"
So Grandpa, what did you do during the great 2020 Covid lock down?"
"Well, young man I figuratively got off my butt and then literally got back on it and did a SaddleSore 1000."
Nothing quite so inspires social isolation like searching for someone to ride with you on an Iron Butt ride. That’s probably why most are done alone, as was mine. Although my regular riding buddy Butch and I had planned one as a loop ride never leaving the state, we never did it. I had thought about it, but two things kept me from bringing it up, the heat and the Covid 19 spike around late June. The original idea was to make the ride in late June to maximize the daylight time. My friend Butch really doesn’t like night riding (or even tunnels) so we would need to do our run together in late May or early July but preferably late June would be best. September would be out of the question for Butch as there would just be too much riding in the dark. The loop ride in Texas may still happen someday.
After the COG National rally was cancelled, Butch and I decided to cancel our planned trip to Alaska as well. I had accepted it then as there were too many unknowns ahead at the time. However after a long summer of …not much really..I decided that I needed to do something that would salvage something from this crappy year. I’m now 70 years old and decided that things are not going to get easier in the future, so I planned an Iron Butt ride for September. I laid out my plan on a spread sheet and emailed it to Butch and he (as I suspected) declined the offer.
My basic plan was to ride from Fort Worth TX to Provo Utah. Rest a day, and then see some sights and twisty roads stretched over 4 days on the way back home. It all worked out very well, no rain, no mechanical issues, no tire issues, and most important NO DEER issues. The first 5 hours of the trip were the ones that most concerned me because of darkness and the increased possibility of a deer strike. During the first day I never saw a deer dead or alive anywhere along the 1131 miles. I didn’t really start the ride from home, but rather from a small town about 40 miles away. Since I never sleep well at home before a trip, I decided to stay up all night and then ride to a hotel nearby and after an early check-in go right to bed wearing ear plugs and sleep until midnight. I brought along a timer switch for use on the hotel’s bedside lamps to ensure I’d not sleep through the alarm with the ear plugs in. It all worked out very well. I slept very well and the lamps came on only a couple of minutes before the alarm on my phone. I love it when a plan of mine all works out. I wish more of them did. Anyway, I got up and showered, drank coffee, ate powdered donuts, checked out and headed for the nearby gas station. First gas receipt at 1:17 AM and the last at 7:49 PM and then add an hour due to time zone difference and that’s 19 hours 32 minutes to go 1,131 miles according to Google maps, or 1,115.5 miles according to my bikes “B” trip meter using a 55 series rear tire. By my calculations that’s only an average of 57.9 mph, not what I’d call a blistering pace. Trip photos link below.
Hopefully I’ve been able to jump through all the correct hoops and I should hopefully receive my certificate before the end of the year, so I at least will have something to show for the year besides mere survival
(fingers crossed, and mask on for the latter since the year still has a ways to go yet). Regardless of whether my ride gets certified by the IBA, at least I’ll know I did it.
For my next challenge I will attempt to cut my own hair which hasn’t been cut since February, and no, don’t expect photos of that.
Photos Linkedit: I forgot to add the books I listened to during the trip. Robert B. Parker's
IronHorse (IRON..
get it? 
) and Lee Child's
Night School
