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Originally Posted by Road Glider
Dwarthog, Nice pic and scoot man. I envy you. Tell us about your trip. I bet you have some stories to tell.
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Road Glider, it was a very fun time, and one that I will be doing again this year as well!
Day one of the trip was scheduled as taking a shot at an Ironbutt ride. The documented route I was going to take for this attempt started in Rochester,MN and was going to end in Laurel, MT with a small ride down to Red Lodge, MT and then back up Laurel, to make sure I had more than enough miles to successfully meet the requirements of 1k miles in a 24 hour period of time.
The morning of July 14th found me filling my tank at 3:50 am in Rochester,MN at one of the local Kwik Trips to get the necessary gas receipt which would document the starting point and time of my Ironbutt ride. Some friends met me there as well to sign a witness form that I had indeed been there and that they are willing to be contacted by the Ironbutt org, and will verify that I was indeed there at said place and time. There was a group of us going to Red Lodge, to attend the Beartooth rally, of which they were part of, however I was the only one of the group making the ride on a motorcycle. They were trailering their bikes.
By 4am I was heading west on I-90, which is where I would be until 8:30pm that night, with the exception of a 1 hour detour down to Red Lodge and back on highway 212.
As you might imagine, riding a major interstate like that is not all that exciting, not much for twisties to throw the bike around on, and not a whole lot in the way of scenery, but the big advantage is you can really cover the miles with the speed limit at 75 which meant most of the time I was really running at 80.
Up until about 8am, when I arrived in Souix Falls, SD I was pretty much having your typical interstate ride. Stopping about every 2 hours to get more gas and gas receipts and bemoaning the fact that I even had to stop. Where are those 6+ gallon HD fuel cell options so I can stretch it out further between stops along with wondering, what would the addition of a 6 speed get me for additional range in this situation?
So, I am hitting the east side of Souix Falls, SD at 8am just as the first of what appears to be a never ending line of Corvette's is merging onto the interstate. Wow, talk about a change in conditions! From what I could tell, there was just about any year vintage, along with any sort of high perf package you could get for one of those puppies, and they were heading west too! Let the fun begin now!
It had to be a grand total of 5 minutes after I encountered the first vettes before several of them hooked up and starting heading west with some serious speed! I decided what the hell and hooked up with them too! Unfortunately I was about 1/2 of the way into a tank of gas! They finally settled down at a little over 100mph+ so I set the cruise and ran with them for about 80 miles before I had to pull of for more gas. As I was filling up, a vette pulls in for some gas and I asked them what the deal was and he informs me there is a Corvette rally taking place out in Spearfish! So for the next several hundred miles, I experienced really bad gas mileage, due to an extreme head wind and running at high speeds whenever I found a group of vettes that were interested in covering some ground! I have to say that running with those guys made the ride a lot more fun, I just wished I was able to go longer between fuel stops.
After seperating from the Corvettes in the Spearfish area, the rest of the trip was without any noteworthy incidents. Just covering miles and putting in gas until it I arrived at the hotel in Laurel.
While making the ride down to Red Lodge to be sure I had plenty of miles, the rest of the group had arrived in Laurel and had checked in by the time I got back to the hotel. They were just walking over to get something to eat when I pulled in for the final fillup of the day. So I had one of them sign the witness form indicating I was there at that day and time etc. which wrapped up the Ironbutt portion of the trip.
The next item on the agenda was some beer and food, and get some rest before the start of the Rally!
Total miles for the day, 1045 according to the speedo. Mapquest comes up with a little less than that, but more than enough to qualify for and Ironbutt patch!
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