G-ForceJunkie

Warning: Very long and wordy. You have been warned. Ignore the constant clairifications...I had to write it for non-motorcycle riders to understand as well.

San Diego to Laughlin the long way…


Prolog: The Iron Butt Assoc. (IBA) is a group of long distance motorcycle riders, the marathon riders if you will. Some of their more notable rides are the 50CC (Jacksonville, Florida to San Diego, California in 50 hours), the 100CC (Coast to coast, than back in 100 hrs.), Border to Border Insanity (Canada to Mexico in 24 hrs), and their Grand Daddy of them all, the bi-yearly Iron butt Rally which takes them 11,000 miles in 11 days all over the USA. Their “introductory” ride is called the Saddle Sore 1000 (SS1000 for short), which covers 1000 miles in 24 hrs and that is where our story begins…

“Anyone in So Cal want to do a SS1000?” Was the post I spotted on the Fireblades.org message board posted by a local rider. Richard used to own a Fireblade (European designation for the Honda CBR900RR sport bike) but had moved on to a Harley (we wont discuss this any further), then a Hyabusa and finally the current BMW K1200S, BMW’s foray into the sport bike market. Doing a 1000 miles on a torture rack known as a sport bike is beyond my pain threshold. The crafty BMW engineers have made the K1200S pretty comfortable, as sport bikes go, but it is still somewhat of a rack. Let’s call it a torture rack with a padded backboard and plush lined cuffs. I still have my Fireblade, but recently acquired a BMW R1150GS Adventurer with plans of doing some longer rides. After warming up the credit card with a few calls to outfit my GS with better nighttime driving lights and a comfortable Corbin seat, I was ready. I’m not sure what marketing class in school I missed that states products with BMW stamped on them sell for twice the amount of similar products sans the BMW monogram.

This SS100 is being orchestrated by a San Diego motorcycle riders club, the Red Hot Riders. Once a year they plan out a 1000 mile route from San Diego to Laughlin, Nevada and hold a banquet at the finish. This was nice for us first timers as we didn’t have to hassle with the trip route, mileage verification, etc. Plans set, hotel reservation made, we were ready.

Friday I take off from work at noon, take care of a few last minute things, and prepare to shove off. Richard arrives at 12:45 and we hit the road by 1pm. It’s about a 150 mile ride to the start hotel in Escondido, CA. Traffic is light and we make it in about 2.5 hrs. At 5pm the doors to the conference room are opened and we get out first glimpse of our route and our information packets. In a nutshell: 1070 miles, 4 states, sea level to 9,000 feet, and temps of 40 degrees to 102 degrees. Whose idea was this anyways?!?! After a good meal we get to bed early and the wakeup call comes in at 4:00am. This is it. Odometer mileage verification at 5am, riders meeting at 5:30am, first bike out at 6am. We hit the road at about 6:35am, its clear and cool, temp. around low 50’s.

First leg: We head north out of Escondido on the 15 freeway and head east on the 79. Temps drop to 42 and the air is full of moisture. We turn north on the 371 through the Cahuilla Indian Reservation and pickup the 74 east and down in to Palm Desert where we hit the 10 freeway. We slab it east to the 10 where we stop for fuel 30 miles east of Indio. I pull up to a fuel pump, slide my tank bag over, and pop the gas cap. As I lift it up on its hinge, it does a forward summersault with a half twist off the tank, bounces off the seat, and lands proudly at my feet. Judges gave the dismount a 9.9. Only problem is the gas cap is not supposed to be removable. The hinge had broken and I have to figure how to contain 8 gallon fuel for 915 more miles! Richard has a smaller tank than I so we planned our fuel stops around his fuel mileage. This allowed me to short fill my tank about half a gallon to keep the fuel below the fill neck, and with a couple strips of electrical tape, secure the gas cap. My visor cleaning cloth now became my “sloshing fuel absorber” as I folded it on top of the fuel cap under the tank bag and bummed Richards cloth the rest of the trip. This worked fine for the rest of the trip as long as the bike remained upright. More on that later. Whose idea was this anyways?!?! Leaving the gas station I notice a couple of army tanks behind a fence. Now I know desert folks are packrats, but its not often you come across a tank. Turns out it is the General Patton Museum. In 1942, General Patton was ordered to set up at desert training center to train men and test equipment in desert warfare. At the time, Rommel was pushing through Egypt and the USA needed to stop his advances in Northern Africa. In a short 4 month period over a million men trained at the center doing tactical tank exercises, desert marches, desert survival and acclamation to the point where every man could run 1 mile in 10 minutes in full gear. After a few pictures, we continued on the 10 east to the 177.

