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ERIC SOWERS' RIDE REPORT
Let me make it clear for the reader that I am not a hard-core long distance bug-eating, rubber-smoking endurance rider. I had a loose week in my schedule, and my pal Packrat Bob Johannesen brought up the idea, and we went for it. We’d ride Butt Lite as a team, do as well as we could, and have fun while we’re at it. Also, I am a minimalist rider and showed up with a motorcycle and a spare set of skivvies in case of emergency. (Fortunately, no emergency occurred, and when I got back home I was able to return them to my clean clothes drawer.)
On the 23rd, I rode down to Dallas to check in at Chateau Johannesen. It made a nice 700 mile shakedown cruise, with good mpg checks under all driving conditions. With the 6.6 gallon fuel tank on my BMW, and no auxiliary, my total range was pretty close to Bob’s range with the auxiliary on his Hardly Ableson. We had a pair of Chatterbox radios for communication, but no way to check or adjust them before the event, and Murphy’s Law set in with a vengeance – at anything over about 2500 rpm, the reception was comparable to a crummy cell phone in the Amazon basin. Bob moved his unit from his tank to his helmet, a modest improvement. On the other hand, in city traffic, where we needed it most, the communications were crystal clear.
Saturday morning we fired up and headed for Nekkid Navasota. Got the bikes checked and ran back up to College Station for one last good night’s sleep for an entire week. Sunday we returned for the banquet and route sheets, then blitzed back to the hotel for route planning.
Our strategy was to obtain as many bonus points as we could without jeopardizing our check-in times. Bob had drawn concentric 150 mile circles on maps, and estimated three hours per circle, outward from each checkpoint, for “drop dead” times. During the ride, we cut two checkpoints close but avoided time-barring with this low-tech method. We were able to estimate how far ahead or behind schedule we were at any location.
On the first leg we drove to Dallas for the cow bonus. We found the statue after a rush-hour thunderstorm. Nice statue. I’d love to spend a couple of hours looking at it. On my own time. In the ranching biz, though, when counting cattle the rule is the cattle move and the cowboy is stationary, not the other way around. Counting statues of longhorns on steroids is an abominable crime against nature, but a bonus is a bonus, so we counted. And counted. We counted separately. We counted together. We scratched our heads and recounted. During all this counting, Bob decided to fling himself – and his Polaroid – to the ground. The Polaroid went into the trashcan and Bob’s thumb took on the pastel colors of a grape. “Looks broken,” I said. “Nah. Just a sprain. Besides, if it’s broken, all they’ll do is tape it,” he replied. “Well, no,” I said. “They can drill it and tap it. When my nephew broke his finger in the same place, they put a wire halo rig on it for three months. Looked like a little radar antenna every time he gave somebody the finger.” We still didn’t know how many head of statuary there were, having come up with different numbers on every count. We got 40 twice, though, and settled on it.
On to Wichita. The rain had ceased and we were left with Texas steam, which, true to form, is muggier than steam anywhere else in the known universe. When we crossed the border into Oklahoma, there was a distinct drop in the mugginess. (I’ve ridden Oklahoma a bunch. Lerner and Lowe knew what they were talking about when they wrote the lyric, “wind goes sweeping ‘cross the plains.” “Howling” doesn’t have that same ring, but would have been more accurate. When a bike comes into the shop for a tire change and the wear is all on one side, you know the rider’s been in Oklahoma.) We bypassed the eastern bonuses for the sake of progress, and shot across northeastern Missouri to arrive at Des Moines for our sleep bonus.
Des Moines -- City of Surly Desk Clerks. Our first attempt met with the biblical “no room at the inn,” delivered in authoritative tones. Might have been the pound and a half of road dust that settled off our duds onto the lobby floor, helmets in hand, looking like the Joad family advance party. Or it might have been the golf tournament. We hit paydirt on our next stab at it, though, landing a room in the Mariott along with the golfers and their entourages. Two a.m., lugging load after load of stuff sacks and gear through the marble lobby, but did we care? The clerk injured his neck elevating his nose, but did we care? The checkout clerk refusing to give us duplicate receipts with the times stamped on them, but did we care? HELL YES, we cared. It took the thinly veiled threat of, “You’re going to have to write that out in a signed statement on the back of the receipt, and be sure to add a telephone number, because the Hotel Manager WILL be contacted by higher authority for verification that the two of us were right here, in this hotel, for the time stated,” to get results. The guy probably thought we were establishing a homicide alibi. On to Iowa City for pre-breakfast bonuses.
