wasn't such a great choice of food. The temperature had risen to 59 degrees and I decided to remove my gloves. I didn't really have anywhere to put them so I just sat on them. I figured that if my odometer was off, so was my speedometer. I kicked it up a bit. At about 3:00, I crossed the mighty Mississippi. There is a curve that gives you a beautiful view of the side of the bridge as you approach, however no time for pictures on this trip. As I crossed the Mississippi, there were a couple of barges on the river. I love the river traffic. Just something smoothing about the water. At the 12 mile maker on I57 South (12 miles from I55), there was a small car wrapped around a railroad crossing pole. I didn't see any advertising, so I guess this was a personal message about the dangers of speeding. Somewhere around the 30 mile marker on I55 South (Missouri), there were cotton fields on both sides of the interstate. I don't know that I had ever seen cotton fields at harvest time before. They were beautiful shades of burgundy, with the white tops. Large bales of cotton were setting at the edge of every field, evidently having already been harvested. At around the 12 mile marker on I55 South, there were several lakes that looked like they were man made. The sign said Delta Catfish Farm. I assume this was a farm that raises all that great tasting catfish that we eat in the restaurants. The fuel light triggered at 199 miles on the odometer. I am thinking that I should have 35 or 40 miles after the light triggers, so the pressure was off on making this stop. The road for the last several miles in Missouri and the first few miles in Arkansas were just plain awful. The roads in Missouri had load depressions that looked to be about 3" deep. The roads in Arkansas were concrete but the right lane was like a Ruffles potato chip. I only need 6.252 gallons of gas, so I felt pretty good about that. I got a couple of bananas and scarffed them down. With the bananas and the beef jerky, I had a full belly. My headset in my helmet was rubbing and giving me a headache, so I took a couple of aspirin. My butt was holding up very well, but I was starting to feel some fatigue in my legs.

At the beginning of the third leg, the temperature had risen to 64 degrees (this was the high for the trip). It was very comfortable, but there was still a chill in the air so I decided to leave my coat on and I continued to sit on my gloves. About 10 miles into the leg, I hit road construction and more one lane traffic. The good news is that the traffic was traveling about 75 mph so I really wasn't doing to badly. The construction lasted for several miles. Memphis has a beautiful skyline. On top of that, I would be crossing the Mississippi River for the second time. Traveling through Memphis is not so fun. You have to watch the signs and while you are still on I55, it looks like you are getting off the interstate. The roads were pitiful. Severe load depressions and several patches of road where they had removed a layer (you know those rough irregular grooves). There were no signs marking the area where a layer was removed and being in traffic you couldn't see that far down the road, so these were always a surprise. Just what you need on two wheels. my comments were, "I'm sure Memphis will have nice roads sometime."  

At the 270 mile of I55 South (Mississippi) marker south of Memphis, I was following a pickup truck pulling a trailer. He couldn't decide how fast he wanted to drive, so he passed me, I passed him, he passed me - yeah one of those. We are on a three lane highway. I am in the left lane, the pickup is in the center lane, and a tractor trailer is in the right lane. I had just moved to the left lane as I didn't want to be behind the pickup while beside the tractor trailer. The pickup pulls to the left lane in front of me and traffic is close behind in the middle lane so I hang in the left lane. I notice that the door on bottom of the dryer is loose. I also notice that one piece of the box is about to rip off. This makes me pretty uncomfortable so I start backing off and looking for a way to get around this guy. About that time, the rope breaks holding the refrigerator and it falls out right in front of me. I hit the brakes hard (the Wing has great brakes; no skid and I was really pulling down on them). The fridge is moving slow due to its weight; but then the door pops off and is sliding right toward me. I am down to about 15 mph at this point and steer off on to the left shoulder and finally into the grass in the median to avoid the door which was about 3 feet away. Once I was safe, I kicked it back on the interstate and scooted. I could see cars swerving to miss the refrigerator that was still setting in the middle of the lane and hitting me. Glad this happened during daylight and that I was alert. This could have been really ugly. Down the road, I passed a truck pulling a car. The car was a 70's model that had the rubber trim on the bumper. The trim was about 3/4 off and blowing in the wind. Guess how close I looked at that and how fast I got around him after just nearly missing a falling refrigerator.

