MTF  50/100CC Iron Butt Association Ride Mike Ledbetter 100CCC Ride Report March 2003

During my "100CCC Insanity" Iron Butt Association ride I used a micro tape recorder to keep track of my ride as it happened. This tape was not intended to be used word for word for this report but eventually was. I did edit some of the tape to make it more understandable in print. The text and language used is as if just talking to a black box for 8 days, not talking to a person to make any sense at the time.

Although edited, this tape does include some strong language and some full frontal nudity. OK, so there’s no nudity but yes, Mikey does cuss into the black box once in a while, deal with it.

100CCC Insanity Ride Report

Well it is Sunday the 9th of March and its about 6:38pm. I've come out to the garage to check my bike one last time. I've got everything loaded on it, everything is ready to go. I've just got to get a good nights sleep tonight, that's with any luck at all. I plan on getting up at 4 o'clock, and being on the bike and out of Pendleton before 5. Hopefully somewhere around 4:30, its hard to say but the forecast is for rain. I still have to go in and check the computer one more time for a forecast for tomorrow but I'm just going to throw all my rain gear on. I'm excited to get going, I just cant wait to go. I'm going to miss everybody while I'm gone, I'm sad about that but its going to be an adventure and I can't wait. Everything is ready. I've been planning this for roughly 5 months if not 6. All the planning I hope pays off, and I'm looking forward to getting on the road.

It is the morning of the 10th of March. Its 4:24 in the morning on the bike clock. I just got out to the garage to get everything loaded up and get the bike outside and warming up. I'll go inside and give Austin, Whitney and Shelley a hug and a kiss, tell them I love them and hit the road. I'm ready! Its nice out this morning. Its about 51 degrees so it should be a nice day for a ride. It looks like I might get wet so rain gear will be on for the start.

Right now I'm stopped down here by Rooster Rock, by the Columbia river somewhere. It's a place for people who like nude sunbathing. That's funny considering the sun never hardly shines down here. I don't see any bare asses anywhere so I must have picked an off time to stop here, bummer. I've had a good ride so far. I'm into it about 140 miles maybe 150. I've been into a bit of rain, but all in all its pretty nice out. It's been around 45 degrees to 50. The bikes running good. I'm not liking the seat too much, but that's the way it goes. I knew the seat would suck with only 2000 miles on it. I had to stop here and take a leak and stretch a little bit before I get back on the road.

I am just on the South side of Salem. I've gone about 260 miles or so. I got off the freeway and killed the bike. For some reason it reset the trip odometer. I'm not sure what's up with that so I'm going to reset back to zero here and go from there . Its nice down here now.

I just stopped outside of Medford. I had to stop and take my raincoat off, it got too hot. Its about 60 degrees and overcast clouds here and there but other than that its beautiful. I'm going to keep on a going, just like the bunny.

I just crossed into California. I came down off the mountain by what I think is Mt. Shasta. I don't know what the hell it was for sure but it was colder than shit up there. It was like coming down off Cabbage Hill. I had all my warm stuff off so it got a bit chilly, but now its not too bad. I’m still dropping in altitude. I'm heading down into Yreka Ca, and its warming back up. Its up to 57 right now. I'm glad to make it thru there without freezing my ass off.

I just pulled into Redding, California. I got some gas and shit. Oh dear, its like $2.21 a gallon. Anyway, with gas prices like this, its going to be an expensive little trip. Its beautiful down here in northern California. I'm going to try and get a picture or two.

I'm just coming by Mt. Shasta right now. It's very beautiful. It has the snow cover up there on top. Everything down here looks like the Wallowa mountain area. Just lots of big tall mountains and snow on top of them. Its about 55 degrees and its nice riding, a bit overcast, a little bit of high clouds. I'm just cruising now. I'm about 210 miles from Sacramento so with any luck at all I should be pulling in there about 4:30 or 5:00. Right now its 1:32. I'm still making pretty good time. Just gonna keep on rolling

I have about 150 miles left for the trip to Sacramento. I just passed my first state cop sitting in the middle of the freeway. No big deal, he was doing what ever and I was actually doing the speed limit, not a bad deal so far. Sacramento is 129 miles away. Its going buy just fine. 68 degrees and a beautiful blue sky. Its gorgeous down here, I can see why people like it in this area.

I've made it to Sacramento without any problems today. The bike ran good, its about 71 degrees down here, beautiful out and sunny. I got into town about 4:15 and just called home. I talked to mom at the shop to see what's going on at work. From here I'm going to go grab something to eat. Its been a great day so far.