Why does the water tower at Iowa City say “Coralville?” What does coral have to do with Iowa, anyway? At this stage of the event, I still had enough neurons firing to ponder stuff like this. Back to Des Moines for one of those pricey shot glasses of barbecue sauce from Big Daddy, who maybe remodeled his restaurant courtesy of Butt Lite III. . . but in fairness, a very little bit of that sauce goes a looooooong way. That little jar would last a year for a family of six. Your tongue grows back in a month or so.
Made it to Monticello in plenty of time to check in, and we were surprised to wind up in the twenties in the standings. We grabbed the route sheets and did some quick preliminary planning, and then, for Team Mediocre, things went to hell in a handbasket in a hurry.
Our overall strategy, which never failed WHEN WE FOLLOWED IT, was to get the route sheet and immediately study it, lay out a route, and stick to it. First consideration is close-in bonus locations, because points (like runway) behind you are totally useless. Second consideration: Never risk missing the checkpoint over bonus points. What we did right was to read the sheet immediately and spot the coffee mug bonus. What we did wrong was to go all the way to St. Cloud before doing our route planning. What we did really wrong was to pick the worst possible route south to the Interstate – we hit construction and a detour, and lost about six hours reaching the Interstate. We only picked up a handful of points and reached the checkpoint about ten minutes prior to the cutoff.
It was a memorable night; we went from over a hundred degrees through the Badlands down to the twenties in Montana. About 2 a.m. (What is it about 2 a.m.? Everything happens at 2 a.m.) I passed a couple of eighteen-wheelers, then flipped on my Piaa’s and saw, to my shock and dismay, a deer staking out the centerline about fifty feet ahead. I swerved, but Bob nailed him with his highway bar. One of Bob’s running lights caved in from the impact and the other one popped out of the socket and dangled like an eyeball from the wiring loom until we pulled over and stuffed it back in. Bob carries a toolkit that would make a professional garage envious, so the job was over in minutes. I held the flashlight.
The other memorable thing about that night was the temperature. I’ve ridden my bike when it was in the low twenties, but can’t recall ever being that cold. The electric vest didn’t dent it. We stopped for gas at Butte, picking a touristy truck stop so I could grab a sweat shirt. Standing in a sea of Montana tank tops, I asked for a sweat shirt and was told, “Ain’t got any. It’s still summertime.” Dejected, I returned to my Beemer, chipped the ice off the saddle, and hit the road for Post Falls.
The third leg got underway with blood oaths that we weren’t going to cut it that close ever again. Never, never, never ever. Not us. No way. We smoked through Spokane, then cut south to Burns (not Burns Junction. That would be too easy, right? Eddie? Right?). Getting to Burns, though, took us across the Columbia River and down to Pendleton in some pretty stiff winds. Like Oklahoma with a chill. In fact, the Columbia River is the Mecca of the sailboarding world, where some obscure combination of the hot Washington desert combines with the cold air falling down the slope of the Cascades to produce a 24/7 wind that is one of the strongest in the world. Didja know that, Adam & Eddie? Just before Pendleton our brains pulled a sit-down strike on us and we pulled into a rest stop, illegally drove our bikes around to the picnic area, and flopped where we dropped. In a moment of weakness I considered changing my skivvies to the clean pair, but didn’t want to waste the time. Apparently, the wind blows there often, because all the shrubbery braces were canted over about sixty degrees. There wasn’t a vertical plant or tree in the place. After two hours, I woke up feeling like my sinuses were packed with cotton and the trolls had been working on my throat with a wood rasp, pulled on my heavy winter gloves and wrapped a pair of pants around my head to keep warm.
Another hour and we were ready to go. While Bob secured his rigging, I fired up and turned my bike around. The combo of wet grass and an uphill turn left me flat on my butt in the grass again, this time with the bike on top of me, contrary to the rules of physics. No damage, so it was time to Press On, Regardless – southward, ever southward.