At about 6:52 I reported that the temperature had dropped to about 52. I made a good decision not to remove my jacket. The temperature felt colder as the sun was beginning to drop and I was loosing the radiant heat to which I had become accustomed. Time to put the gloves back on. Really glad I had not put them in the trunk. After I stopped, I realized that I still had my sunglasses on and it had been dark for several minutes. No wonder I thought my headlight was not working as good as it normally does. The cold distracted me from thinking about how close I was on fuel.  I had a little trouble getting my legs as I pulled to a stop at the exit. Gee, I've only been setting for the better part of nine hours wonder why that is? Other than the legs, I was feeling good and looking forward to the half way point. I added 6.752 gallons of gas. Is that pushing it? When I got home I looked up the specs and they say my tank only holds 6.6 gallons. Wow. I was 0.152 beyond that. I had to be running on fumes. I made a mental note that I was going to have to abandon my planned stops and just add an extra stop.

I hit Jackson, Mississippi shortly after beginning leg 4. I was just in time to hit the end of the traffic from a football game. The speed limit was 60 mph and I couldn't do that. It was a  physiological lift to have made the turn back north even though I had not quite hit the half way point. Interstate 20 travels right through the Biensville National Forest and is very close to the Talladega National Forest. I am going to have to plan a ride through this area in the daytime. The temperature has dropped to 50 degrees. I munched on orange slices that I picked up during the last stop. Problem was I had to take my gloves off every time I needed to reload. Nothing really eventful happened on this leg except trying to readjust to the cold and settling into the night time drive. When my fuel light hit, I started looking for a place to stop, thinking that I might have run out of silver bullets. Problem was that in this area there were not that many exits and some did not indicate that they had gas. I pushed it further than I wanted and ended up requiring 6.432 gallons. I decided that I was really going to have to stop right after hitting the fuel light on the next stop. This stop had a Subway sandwich shop inside so I got a couple of deli tuna sandwiches to go.

It was cold enough that I decided to put on my scarf so the recordings would have to end. I gobbled down one of the tuna sandwiches and decided that it was enough. It wouldn't be long before I was pulling the scarf up to under my nose. I wear a 3/4 helmet so  I use the scarf (triangular shaped with Velcro attachment in the back) to protect my face from the cold. Leg 5 was a cold and lonely stretch of road. Rarely did I see a car on my side of the road. When I did, it was just a blur as I went by or in a couple cases as they went by. You will notice that my gas mileage dropped to a low of  28.59 mpg on this leg. I pulled to the side of the road three times during this leg to look at my maps. I thought I was going the right direction but was not sure. I had only printed out strip maps which show very little detail. The mapping software routed me around Birmingham and I had stayed on I59 and was going straight through. When I got to I459 on the north side of Birmingham, I figured out what had happened. Now I was worried that I would not have enough miles. I checked an atlas at the next stop and quickly added up the miles and decided that I would be ok on miles. When I redid the route after returning, I discovered it was only about 2 miles shorter. Lesson learned? Print out the turn by turn maps as well as the strip maps. Better yet, get a GPS.

At stop 7, I darn near dropped my bike coming to a stop off the exit. My legs were numb and not working well. I pulled into the gas station and there was a police car parked in front and the policeman was looking out the door. Here I am on a motorcycle wearing a black scarf up over my face. I don't know whether that made him nervous, but given all that has happened lately, it made me nervous. The temperatures had dropped to 42 degrees and I was really cold. My whole body was shaking. I decided that it was time to pull out the chaps. In hind sight, I should have done that at the last stop. I was shaking so bad, I had a heck of a time getting the chaps zipped. The policeman commented that there was no way he would be out on a bike in this kind of weather. I told him what I was doing and all he ask was why? Short answer, because I'm old, I want to, and I can. The attendant and the policeman came out to check out my bike. They said, I guess if your going to do something like this, you have the right tool to do it. I had to make another road side stop when I got to the I24 split in Chattanooga (needed those turn by turn maps). I tried to get help from the truckers, but they weren't interested in helping. I did come up on one trucker who commented over the CB that you could sure see me coming. The Wing has great lighting. I had also added the Tulsa yellow fog lights and ran them with the low beams. A short time later a trucker on the other side said, "What was that over there?" Somebody came back and ask him what he was talking about. He said, "It looked like a truck but it only had one light in the center of its running lights. Seems to me that those fog lights must be pretty effective. This leg had the mountains between Chattanooga and Nashville. This was fun riding even at night. Still pretty lonely which made the ride even more fun.