Tuesday, March 11th

It is Tuesday morning, the 11th of March. I'm in Sacramento, California. I got up at about a quarter to 4 because I couldn't sleep anymore. Its pretty foggy out there. They say patchy fog on the weather channel. What I'm going to do instead of riding over and getting by the state capital traffic mess to get checked in, I'm going to see if the people here at the motel will just sign my log sheet to get me started on my saddle sore 5000 ride. I'm also right next door to a gas station. I'm going to look into that. It may save me a little time. I am going to try get out of here by 8 o'clock. That will give myself an extra hour to get down to San Diego. So its supposed to burn off and be nice but its got me a little nervous this morning. Kinda woke up thinking about all that stuff, so anyway I'm hoping there won't be any problem on the freeway. So far there's not the TV says. I'm ready to go, I've got to get my stuff together here, I'll check back in pretty soon

Well its about 7 o'clock now and I just got my hotel manager and an old biker to sign my log book. I'm pretty much ready to go I've got gas right next door so I'm pumped, I'm ready, I want to get going, This is great. Whaahooo

Its 8:55 in the morning and 50 degrees out I've already put a bit over 100 miles on since I left Sacramento this morning, actually 115. It turned really cold so I'm going to pull in here and put my warm stuff on and my heavy gloves and get my electric coat lit up and get back on the highway.

I got out of the fog just south of Sacramento but from then on it was back into the fog and cold as hell. I'm getting back on it again.

I just stopped in Bakersfield. It is 11:29. I had about 270 miles on and it was 69 degrees out but I decided to stop and take off my warm stuff as its starting to get pretty toasty again. It's beautiful down here now. Blue skies and high clouds. The freeway is good, it was a little rough for a while but now its smooth sailing. Everybody's just flying along at about 75 to 80 miles an hour. As near as I can tell my next turn will be to get on I-210 east that will get me onto I-15. I'm hoping I don't have any problems. It looks like a big city down here :) so I'm a little nervous but who wouldn't be I guess, being your first time going into LA area man , anyway I'll see what happens when I get there.

Its just a little after 2:00. I'm about 70-75 miles from San Diego now. Its about 80 degrees down here. I had to stop and take some more clothes off because its just really nice out. The bike is running good. It was just crazy coming into LA and going around it. It seemed like it was a long ways around. About 5 or 6 lanes of people going 80 mph but it was kinda fun too!!:) I'm just having a good time.

It is about almost 5 o'clock now. I've been here in San Diego now for about and hour. I got checked into the motel then went out and met some of the riders. It looks like everyone is pretty anci wanting to get going. Everyone seems relaxed and having fun. I'm just trying to get some of my shit together and go back out to talk to some of the riders again before dinner.

Its about 8:00 and I'm waiting for Shelley to give me a call. We just got done with our dinner. I bailed out early from dinner and I'm getting everything together so I can get up in the morning and throw my stuff on the bike. It looks like I may be able to leave a little earlier than I expected tomorrow morning. That's a good thing, I can get up at quarter to 4 naw, 3:30. That will get me in line to check out after 4:00am. Actually that will work out pretty close if I can get checked out at 4 then my SS5000 time will be a bit closer. I may be ahead of schedule by maybe a half hour. Anyway, it still seems as if everyone is all excited to go. I'm looking forward to getting on with it. I was a good dinner as I got to talk to a lot of neat people finally. I sat in the bar with Albert Carey, Joe Herrman , Tom Loegering and Chuck Farrah while we waited for the upstairs room to be readied for us. Dave Shealey also introduced himself. It was nice to finally meet him. I really enjoyed that. I'm looking forward to getting on the road in the morning.

Ride Day

Its 3:30 in the morning and I didn't really get too good of a nights sleep. I guess with all the bikes coming and the freeway being right next to the motel I guess I did sleep OK for all that. I feel a bit tired already.
My helmet is giving me more fits than anything. It was really tight in the forehead and I've now got a burn or rash or something right on the front of my head . I've been pushing on the helmet trying to get some of the foam to collapse so it will fit better. The only thing I could find to help beat the Styrofoam in was the Bible. It has a hard back binding of course and it seemed to work great as a hammer. Forgive me God but I had to do what I had to do. I guess that I'm just a different breed of bible thumper than the others. I hope I pounded on it enough to make it wearable. So far that is the only pain in the ass I've got to complain about. Actually my head hurts pretty bad and it looks even nastier , but its something I'm just going to have to work thru on the ride over and back. I've got to go now. I am excited!! I need to finish getting dressed. I just got out of the shower and need to get my stuff on the bike. I hear other riders out there warming up bikes, they must be heading over to the staging area . I need to get loaded to go.

I’ve got my starting receipt, sand and water. I met up with Will Allender for the start at the beach. If he likes to cruise I’ll ride with him for a ways.

There wasn’t any fog close to the beach but we ran into some coming up the El Cajon pass. I was passed by a border patrol truck after the fog thinned out. He is cruising so I’ll hang on his tail for a while. These are the best rabbits to follow. This is a fun stretch of road. It has a lot of sweeping corners. The sun is coming up and it looks like a beautiful day in the East.

Its 7:51am. I pulled into Dateland, AZ at 7:30.

I just crossed into New Mexico. I'm having a great time. Its 75 degrees and beautiful riding weather out here.