Second leg: North on the 177 then east on the 62 to Parker Arizona. Typical So Cal desert terrain, not much to see. In Parker we fuel up, grab a snack and drink at the AM/PM and I ditch the electric vest and Aerostitch suit for my mesh jacket as it nearly 90 degrees already. Its around 10 or 10:30 am. Out of Parker we head north on the 95 along the Colorado river, through Lake Havasu City and pickup Interstate 40 north to Kingman, Arizona where Richard gets a splash of gas to top off his tank. North on the 93 take us to Hover Dam where we stop for a short break, take pictures, and point and gawk like tourists. On several 2 lane highways we circle around the west side of Lake Mead. We pass a motorcycle vs. auto accident but are waved on by the numerous people already stopped. Later we find out the Honda Civic pulled out in front of the Honda VFR. The rider was ok with only a broken collar bone and misc. bumps and bruises. We get to the entrance of Valley of Fire State park on highway 169. This is a pretty cool area with a lot of neat rock formations, petrified wood, and other natural formations. It is only about 50miles out of Las Vegas so I think it would be worth a trip back to further explore. We hit the I-15 at about 3:30pm, 494 miles down, half way there! We pull into a large truck stop for fuel and a lunch break. Well, apparently it was a large truck stop…at some point. It looked like a Flying J or TA travel center; it was huge, with a separate 15 pump Diesel station on one end for big rigs. We walk in to the big building: 2/3 of it is a fireworks store with isles and isles of bithching fireworks that would give California lawmakers coronaries, 1/6 a quickie mart and Indian trinket stand, and 1/6 “open soon” food court. Hmmmmm, not good. So we ask the cashier if they have any food and we find the “hot dogs on heat rollers” in the back. But after 11 hrs of not eating, it looked a lot more appetizing than it should have. We each fire down a dog and Pepsi to hold us over till we can find some decent food.

Third Leg: We drone north on the 15 for about 100 miles till we find an Arbys to eat at in Utah. I never thought a Beef-N-Cheddar could make me so happy. We relax for about half an hour and hit the road. Its somewhere around 6pm and going to get dark soon. We turn east on the 9 and head towards Zion National Park. At the entrance to the park we stop for fuel, and I prepare for the dark and cold by getting into my electric vest and Aerostich suit again. I’ve never been to Zion and wish we could have gotten there during the daylight. Not only to see the sites, but the roads suck, were narrow, and no guard rails off the sheer drops. Needless to say we got behind some cars going through and just let them lead the way and light up the road with their lights. We turned north on the 89 and then west on the 89 to the 14 to the 149 to 143 which circled Brians Head ski resort. We were up in the mountains now the temps dropped to the 40’s and it was prime deer country. The sides of the roads were a mix of heavily wooded areas or grass planes. It was pitch black and the extra Piaa driving lights worked fantastic. The roads were windy and in daylight you could easily cruise at 70mph. But in the dark with warning of deer crossings, we held it at 50-55mph and spend a nerve racking couple of hours scanning for deer. By riding side by side, with all our lights on (a total of two H1 halogens, 2 H3 halogens, 2 H4 halogens, one HID and 2 fog lights) we could see pretty well at 50mph, except around corners. By the time we hit Parowan, UT on highway 143 we had seen 4 deer, almost hit one of them, seen two owls, missed 3 or 4 rabbits, hit one rabbit, and seen one cat and one dog. I wonder if those deer whistles work, because if they do I will strap a dozen of them to my bike next time. We jump on the I-15 south to the 56 west which turns into the 319 when we cross back into Utah. Some more deer country where we take it easy and follow a diesel fume belching dualie down some twisty parts. It gets damn cold going over a couple of the 4,000+ foot passes, I am glad I put my heated arm chaps on at Parowan. Still wearing my summer gloves because I need the dexterity to work the controls, throttlemeister, led light to read the map and route chart, etc. The heated grips and plastic hand guards make it tolerable but I do need to get some warmer gloves. South on the 93 is about 80 miles of boring, perfectly straight two lane. For the first time I notice I’m a little tired. We stop for fuel at around 12:30am at the lovely Del Pueblo Truck stop. This is probably the crappiest gas station I have ever seen. It’s an old Exxon station that all the Exxon signs have been spray painted over. The entire lot is pockmarked dirt and gravel even around the pumps, no pavement. Due to years of traffic, the dirt around the pumps are about a foot and a half lower than the bottom of the pump so you feel like a midget pumping gas. The pump flows about a gallon a minute, and the no-name fuel smells like a cross between stale gas and carb cleaner. Probably Pemex’s (Mexican gasoline) finest. I go to push my bike off the center stand and right as it comes off, the front wheel hits a hole in the dirt, stops, and all the momentum pushes the bike away from me. It starts listing starboard and once over center, I realize there is no way I can keep this 600 pound top heavy bike up. So I go into “set it down as easy as you can” mode and will all my might slow it sideway progress as much as I can and set her down gently. Over she went onto the side bag and crash bars. The brand new PIAA light took a hit and the mirror rotated loose. Typically no big deal…if you had a freeking gas cap that held fuel! As soon as she goes belly-up, fuel starts gushing out. CRAP! I gotta get this sucker upright! The proper procedure for righting a big, heavy bike is to face away from it, grab the handlebar and rear fender, and lift with your legs. To hell with proper, I got to get this sucker upright before the gallons of fuel gushing on the hot motor go up in flames. I grab the hand grip which is melting in my hands from the gasoline and jerk the sucker upright. I figure if the stories about women lifting a car off their child with unexplainable superhuman strength are remotely true, I ought to be able to get this pig upright. I get it almost all the way up and it start rolling on me. Crap, I’m going to walk this sucker in a circle while giving myself a hernia in BFE in the the middle of the night. I manage to grab some front brake and get it upright and roll it off to the side to survey the damage. I usually placed my gloves in my top box when I retrieved my wallet to pump fuel. This time I just set them on the tank bag, where they were tossed to the ground to adsorb the gas before soaking into the dirt. Great. It 40 degrees, 12:30am, and my gloves have more fuel in them than my gas tank. Luckily I had a spare pair of gloves, some huge, bulky heated gloves that I borrowed from a friend that make working controls nearly impossible. Oh well, they will have to do. I dry my tank bag and gloves the best I can with paper towels and we carry on.

