Chad Baird's Ride Report MTF  50CC/100CCC Iron Butt Association Ride

The night before

I had planned on staying at the hotel with the rest of the riders but my budget for this trip was minimal and a friend of mine who lives in Jacksonville made me an offer I couldn't refuse, a free bed for the night.  Sounds like I missed out on some fun and excitement at the hotel though, next time I’ll make sure I link up with the riders before hand.

The riders

There are only two people I regularly ride with now, my wife and one other buddy. Growing up I was the only kid I knew to have a motorcycle (minibike), and now I pretty much use my motorcycle for work, it just doesn't occur to me to seek out other people that ride.  One aspect of riding I enjoy is linking up with strangers riding with them for 100 miles and never getting their name. That’s what draws me to riding, meeting complete strangers.   

This ride would be a lot of firsts for me; first time riding with more than two people, first time riding more than 800 miles in a stretch, first time riding across the country. I was excited.

All the riders met at a gas station in Jacksonville Beach, FL about an hour before we were to set off for our cross-country adventure. There were nine of us leaving from Jacksonville to San Diego and five people leaving from San Diego to Jacksonville.  

 Alan Leduc set up this ride from the MTF (Motorcycle Tourer's Forum.) Alan is one hell of a nice guy and an awesome rider too.

Alan and his buddies from the MTF arranged our witnesses. He routed the entire trip and I never got lost; the directions were excellent. Two of the five people coming from California, Yogi and Ken, were riding what the Iron Butt Association calls the100CCC Insanity. That’s one hundred hours coast to coast to coast.  These guys are complete nuts, I’m must just be half nuts. The other three coming from San Diego either threw in the towel because of mechanical problems or for safety reasons. There is no shame in aborting a trip like this, had the circumstances been any different I might have aborted also. 

All the Guys riding from Jacksonville made the ride on time to San Diego. I was really surprised to meet a bunch of very humble, personable people on the other end of the United States. Some past experiences with some motorcycle riders I’ve met have not been worth mentioning, I guess riders are people and people can be mean.  I’m really glad I met these guys; they'll have a place in my heart for years to come.

I think I’ve finally found my niche in the motorcycling world.

The ride to San Diego, Day 1

We started out by collecting water from the Atlantic Ocean and then went and got our gas receipts, the time on the receipt would be our starting time. I believe I left at 6:55 a.m. Woohoo, I’m five minutes ahead of schedule.  I had some serious butterflies in my stomach till around Texas, I’m riding across the whole United States how exciting! 

There wasn't much traffic riding through Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi but when I got to Louisiana the traffic was pretty thick due to construction. The eastern part of the States is fairly uninteresting, what is neat is that you get a new perspective on the geography while riding across the States. Florida goes down hill to Alabama then Mississippi through Louisiana it’s very low, and there’s lots of water and bridges. You start climbing again ever so slightly riding up to San Antonio, after that you start heading down into the desert, it’s flat as can be till about Fort Stockton, Texas or so, and then you start climbing again into El Paso, Texas. Interestingly enough, the map of this area around El Paso, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona is exactly like the road, pretty cool.

Exit 661 in Texas was one of my stops for fuel. There turned out to be no gas station there but I did stop and try the local BarBQ, the food was awesome and the entertainment was even better. I had never seen a living armadillo before and it would be my luck at this particular barBQ joint one of the cooks was chasing the poor animal around and snapping it with a dishtowel. Maybe this is why so many armadillos commit suicide and run out in the road? 

The last person I saw heading to San Diego was Yogi it was very late at night and I was moving really fast. I thought about dropping in behind him and riding with him the rest of the way but before I knew it I was past him, besides I was having a good time setting the road on fire. I ran out of gas at one point, combination of the head winds and high speeds sucked up 7.5 gallons of fuel, good thing I had a spare gallon of gas.  Four of five gas stops later, its late night in Texas. The desert was getting windy and believe it or not it’s getting cold and I’m getting tired. I pulled over into a picnic area pulled out my mat and blanket and slept like a rock on the ground next to my trusty steed. That was the end of my very first 1200-mile day  I was whopped. I got four hours of sleep.

Day two

4am wake up; Picnic area somewhere in Texas

I woke up to the sounds of bats squawking in the trees and the purr of the tractor-trailer engines idling. My eyes were watering really bad and coffee and smokes from the night before made my mouth taste like crap. To say the least, I wasn't doing or feeling very well.

Fort Stockton was the next stop if I remember right, I washed my face and brushed my teeth gassed up and kept trucking. MAN, Texas is a LONG state, specially if your not used to it, going home wouldn't be as bad. I hauled butt the rest of the way through Texas and New Mexico. About 150 miles from Tucson I stopped for gas and called my wife, “Caryn, I’m alive, I made it through Texas, now where the hell am I and how much time do I have left?? “ She assured me I had plenty of time to get a hotel room  at least four hours of sleep and a shower. Around noon Exit 264 I pulled off, I was burning up, the temp was 120 deg on the bike.. I got a hotel room and tried to sleep for four hours.