This note is for Austin. I am just coming across the desert here in New Mexico. Actually I just passed the West Coast Choppers truck heading towards California from bike week in Daytona Beach, FL.

I was just informed I am one forth of the way there. We're doing good on time. I tried to flag down the West Coast truck but he was hauling the other way. Maybe I'll catch him in

California....ha

I just pulled into Texas...we're doing good. 877 long miles of it. 750 miles probably anyway, we just got in here . Its really nice 80 degrees and sunshine. I'm loving it.

I'm in Fabens TX, we've traveled about 750 miles so far. We're still doing good time wise. It's 80 degrees out here, I'm going to peel off some clothes. Its 3:31 mountain time. I'm going to keep going off the bike clock so all my records are the same.

We just now left Fabens TX. I sat around a bit and bullshitted. I cooled down some and got out of some more hot clothes. Its still at 80 degrees and we're getting back on the freeway.

We are coming up on Alamore exit # 129. We got into some road construction going on so we had to slow down to about 55 mph here. It sucks. We are still making good time. When we stopped at our last gas station we didn't know but they were opening a part of the freeway ahead of us. They had all the traffic stopped so we now have a ton of traffic to contend with. That's all part of game. We're going to pick our way thru here as quickly as we can. Its still a one laner and there's nothing we can do about it .Its still 76 degrees out here. It looks as if we are still outside of Van Horn. We still we haven't got to the I-10, I-20 split, I'm still having good time, the weather is great.

We just came into central time zone 

We just split so we're headed towards San Antonio now. We're doing good and still having a good time.

I'm just now rolling over 1000 miles.We've had good run here and were still going. It just now getting dark. I'm not really sure where we are at but we are of course still in Texas, somewhere Duh!! I'm enjoying the nice night. Its still 75 degrees It don't get no better than that.

Ok, we are now in San Antonio and we just got gas . We took off and left my Pan Optix riding glasses right there sitting on top of the pump. We turned around and went and to get them ....thank God. We are on this 1604 loop road going around San Antonio. We have now picked up another rider ( Doug Chapman) so were are just making tracks and having a great time. Its still 67 degrees. I'm wide awake and feel good.

We're in Houston. We are right at 1500 miles into the ride so far. For the time and mileage we are doing damn good. We have a little bit of fog but it's still 69 degrees and we are flying down the freeway. I'm having a blast.

Its Thursday morning, its daylight now. We stopped at a little Denny's and spent about 2 hours there. About maybe an hour and a half of that time napping. The other guys got something to eat I think. I closed my eyes to rest and just listened. At least its daylight out here now. When we stopped it was so foggy you couldn't see 50 yards in front of you. We were making lousy time and we all needed to get off the bikes and take a break. Riding in that kind of fog can wear you out real fast. Its still foggier than Hell but at least we can see the road below us now , so we are back at it...24 hours and back up and going. Apparently we've got a little ways to go but I'm not sure how far from the coast we are but probably 700 miles at least .. We did good for one day, we rode very hard.

We just got out of Texas, finally, and we are now in Louisiana. It is raining hard and its still damn foggy but its 69 degrees. Other than that it's a beautiful day.. We are back up and going as best as we can.

We just passed a little pickup that was in the right hand lane going really slow. There were a lot of people backed up behind it. They seemed to be acting like they were pissed off thinking is was drunk driver or whatever but it wasn't . It was probably a 16 year old little girl that looked like she was scared to death being out here on this road by herself.............It was pretty hard to see..... it makes me really miss Whitney right now... a lot..........

We are in Jennings La . Its 71 degrees. It has quit raining and its very humid. We stopped in to get some gas. I got to wash up a little bit. That sure felt good. Actually its been a great ride so far this morning. I had a tough time going past that little girl..... but...... it just makes me want to get home all the more so....... I’ve got to think of something else for a while.

We are still at the truck plaza here in Jennings. The guys are inside. They decided they wanted to take a shower and get freshened up. Apparently they must have a date or something when we get to the other side. I have decided I'm going to stink till the very end. We're OK on time and are still way ahead of schedule. I'm just real anci and want to keep going, but want to ride with the others so I'm just going to hang out and enjoy. The bikes are running good everything is going fine, still having a great time. I'm not tired at all. I’m kinda surprised for only having a bit of sleep. I'm sure I'll sleep really well tonight.  We set a pretty good pace, we ran good, we ran hard, and didn't have any problems. I like riding with others through the big cities and as that's the only part I'm nervous about without a GPS.

We are back on the road again we are still in Louisiana and have three stops to go then it will be a done deal.

We just crossed the Mississippi river at Baton Rouge, La.. Its a big town. I'm kinda surprised, it looks like Portland. Anyway I'd better get my hands back on the wheel.

We just hit the I-10/ I-12 interchange. We are going over the Westbourgouh River..what ever the hell that is, and we should be coming up on Alabama ....Mississippi I guess.. Hell I don't know.... pretty soon. I'm guessing we have somewhere around 500 to 550 miles left to go. We are running good and all seem to be awake. Traffic isn't too bad so we are going right at her.