Final leg: We hit the 15 south about 100 north of Las Vegas and super slab it the rest of the way to Laughlin on the 94. We stop in Vegas to get Richard another splash of gas. The last 170 miles the lack of sleep started really taking effect. We were both fighting to stay awake on the boring freeway. We pushed on and got a boost of energy when we could finally see the lights of Laughlin. The 163 into Laughlin gets into so cool high-speed twisties just before the city so we got a little high speed lean on with our renewed vigor. We roll into the River Palms Casino at 3:35am. 21.5 hours total, 1077miles, 17.5 hours in the saddle, 61.4 MPH average moving speed, 50 MPH average speed overall. Unsure of fuel consumption, but probably around 27 gallons. A quick $4.26 breakfast buffet at the hotel and I’m off to sleep at 4:30am. At 11am the Red Hot Riders held a breakfast buffet and banquet at the hotel. Door prizes were given out and won a $50 gift certificate and Richard won a tire pressure gauge. We found out there were a total of 3 crashes on the ride, although there must have been one more as a Kawasaki Ninja in the parking lot in the morning had the entire front fairing and headlight held on with duct tape and cardboard. Sadly, one of the riders passed away from his accident. There was no obvious reason for his crash so they suspect it was actually a heart attack that caused his crash. A hat was passed around at the banquet to help out his wife, and less than 90 people contributed over $1300. Good job.

Ride Home: Crap, I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m still 300 miles from home. We left Laughlin at 2pm on Sunday after the banquet and superslabbed it the whole way home: 163 to 95 to the 40 to 15 to 18 to 138 to Pearblossom to the 14 south and back to my house. Richard had another hour or so to get home. Ride home was dull and boring as expected. Overall, I would classify the trip as an Adventure, not sure that “fun” is the right word, but glad I accomplished my first SS1000. I think I’ll hold off on anything longer until I’m old enough to own a Goldwing.

Mike

PS: Pics to follow.

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G-ForceJunkie

Pics

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G-ForceJunkie

and more pics to follow

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G-ForceJunkie

final pics

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Leelover

Nice write up! Congrats on a safe successful ride!
Now that I have a bike capable of this kind of thing I am looking into it.
But I realize it is harder than it sounds even when you describe it so well.
The previous owner of my FJR is an Iron Butt member. He is doing that Key west to Prudhoe Bay trip next year.

__________________
"The Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing." Herger the Joyous

G-ForceJunkie

The SS1000 is not that hard if your prepared. You on ly have to average like 43 mph. We arrived with several hours to spare, and when you figure the picture stops, rest stops, hour long lunch stop, etc you can see we did not havt to push it or speed at all. For the record, ths photo with my spedo is before I replaced my spedo drive gear and it was reading 9% high. Anyways, it works out to around 17 hours of actualy riding, you could stop at at motel and grab a 4 hour nap if you needed to. The key is being in shape for long streches in the saddle, I was doing 300 mile runs everyweekend for a month and a half before the ride.

oldgoat

Cool write up G- Force . Sounds like something I'd like to try one day.