To reach Burns, we had to navigate the Malheur (French for “Bad Time”) Forest. Eastern Oregon is full of “Malheur” this and “Malheur” that; there was some guy named Malheur, or the pioneers were totally fed up by that stage of their trip. Probably like BLIII riders. The Malheur Forest is a cluster of mini-mountains with lots of trees with plenty of mule deer living amongst them, waiting to bound out in front of motorcyclists. The Malheur Forest is cold, too, in the early morning. We had two more chances at venison jerkey, and one chance for steaks from the herd of cattle lounging on the shoulder behind a blind hairpin curve, but since we didn’t have time to build a fire we swerved around them.
I’m sure glad we had room in our tanks for gas at Burns so we didn’t have to pump it on the ground just to get that bonus, Eddie. Oh… You meant Burns Junction? Oops – our mistake. On to Bend and then down to Crater Lake, then further down to California in time to see Mt. Shasta in the sunset (absolutely beautiful). We blitzed through the mountains, one sweeper after another, being passed like we were standing still by the elderly, the infirm, soccer moms with the team and gear, you name it, it passed by in a blur. I ripped around a blind sweeper and changed lanes to avoid rear-ending a Highway Patrol cruiser, but when I compliantly pulled over and waited for the handcuffs he jumped the divider and took off in the other direction.
Brian Roberts caught us, rode with us for about thirty seconds, and then, bored with our snailish progress, resumed the pace of the ambient traffic – warp six. I think he waved, but it might be a trick of relativity.
The fatigue was starting to hit us pretty hard on this leg, and by midnight we were riding an hour, snoozing for thirty minutes. And what’s the deal with the stink down toward Bakersfield? Are they raising manure? Is that a cash crop? We made it to the checkpoint with minutes – about five minutes – to spare, and headed for the restaurant for the first real meal since Navasota. At a table. With utensils. I ate anything I could catch.
What’s the difference between a cobalt-blue coffee cup and a thumb? None. When they hit the ground, they break. Also, by this time, Bob’s coffee cup and his thumb were about the same color. “Man, I think you broke your thumb.” “Nah,” he said. “It’s just jammed.”
“Think you might have gangrene setting in?” I asked, helpfully.
“Nah. It’s it’s not green. It’s blue.”
On to Texas. But first we had to cross the dreaded Mojave Desert, backwards from west to east. Appropriately, we grabbed burgers in the town of Mojave, and to avoid the heat struck south to Interstate 10. Preston Bebee, who sucked it up and crossed the heart of the desert on Interstate 40, reported balmy temperatures all the way to Arizona. We, on the other hand, nearly fried alive, and it was midnight. The heat baked up from the median like an open oven. Well, DUH.
Arizona had the neatest rest stops of any state on the trip. And the hottest, and the most spidery. By this time, we were both a little conservative about flopping on the ground to sleep, because there are things out there in the desert. We adopted the precaution of elevating ourselves onto the benches, first checking under the tables for black widows. The sidewinders can’t climb worth doodly-squat. On to Tombstone, Wyatt and Doc and the Clantons and bikers out enjoying the Labor Day Weekend, where we grabbed a gas receipt and burned rubber. The Hill Country went by in a blur, and then down to Live Oak where there was a shower with my name on it. If I’d jumped in the pool without it, they’d be de-scumming through the next millennium. Larry runs a mighty fine resort.
I won’t presume to speak for Bob, but I met my goals: Have a good time, ride hard, and finish. Riding as a team has the benefit of psychologically propping each other up, plus better planning. The disadvantage is a slower pace because of two different fatigue schedules. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. For me, riding with a buddy you know you can depend on, outweighs any other consideration.
Also, luck is a huge factor in this event. No amount of planning will remove a traffic snarl, closed road, toad-choker storm, or un-break a coffee cup. All a rider can do is his best, then the dice take over.
Adam and Eddie run a very smooth operation. I’d guess this is the second-toughest endurance rally in the world, and the only one that’s realistically attainable for most of us. I hope they keep truckin’ on down the road with Butt Lite, and I’m proud to have been a participant. Thanks too, for the hospitality of all the folks who lent their facilities to a bunch of stinky degenerates at the checkpoints.
There is a stretch of road in Wyoming, near Devil’s Tower. It’s smooth as glass, no traffic to speak of, snaking through the foothills of the Rockies. The air is so clear you can see the next century. I was on that stretch of road at psychological low tide -- tired as a dog, with the beginning barely behind me and the end nowhere in sight -- when I keyed the radio and said, “Man, as hammered as I feel right now, this is a thousand times better than sitting behind a desk in the office.” And I still feel that way.
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