We are just getting ready to head out again...where the hell are we  again??......St.Louis Miss....Mississippi?? ......who the hell are you talking to? (Doug asks)....Myself .......this is  Doug from Mississippi...who hawwww...I've made it thru another state. whoohaww. We maintained a good pace so far. 

We just crossed into Alabama. Its 68 degrees and overcast. Really nice riding thou. I've just got the rain gear on just in case we do hit some rain. Its about the lightest thing I've got to wear ..we're doing good, still making good time. I'm not sure how far we have to go yet. Probably 500 miles or so but that doesn't seem like much after as far as we have gone.

We're coming up out of Mobile, Alabama. They have got severe thunderstorm warnings out for this afternoon for Louisiana, Mississippi, and possible tornadoes or high winds and heavy rains. We've already got past that I hope. I hope everyone behind us makes it thru OK... Its 81 degrees and just humid as hell.
We just pulled into a little place outside Bum F***, Florida and got some gas. We are headed back onto the freeway again and going down the back stretch. The kid at the gas station says to watch out for the police between here and the coast. There are places where they hide in the road. We'll keep an eye out. It's a great feeling riding between two Valentine radar detectors, even if Doug says his is a piece of shit.

We just got into the motel here in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. My total cross country time for this leg is 36 hours 58 minutes I think. I’m feeling great but I could eat roadkill right now. I want to get checked in and get something to eat...and sleep. There are two bikes here ahead of us. One is Tom Loegering and I think Jeff Millers. That Tom just goes and goes on that Beemer. He’s a hell of a nice guy to talk to .I hope to get a chance to speak with him more when we get a chance.

Its 10:42 (7:42 pacific) Thursday night and I am actually sitting in my motel room. I got a shower ,I got dinner. We got a hamburger next door at a place called Bukkets. Mike Bobbitt and Will Allender found us at dinner and joined us. I think Doug is going to hook up with Mike Bobbitt on the return trip. Will is who I started my ride out of San Diego with yesterday morning. He looks happy his trip is over. Dinner was fast and it was really good...I think... I am going to head out in the morning. We are going to try to get out of town here by 6:00am which is right about sun up and that will, with riding that way west, give us about 3 extra hours of daylight that we didn't have coming east. That will be good. We plan on just riding as far as we can until we feel we need to stop and just stop. It was a good day. I had real good ride and now I'm ready to turn around and do it all over again. What a dumb-ass but I'm so excited . I think I've got everything ready to go I just need to get some sleep. We are going to get up at 4:30 eastern time so I may get 5-6 hours of bedtime..I hope, and be ready to go.

It is 4:41am eastern time and I'm up and out of the shower. Its Friday morning I'm getting ready for the return trip heading back to California. I'll get a little pot of decaf coffee going, that sounds really good this morning I've been watching the weather channel. It looks fairly decent around here. Actually we might hit some rain maybe at noonish or possibly later. We'll worry about that as we get there. I'm jacked and ready to get going on this return trip and am looking forward to riding back with Mike. Alright, I'm up and at em'.

I just put my watch on this morning and it seems ironic that its just 1:47am pacific time, or home time as I call it, so yeah, its kinda early in the morning but it all seems like part of the deal. I'm not tired because I'm probably pumped to get going...really excited to get going.

It is on my bike clock 3:42 in the morning on march 14th. Its 67 degrees out in Jacksonville beach, Florida. We used up about an hour in the motel parking lot talking to riders who just came in. They sounded like they hit some very nasty rain along the final stretch. I gave my motel room to a rider that didn't have a reservation. He looked like hammered dog shit from the ride. He was happy to get the room for some shut eye. He offered to pay for the room but that wasn't gonna happen. Bikers help Bikers, especially LD types. I hope we miss that rain, its such a beautiful morning here.

We just got gas. I go in and get a drink then we are going to be heading out. We went to the police station and got an officer to sign our log sheets for us so we are basically ready to roll. I'm looking forward to starting and getting on home.

We just passed "Team Busa" heading twards the coast. Vik seems to be hanging on. Go Team Busa, Go!. I cant even imagine what her ass feels like about now.

We are just coming up on Tallahassee Florida We had a semi truck just have a blowout just right in front of me, throwing rubber all over the road. We got around him alright. Its 66 and overcast. We have not hit any of the rain so far that the other guys were talking about when they rode in this morning that they had a tough ride thru. I hope we have smoother sailing and miss this storm going both way. I hope so anyway, but I have my doubts when we get into Alabama and Mississippi. So far things are looking good and I feel real good . I don't feel tired what so ever. So I feel we will have a good ride today. We just passed another bike about an hour ago that looked as if it could have been one of our riders coming to Jacksonville. If it is then they are going to have to hurry. I sure hope he makes it. That's a long ways to go to come in late. I wish everyone good luck I hope there weren't any problems.