Sleep wasn't to be; 30 min into my slumber two very strung out looking dudes started banging on my door and my window . BANG BANG BANG , I woke up opened the door no one was there. OK DAMMIT who’s knocking on my door?  I crawl back in bed. Not a second later. BANG BANG, knock knock knock   OK, now I awake and I’m getting REAL irritated. First I pull back the curtain, no cops and no one has a gun drawn, I open the door.  I ask these two jerk offs’s in the most irritated alpha male guy voice  “CAN I HELP YOU?”  The stunned looks on their faces were priceless. Guess they didn't expect anyone to open the door yelling?? They didn't say a thing, I knew they had no business with me and I wasn't in the most caring mood, after all they just banged on my door for the past five min.  I slammed that hotel door with everything I had in their faces, woohoo, I’m not sleepy anymore. I was hopping mad. What are the chances?? Jeez!! How is it possible to get a better sleep on the ground in a rest area than a hotel I just paid $40 for??  Ok ok ok, now I’m awake, nothing left to do but find food and get back on the road. I ate chicken fried stake at Denny’s , yum yum..

Around 2pm I get back on the road. The traffic has lightened up and the heat seemed to have intensified. The sun was so intense. S’ok in a few hours it'll be dark right?? Heh, right.

I finished off I-10 and merged onto I8 with no problems. 350 miles to go!! About that time is when I realized just how far I’ve come, holy shit, I’ve ridden more than ¾ of the way across the country in the middle of the desert and I’m almost there. This would be the longest 350 miles of my life. The temperature was HOT the roads were straight, there was no shade but the traffic was light.  The winds were strong, I’d say about 20mph from the west, I rode on a angle for about 400 to 500 miles, this last stretch was going to test my upper limits of endurance.

Fast forward to the base of the California Mountains; after what was a grueling 250 miles or so I stopped to get gas, the end was in sight.  I was at the base of the mountains and I knew on the other side of these mountains lay the ocean and finally the end of this leg of the road trip. I was exhilarated yet depressed in a odd way.  I paid $2.05 per gallon for fuel at that last gas station. Yep, I was getting closer to California.

After getting a picture of our trusty boarder patrol guys I hopped back on the bike for what would be the scariest 100 miles of my 2400-mile west bound journey. I’ve done my fair share of riding in foul weather; actually I enjoy the challenge of riding in less than perfect weather.  The winds on this particular mountain range we're to test my stick-to-it-ness. Picture this, to keep the bike going straight I had to lean it to the right about 20 deg, this gives you a picture of how strong the winds were blowing. Now add  50 mph wind blasts when you least expect it and the bike would roll to the point of peg dragging. This would be my first time being totally absolutely scared, as in white knuckle scared, while riding a motorcycle. Add fatigue from lack of sleep and getting beat up by the wind turbulence for the past 1000 miles and now temperature dropped from 100deg to about 40deg in a matter of minutes, so now not only was I scared but I’m getting cold too, cripes I’m never going to forget this. 

Hooray, I made to California alive!! After one more Border patrol checkpoint I rolled onto the San Diego beach access about 8:15 p.m. got my sand and water and went to the gas station. 8:30 p.m. it said wooohooo, I had yet to count the hours up but I made it in 40 something hours. After driving around a-bit I finally found Hotel Circle South I linked up with the witness and realized all that worrying I had done since this morning thinking I was going to be the last one in was for nothing. Alan, Yogi and a few others had rolled in some five hours or so before me, damn, I was hauling too. Guess I have a lot to learn about making better times when riding LD like this. If I had taken it easier the first night not ridden as fast and not stopped earlier that afternoon I’d have been a few hours earlier. Oh well, live and learn at least I made the ride.

The very first thing I did after the witness fixed me up was to call my wife and let her know I made it to San Diego, the next was to find some food. I had 20 very spicy and very expensive chicken wings. Did I mention California is expensive??

The next morning was the second highlight of the trip, meeting all those guys on the other end to share stories was an experience I’ll never forget.  All of us looked pretty whipped, we stood around for most of the morning swapping stories and sharing some much needed laughs.  After we had lunch together we all split off and went our separate ways. PirateJohn and I took a detour back to the beach to get some our pictures taken with some cute California girls that I’ve only seen on TV. I gotta tell ya, PirateJohn is one smooth character, I bet he can smooth talk a lizard out of it’s skin. Note to self; You need to do some traveling with John someday, that should prove entertaining. 

Leaving California heading to Phoenix I encountered the WORST sand storm ever. I could see it 150 miles away as I came out of the mountains that separated San Diego from the desert.  It looked like storm you’d see in Florida except it started from the ground and rose up to a flat top, just like a reverse thunderhead. I just kept heading towards it  la la la la, just riding along, ok so it was getting windier and darker, sand was blowing across the road like you’d see in a snow storm.  I’ve dealt with the wind for the past 2500 miles how bad could this be? I say to myself.  All the sudden, just like that, wham, the wind picked up to a roar the sun was gone, sand was beating my face and I was almost pushed over. All hail Mother Nature! I couldn’t even hold 50mph, I had to stop and remove my helmet visor and my sunglasses, because my helmet was being blown off.  I eventually made it through the storm, it stretched from California to Yuma, AZ. Wow.

I made Phoenix around night fall spent two days there with the family and trucked back home again. On the way home I did another1000 mile days back to back for practice. 

My routine on the bike for 5500 miles; Drink some water, eat a granola bar, smoke a smoke, stretch, adjust my gear, check my gas, check to make sure I headed in the right direction, stop to pee. Repeat that about 500 times.

Next year I hope to ride with Alan and my new found buds on whatever crazy adventures he might come up with. Mostly because Alan is meticulous about his driving directions and planning.