So, I knocked it off yesterday with another friend who also enjoys long days in the saddle.
1910 total KM in just a 21 Hours and 16 Minutes.
The day got started a few minutes late (we'd planned KSU for 4AM) as my riding buddy had a snafu involving his alarm clock LOL - no biggie, I was running slightly behind as well. I didn't sleep worth a crap despite going to bed at 7:30 - I always sleep fitfully and not restfully before anything big/exciting the next day.
Hit the 401 around 4:30AM. Murphy's law struck almost immediately - just as the light at the onramp turned green and we roared off, I was reaching for the volume control on my radio..and it fell off, surely never to be seen again. And my volume was sitting at ZERO. Wonderful...5 minutes into a 21 hour Iron Butt and I have no music. Freakin awesome. But not to worry, 15 minutes later the volume decided to change on it's own - straight from zero to 10000. So, now I'm on the 401 with my speakers blasting (somewhat distorting and crackling) music, but at least I had music. I'm torn whether to turn it off, or just let it rip (since we were basically the only cars on the highway anyways) and decide the latter is preferable - at least I could just turn it off when passing through towns or at gas stations etc. 20 minutes after that the radio starts to lose it's **** and is turning on and off completely on it's own and flipping from Sirius Satellite to AM, FM, Input...etc. WTF. Now I'm at the point where I have to decide if I need to just cut the power to it at the first stop, or what. Thankfully I found the issue at the next fuel stop (we had to stop at the 400/401 to get a fuel receipt to show the "corner" of my trip for logging purposes) and the radio was behaving again - I also got the volume adjusted (using the tips my finger nails in lieu of the volume knob) to a more reasonable level..where it stayed for the rest of the trip.
Whew. I have my satellite radio back, and can properly change the channel (and hear it) at least.
So, off we went. Not less than an hour later my iPhone (which I was using for GPS position logging the trip for the purpose of the Iron Butt), as well as for navigation..decides that it's not charging anymore. I helplessly watch the battery start to die - between the cold (it was all of 6c or so) and the GPS tracker as well as Waze running it was killing it fast. I'm wearing my thick gloves and I can barely grasp the charger cord to wiggle it, and there was certainly nothing else I could do while we are roaring up the 400.
We hit fog somewhere north of Barrie. Not so thick that we couldn't ride in it, but thick enough that it started to wet the bikes...and us. I had dressed what I thought was exceptionally well - T-Maxx long thermal underwear under my jeans, my heavy insulated rain-proof riding gloves, thermal socks in my heavy leather boots laced tight, a long sleeved shirt with a sweatshirt over that as well as my jacket liner (which is thick) and then my massive and super heavy leather riding jacket itself..but none of that was a match for unexpected moist wet air without having our rain gear on.
Rode through it eventually, but then hit a huge thick bank of clouds for about 2 hours that never let the sun appear to really dry us out.
At our next fuel stop I swapped out the phone cable (thankfully I'd planned for this possibility and brought spares!) and all was good again. Whew.
Onwards. Sun finally comes out and it starts to feel sorta-kinda comfortable. Our stops every 250KM or so consist of gas, a quick piss if we needed to, wolf down a snack or whatever from my tank bag, refill coffee mug if they had coffee..and go. Most were under 5 minutes total, and we ride nonstop to the next fuel stop.
The miles flew past. I really love insane long distance riding...I get into a total zen state and 100KM can fly by in the blink of an eye.
We hit Sault St Marie in good time, made an exceptionally long (15 minute) stop at Timmies for a coffee and a quick snack, and then turned north. Temperature dropped about 8-10c when we hit the east shore of Lake Superior, which considering it had only reached 16-18c at the days peak, felt pretty chilly again. There was still ice on the shorelines and the wind felt like someone had turned on the AC. No leafs on the trees yet. Stopped about 1 hour north of the soo for fuel (last fuel for nearly 200KM from that particular station) and then headed for the next hour to our destination...which in itself, was a long story I won't go into here.
Mission accomplished, we turned around - time to head home!
The trip back was mostly the same, even so far as the fuel stops. The wind shifted from the NW to the S on our return as we rounded the soo, so unfortunately we were now getting the north wind off Lake Huron vs the east wind off Superior. Kept it cool again until we got to around Espanola. At our fuel stop in Parry Sound I ate my last sandwich and some snacks from my tank bag, filled up with a (crappy) coffee from the gas station coffee pot, and put on my rain gear as an extra wind break...as well as the fact we'd be in the dark anyways inside an hour or so and reflective gear at night is never a bad idea. I was actually quite warm and cosy for the next few hours with the extra layer of wind break the rain gear afforded, but as night set in even that wore off - temperatures were down to 3-4C at a few points down the 400 in the Barrie area and south. Our fuel stop north of Midland involved 20 minutes in the McDonalds to absorb some heat and wolf down a few McDoubles.
Onwards. Cold. Not "I'm shivering uncontrollably" type cold, but it was at that point where I really could have used another layer - I wasn't super comfortable, lets put it that way, but I also wasn't unsafe to ride or anything. Had my visor down but it kept fogging up, had to leave it open a crack (which, the way the air moves around my bike, was kind of like someone was directing an AC vent in my face) but it was OK.
Traffic was virtually non existent for 90% of the ride - the Sunday of a long weekend turned out to be an exceptionally good choice of days as for the most part we hit very little traffic whatsoever for the entire trip.
The weather on the other hand...well. It didn't rain. It didn't snow. It also only got to the forecasted high for maybe 2 hours of the entire day, and I don't think either of us had anticipated the temperature drops from the wind coming off the lakes..and the temperatures last night were WAY lower than what had originally been in the forecast at our "Go/No-Go" decision time Saturday morning.
But all in all, despite my snafu's in the first hour or so of the trip (neither of which were major things in the grand scheme of things) the trip went off well - no mechanical issues, no near misses, nothing. The most exciting thing that happened was my buddy discovered that putting a carbonated beverage in his coffee mug with a tight fitting lid was a bad idea...when the lid blew off like a firework somewhere on Highway 69, like my Volume knob from my radio, never to be seen again.
As I was nearing my exit from the 401 on the last stretch I realized I was just under 90KM from qualifying for the Saddle Sore 2000 vs the 1600. For a few minutes I considered just keeping going, running out to Port Hope or Cobourg for a coffee, and then turning back...but the cold was starting to grate on me. I wasn't sore, I wasn't even that tired (surprisingly, although the cold was probably a double edged sword there, keeping me alert and awake), but I opted to just call it a ride, and got off the highway. It is what it is.
I got home and jumped in our hot tub for a 15 minute soak (just what the doctor ordered!), and hit the bed. Felt great this morning which I was surprised about, actually.
Mission accomplished. The next time I do an Iron Butt, I'll wait for some warmer weather though.