Just pulled out of Ponce De Leon, Florida and we've got 85 miles to go to Pensacola. ....we're still making good time. Its beautiful out.75 degrees and I've just got my rain coat on because it's the coolest thing I've got.... and away we go....quickly

We are just on the west side of Pensacola and we hit a bunch of road construction. Its all two lanes down into one. That sucked for a while but we are back up and rolling and hard at it again.

We just pulled into Mobile, Alabama. We've been running real good. Other than the traffic jam everything is working just fine. Its getting kinda cloudy but its 73 degrees and so far we've been splitting the rain clouds . It looks like the guys behind us are going to get hammered like shit cause its suppose to get really nasty. I'm glad we got out a little earlier than planned

This is where I screwed up and left the tape going in the tank bag....There is about 100 miles of Yamaha Venture V-4 motor music on tape. It sounds like a nascar race without the commentators! I Love it!!!

We are in Hammond Louisiana just about 40 miles from the Texas border. Its still overcast and 73 degrees. We filled up with gas, I feel good, and I think we are going to stop up here and see if we can take a 2 hour rest before we hit Houston. We want to try and get around the 4 o’clock rush hour traffic at night so we’re going to look at that when we get closer. There are lots of cops out on the freeway so we have slowed down a little bit. We are still having a good time we are riding better together all the time.

One thing I have found about this ride is that I do like is going thru all these radio stations If you like country music then you need to move to the south cause that’s all they listen to. Every once in a while you can get lucky and hit a rock and roll station . I’m just cruising thru here and found some ac/dc so life ain’t all that bad. This is some good riding music, so right now, life is good!

We went thru Baton Rouge, Louisiana and over the top of the Mississippi river. It was a zoo there. I got a couple of pictures. Its a pretty busy place. Its Friday afternoon and everyone wanting to get home so everyone’s out on the freeway. We made it thru without any problem and we’re now headed towards Texas. We shouldn’t be too far away from the border now.

We are just coming into Lafayette and have just passed a bunch of cops who are patrolling heavily it looks like. The sun is starting to come down into my eyes under the helmet, so that seems like another good reason to stop and take a break. We will let the sun go down a bit and let the traffic get out of the way. We can rest up a little bit , I’ll be able to "ride the tunnel" better tonight .I’ll want to be rested up and ready for that . I feel really good, almost like I got my second wind now. That last rest helped a lot. I ate a couple of power bars and drank some iced tea, it must have had a bit of caffeine so I’m feeling alert now.

We are now coming thru a place called Crowley, La We’ve got road construction going like crazy here .Its down to one lane. We got out on the shoulder and passed better than 5 miles of dead stopped traffic. I’m sure the people we passed are all pissed off but we are now 5 miles ahead of them and there’s not a damn thing they can do about that now.. I’ve been called a lot of "bad" things in the past but not with that kind of southern-cajun-hillbilly accent. It makes it all seem like the first time again....Ha!  That worked out pretty good, we are now running at 55 and getting ready to jump back into two lanes, so we can get rolling again.

I guess We have stopped in here at Jennings, La to let the sun go down and let the rush hour traffic get out of Houston. We stopped at a truck plaza. This is a great place to take a rest. It has a nice drivers lounge to kick back in for a little while. I may have got up to an hour of sleep. I’m not real sure. We are going to shoot for getting back on the road again soon and see where we can get to. Everything so far is going great, I’m not tired, I’m doing great and am ready to go.

We are in the outskirts of Houston gassing up. We’ve got the main part of Houston to go then onto San Antonio. That should be the half way mark or some where close I would imagine. We will see what we will do for accommodations from there, so we’re still working at it.

We are just on the outskirts of San Antonio. I’m starting to get kinda tired but not too bad. We are not quite halfway back across but I have a feeling we’ll probably pull into Kerrville Texas and get some sleep there. We’re still ahead of schedule by quite a ways so we have a lot of time. I’ve had a good run so far coming back. I had to stop and put the electric coat on it was getting really cold at about 64 degrees, actually I put on everything else to keep me warm because its along ways out across here and there’s nothing to look at, and anything past San Antonio is the same way. Hopefully we will grab a room and sleep till like daylight or something then head out again. I think that is probably the best thing to do, I don’t want to overdue it as we are doing fine on time. We will need to get a little bit of rest in then hit it hard for the final push for the last thousand or twelve hundred miles. That’s a lot of desert to cover out there with nothing in between. I want to make sure I’m fully awake and able to do that. Other than that I feel good, the bikes running great and I’m having a good old time.

We are in Junction Texas and oh what the hell, "where are we going"?( ML) "San Diego of course".