My neck was really getting stiff at stop 8. The temperature was down to 38 and my feet were cold. I found that I could slide my feet forward and warm my toes with the engine but that meant that I was setting weird and my neck was getting sore. I also kept kicking my cruise control out by hitting the rear brake. I took a couple of aspirin. I went to print out my receipt and it said I had to go inside. I was really wanting to get back on the road as I knew I had lost some time on the previous leg. So much for that. I went in to get the receipt and the attendant said I had to have my credit card (never heard of such a thing). My credit card was in the pocket on my motorcycle so I had to go back out to get it. Now I am wondering if there will be a double charge. I guess I will know for sure when I get next months bill. Having wasted so much time, I decided to walk around the store a couple of minutes and try to get warm. There was a Burger King, but that didn't do anything for me at this early morning hour. I decided to add another scarf to help protect my neck and then hit the road again.

Up to this point, I was in really good shape except for being cold. The temperature dropped to 34 degrees. The chaps had helped and I seemed to have my sea legs. The leg from Nashville to Louisville was long.  I was now starting to yawn and I was really cold. I didn't feel sleepy but I could tell that I was a little lethargic. I started counting down the miles to Louisville to help stay alert and awake. Those Louisville lights were a pleasant sight. 

Stop 9, the next stop would be the end of the ride. I knew that it was only  about 140 miles to home and that unless something unusual happened that I would make it in plenty of time. I probably overstayed my rest a bit. I ordered coffee (surely I could make it two hours without a potty break). I ordered it look warm, I wasn't. So I had to get some ice. I drank some of the coffee and poured the rest in my water bottle. Crossing the Ohio River into Indiana seemed to rejuvenate me. Or maybe it was the coffee. Regardless, I was feeling good. Hey the sun was coming up and it had to get warmer. Warmth just wasn't going to happen. Even though the sun was up it was still 34 degrees. When I pulled into the last stop it was 38 degrees. Later in the afternoon it got up to 60 but not in time to help me. I didn't drink any of the coffee as I didn't want to pull down my scarf. The ride officially ended at 8:37:29. I started and stopped at the same station so I assume their clocks were consistent. Official ride time 22:31:54.  I called my wife. She was still in bed (so much for her excitement about my ride.) I told her that I had to get my ending witness and that I would meet her at Bob Evans for breakfast. I found a policeman setting near the park and ask if he would serve as my witness. Again, a weird look. I explained and he agreed.  His name was William Brooks of the New Castle Police Department. I saddled up and headed off to breakfast and more importantly a hot cup of coffee. I didn't wait on my wife, I just got a seat and went right for the coffee. When I got home, I had a most pleasant surprise. My wife had put flannel sheets on my bed. Nothing like flannel sheets in the winter.

Post Trip Reflection

•  I have a saying, "When you are dumb you suffer." Well pushing my fuel limits beyond what I should have been able to do was dumb. Fortunately, I didn't suffer. I am a make a plan, go by the plan kind of guy. With the irregularity of the gas mileage, this means I am either going to have to go by stops planned at the low side or get a GPS and plan on the fly. I will have to give this some reflection before my 50cc attempt next year.
     

• My Wing performed beautifully, except for the unexpectedly low gas mileage.
      

• The Corbin seat was very comfortable. My butt never had the slightest ache. The heated seats were nice except that they actually cause you to sweat and when you get off, the cold air makes you wonder why you have wet pants.
     

• The combination of alertness and luck saved my butt from a flying refrigerator.
      

• 34 degrees is cold. 34 degree on a motorcycle is very cold. 34 degree on a motorcycle for 6-8 hours is extremely cold. Heated gloves, vest, and socks needed. Long johns should be worn when temperatures are expected to be below 45.
     

• The human body and mind are an amazing thing.

The Route

The route below shows the actual stops that I made. Stops 2-4 were part of my original plan. Stops 5-9 were adjusted due to poorer fuel mileage than I had planned.

The Details
1530.1 miles