300 miles more in the direction of San Diego. 300 miles, well we won't make it to El Paso will we? We will need to stop before that, somewhere, hell we don’t know, we’re just gonna drive. Probably Fort Stockton ,that could be, OK , so that’s where we are going , unless we find something else to do between here and there, but I doubt it. Right now I debating whether to go take a good healthy shit... now... no then I’d have to get all undressed out of this riding clothes, I’ll save all the fun stuff for later.. Ah, I’m ready to get back on the road, I’m feeling much better now... wide awake...pretty much...I could be lying a little but...other than that, life is good.

We are still in Texas, we just pulled off the road to use the can. We’ve had some severe thunder and lighting going off all around us. It seems to be very, very low to the ground out here. It just turned pitch black out in front of us. There was some low, flat lightning go across all around us. We pulled in to a gas station in Ozona. I went into the store to use the crapper. Not a few minutes later it was a torrential downpour. We wheeled the bikes over next door to a super 8 motel. I’m not sure if we’re going to grab a room and get some ZZZ’s or what, and wait for this to blow over. That’s what I want to do. We’ll see what happens from there, that what I’m hoping. We can’t ride in rain like this, someone will get hurt. We’ll wait it out for a while, that’s the plan. We’ll see what happens from there.

Weather report...wet and raining f***n’ HARD, with lightning flat out across the whole area, it’s just nasty. .We are debating what to do. We need to keep moving or we want to keep moving but to do so we will need to go at a slower pace. It looks like we will have about 200 miles of rain on a rough guess. It appears that it is going from west to east or southwest to northeast There is a chance that we might shoot across the middle of it or catch a corner, I don’t know but it is flat raining so hard right now and water is running across the road in waves right now. That’s not a good thing for hydroplaning the bike either. That would be my biggest concern, hydroplaning. Yeah, We have water running down the parking lot like a river. This would be 50 mph stuff and iffy at that.....

We need to go back in there and lay down again or..... I’ve got some more water here too...

I’m just thinking with a little bit of wind behind us this is going to blow thru...yeah...we do have time....yeah...I’m really good on our calculation for the time I just think there is no sense getting on the bikes and going out there right now. I’ve ridden in the snow and everything else in the past years. I’ve got probably 100,000 miles in the rain but, we don’t have to ride in these conditions.....yeah, we should just go back in there and kick back for another half hour. So that’s what we are doing, kicking back.

We are back on the road again and have been for about 20 minutes. We had an interesting night. It started raining so hard you couldn’t even see. Basically like flash floods going on out here in the middle of nowhere with a lot of lightning and thunder. We got lucky and happened to pull in to where there was a motel. The motel was full but they had a great big pool area. We were able to go inside there and lay down on the floor until we found some lounge cots. The first two hours I was trying to sleep but could not sleep. I just wanted to get up and get going but we didn’t. We tuffed it out for one more hour and I’m glad we did . Now we are coming out across the desert here and its starting to get a few patches of dry pavement so actually we are going on. I’ll be out of the " tunnel". Hopefully we will make good time today so as not to have too much darkness to finish off the ride... or get tired again. So it was a very interesting night... a lot of highs and lows....and I’m just glad we got thru it in one piece. We are back at it hard on the road again and trying to see if any other bikes may have been out here in that shit. We are checking all the places that we are going by, restaurants or whatever to see if any other bikes are parked around. I still think that we may not be the first bikes on the return ride but if anyone rode thru that storm they are crazy, they can have the point. I hope everybody did OK

We are in Pecos, Texas. We stopped for gas. Got everything ready to go. I got cleaned up a bit. We are going to gas and dash hopefully all day long and not fart around like we have been at all the stops so far. I feel like we need to ride hard from here on out. We’ve been doing way too much bullshitting or talking whatever.

We are on the west side of El Paso. We had to stop so I could take all my warm clothes off, shit It is like 73 degrees outside and 90 degrees behind the fairing here. I had everything on warm that I had to get thru the cold ,wet morning. I thought I was gonna barf my guts out from the intense heat. We got stopped and I got all that stuff off. We’re figuring on ending our C2C2C run here and hopefully we wont have any more problems.

Well it is 82 degrees. We are just going thru Phoenix and its nice out, a bit overcast. I’m looking forward to getting out of Phoenix though, too many people. Its kinda a bad time on the freeway

We are in Yuma, Arizona right now. It is 71 degrees and raining. Well its just raining a little bit. I am going to put my rain gear on for the rest of the trip. Give or take we are 200 miles from the end or to the coast. This will be our last leg and I just turned over 6000 miles leaving from the house on my odometer. That’s pretty cool, I’m happy about that,...oh here comes the rain I’d better grab onto the handlebars

We are in El Centro, wherever the hell that is, and its raining cats and dogs. We’ve made it about 60 miles so far from Yuma where we gassed up. We must have about another 120 or 150 miles to go, I don’t know .It’s just slow going with it raining like this, that’s just the way it is. We are standing here bitching and moaning about it then we are going to go back out on the freeway and see if we cant get another 50 or 60 miles in before we stop to bitch and moan about it some more. We ARE going to get there.. We have decided. We are on a mission now...we WILL get there.

We are at the motel. We got back in.....It rained and it rained then it poured then it was foggy and cold and poured and rained coming down the road into San Diego. That is one big bitch of a hill in conditions like that. I made it in way under the 100 hour mark. It was a hellova ride. Still with all the nasty weather, I enjoyed it. I’m very, very tired. I just called and talked to Shelley and Austin and I guess I was mean or rude on the phone, I didn’t mean to be, but that’s the way it came across to her so I’ll have to apologize to them when I get home. I didn’t mean to be mean I’m just extremely tired and probably need a lot of sleep.

I don’t want to ride all the way home because I’m so tired. I’m doing fine but I just need to take a break off the bike for a while, That’s a long ways. I did make my Saddle-Sore 5000..and some more so it worked out fine for me. It was a great ride.

I know as I think back about this ride I’m going to find a bunch of things that I have forgot about. Just like all the different places we rode thru that I’ll probably never see again. The shitty roads, and all the good, fast roads. There was a lot of fun stuff but I honestly don’t think I would ever want to do that ride again because of the lack of scenery. Where the bun burner 3000 gold ride was more of a mental thing because you have to keep your mind awake for the 48 hours, this is a four day ride that can start to work on your body and mind both. Its started to be hard to concentrate into the third night. I’m glad I did it, it was a hard ride but actually I won't be done with the ride until I get home. I’ve still got 1300 or 1400 miles left to go till home so I still need to be safe and alert. The hurry, hurry, hurry part of the ride is now over and if we want to talk at the stops that’s OK with me from here on. It seems like we wasted a lot of time at the stops due to just bullshitting. That made me nervous. I know we could have saved several hours by not. Anyway I’ve met some very interesting people, some very nice people. I’m hoping that being as we were in the first few in that everyone behind us is doing OK riding thru the nasty weather. A lot of the riders behind us had that nasty storm in Texas to ride thru that we waited out in a hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere. I kinda think a lot of the guys behind us may have got stuck in that storm. If they were out in the middle of Texas and got caught the they were ..screwed...I’m worried about all of them right now, I just hope they are all OK. We’ll have to wait till morning to find out for sure. They don’t need to be here till around 10:00am or at least be clocked in by then. I’ll be up and checking around the lot first thing to see who made it in. It would be cool to see the lot full of bikes at daybreak.

Sunday, March 16th

It is 6:00 am on Sunday morning and I just looked out the window. There is one more bike in the parking lot that I can see from the window. It’s Joe Herman’s nice Beemer There may be more around on the other sides of the building. At least I can see Joe made it in safe.

I feel like I want to go back to sleep but I can’t. I’ve had some major cramping in my calves last night, 3 of them. It would wake me up with tears in my eyes. The pain was the most intense I have ever felt from cramps. I took a couple of aspirin but whether it helped or not I don’t know. I needed to get my muscles to relax but couldn’t. I also woke up in three different cold sweats. I drenched the pillow like I’ve never done before also, that was too weird. I must still be unwinding from the ride. It could have been nerves, I don’t know. I’m sure it wasn’t from being too hot in here...I don’t know, it was very strange. I’m actually trying to go back to sleep but I’ve got all this stuff going thru my head about going home, or staying for this luncheon . I don’t know, we’ll see what happens when everyone else is up.

Its 9:30am on Sunday morning and I’ve been out talking to a Lowell Vahl and John Beck. John has huge blisters on his hands from his hotgrips combined with soaking wet gloves. It looks like it really hurts. They are the first of the riders who are now coming in. We’ve got,. I heard 4 people quit on the way out because of the bad weather. These are all hard core riders. Apparently they hit some very bad weather, I’ll find out later what happened. I hear we have about 8 bikes in that we know of, which is great news but we’re not sure about everyone else yet so we are just hanging out, talking. I’m not yet sure if I’m going to do the luncheon , or just head on up the road. I’m leaning to starting home to get ahead of the other storm that is supposed to be coming in. I’ve had a couple of cups of coffee and I’m feeling really good again. I’m now looking forward to getting home to see everyone, I miss everyone really bad.

Everyone I’ve talked to this morning all have the same consensus that the Iron Butt Gods, as they are called, did not "give" anyone this certificate or just hand it over. Every rider who made it, earned it because was a tough, tough ride with the weather and everything else involved. The riders who bailed out on the ride makes it......uh, makes me feel like I earned it even more. It was very important for me to get this after putting in all the prep time, so I feel very good about accomplishing what I set out to do, I feel real good about that!

I’ve seen lots of kids down here for spring break having fun in the parking lot, being kids. It kinds makes me wish I was 19 again sometimes but actually I’m glad I’m not. I’m going to pack up all my things here then we’ll see what we are going to do from there.

I’ve decided we need to get riding to get ahead of the next rain storm that is coming in off the coast. The weather channel said the San Diego area got 4.18 inches of rain yesterday and set a new one day record for the area. I thought it was raining damn hard when we got into town, now I know I was right and not just exhausted.

The Last push to the Coast Details

The ride coming over the El Cajon pass was unbelievable. It was the scariest, most intense ride I’ve ever been on, riding a road bike. The rain was coming down like a waterfall. The fog was thrown in for effect. The traffic was sparse enough that I could run in the passing lane against the yellow markers along the left side of the road. We were running at about 30 to 40 mph. I had the shield popped up because looking thru it was impossible. As much water as was coming inside the helmet it wasn’t any better with it popped open. The water is running down my face and down inside my raincoat. If nothing else its helping keep me awake. My entire attention is now concentrating on the markers on the road. I’m leaning over the top of the windshield to see. It was an awkward way to ride but my only option at the time.

From no where a bike comes up beside us. Its Tom Loegering. He gives us the thumbs up. 

At this time the fog started to lift. We wicked the throttles up a bit.

We got to the gas station and got a splash of gas to get a ending receipt and headed over to the beach for water and sand. The streets are running rivers of rain water. There are pieces of palm trees strewn all over the place. It is a very eirrie sight under the street lights. I decide to stop and buy some beer to celebrate finishing this ride. We found a liquor store next to the gas station. I’m not sure how stoned the kid behind the counter was but you really had to see the look on his face when this 6' 4" soaking wet guy with a helmet, red rain gear and a glazed over grin walked into his store. His comment was...." Dude, you aint riding in this shit are ya?"..... I just laughed and paid for the beer.

For as tired as I was the adrenaline was still pumping by the bucket fulls thru my body . Only two more miles to get to the motel and it’s a done deal. This was the scariest part of the whole trip. I’ve never had a big bike like this Venture sideways on the freeway in the rain before. I had to grab the brakes or get run over. The bike went sideways to the left then when I corrected and got off the brakes I was in rut that was running rain water like a river. The bike went to hydroplaning and went sideways the other way to the right, did a couple of tank slappers then straightened right out. It seemed like slow motion at the time. I’m surprised that for as tight of a death grip my ass had on the seat I was able to use a lot of body English to straight the bike back up. I wasn’t scared at the time it happened, but I am now. I’m thinking my next bike will be one with ABS. As a side note..... I WILL catch up with that ASShole that cut me off someday

Heading Home

We just hit the I-5 heading towards Los Angeles. Its overcast and 61 degrees but not raining yet. I’m hoping we get around the rain. I got to meet a bunch of people this morning before we left. We were able to hear some stories and see what happened to everyone and made sure everyone was safely home. We are back on it and headed home. This is great ride!

It’s the morning of the 17th. It is 41 degrees and we are just getting ready to leave Red Bluff, California. It’s a full moon or almost and is clear out. We are supposed to have rain today on the way home and it looks like there will be snow going over the Siskiyou mountains. We are going to try to be on the road by 6:00 and looks like we won't have a problem doing that. I slept really good last night. I got a nice hot shower then a couple of cups of hot decaf coffee, that’s something different that I haven’t had for a while. I’m ready to go, I’ll hook up my electric coat and its going to be a great day for a ride to get home.

Its Monday morning and we are somewhere around Mt. Shasta, actually in Castella California. There is a post office right here next door. We stopped in to get some gas and its about 33 degrees coming up thru this pass we had rain and snow here last night ,its still on the foothills,. The road appears clear in the right lane, the other lane looks iffy. I cant tell if there is any ice on the road or not.

We are still having a great ride, its beautiful up here. Mt Shasta is just gorgeous its snow covered and sticking up thru some low clouds . After getting up early and riding this is a cool thing to see in the morning sun.

We are in Eugene Oregon .We stopped to get some gas. This should be our last stop until we get home, or close to it. Or as long as my butt will last in the seat.

We are coming up to Hood River. We just got to talk to the Oregon State police about speeding a little bit. He didn’t give us a ticket, just a verbal warning to slow down. I almost made it the whole way without talking to the police, but we did and he was very nice about it. We weren’t really speeding that much when he lasered us....but still, all that way without a problem then get 100 miles from home....that’s the way it goes. Now we are just going to kick back and try keep it under 70 and get done with this ride.

We are in Biggs Junction, Oregon. I’m going on to Pendleton from here.

Its 5:15pm and I am home. What and adventure, WOW!

Total mileage for the entire trip is 7,512 miles in 7 days, 12.5 hours

West-East time just under 37 hours with a 65.18 mph average speed.

East-West time 41:12 with a 58.64 mph average. The return trip was 7 miles longer..hmmm.

Gas

I went thru 235.83 gallons of gas during my 8 days of riding. The total cost of gas was $437.28

The average price was $1.854 per gallon. The most expensive gas was in Bakersfield, Ca. at $2.439. The cheapest was in Jennings, La at $1.539 with Houston a close second at $1.589.

My average mpg ended up being 31.85. Not bad I think for highway speeds.