The Ride
The weather forecast was excellent. Sunny pretty much everywhere for Saturday, only chance of lousy weather was for the Halifax region which was supposed to have showers in the evening but clearing later on. As I'd be there around 2 o'clock in the morning, I figured it should be all right.
Packed up the saddlebags on Friday, mainly warm clothes, electric vest, cell phone, digital camera, snacks etc... I had a feeling I wouldn't sleep too well with the anticipation of the ride and I was right. Friday was one of those scorchers here and we don't have air conditioning in the house. I woke up at 02:00 all sweaty and hot so I spent the remainder of the night sleeping on the couch in the basement. Alarm rings at 05:30, quick shower, get dressed (bicycling shorts, dryfit t-shirt, Camelback, riding jacket & pants, gloves and boots). Leave home around 06:15. Hélène, my wife, thinks once again that this is the last time she will see me alive. She's not exactly thrilled that I enjoy doing this kind of thing and I'm really grateful that she lets me do them.
First stop, police station. I need a witness for the start of my ride and explain this to the dispatcher. A few minutes later, a police cruiser comes over and the nice policeman checks the odometer reading and signs off my paper. First mistake of the day, I get him to sign my "end of ride witness form" instead of the "start of ride". Oh well, I change the heading and it'll have to do.
Ride up the street to grab a quick cup of coffee and to gas up. While a lot of endurance riders shun away from coffee, saying it's not good to take stimulants, I have little choice. It doesn't stimulate me one bit, but if I miss my morning cup I eventually have to deal with the caffeine-withdrawal headaches. The time stamp from the gas pump reads 06:53:41. I have 24 hours from this official start time to complete my ride. Reset the GPS to 0 and I'm off.
I'm excited and happy at this point. I start wondering how fast I should be going. On the one hand, I don't want to draw attention to myself from the police, but on the other hand, just to make it in time I have to average out to slightly better than 100 km / h. I'd really like to have time to stop once in a while to rest a bit, so I figure that if I can keep it between 130 and 140 I should be able to accumulate a bit of a time buffer without standing out of the rest of the traffic too much.
For the first leg of the trip I'm using my Sony minidisc player. Of course the disc I've chosen to begin with is one I made recently and hadn't had the time to test it out. I guess there was some kind of problem during the recording and only the first 4 songs took. I'd have to wait till my first stop to address this issue, as I'm really not keen on stopping more often than necessary.
Uneventful ride up to my first stop, at about 300 km from home. I'd planned to stop about every 250 km to stretch out a bit. I wasn't stiff or anything, but figured it would pay off later.
There was heavy traffic in the province of Quebec. It was the "St-Jean Baptiste" weekend and there were a lot of motor homes and trailers on the road. A lot of police too. In the 200 km stretch of road between Rivière-du-Loup and Quebec City, I saw about 10 police cars, some hidden behind trees, others driving the opposite way.
The 'fun' 200 km stretch of road between Quebec and Lac St-Jean wasn't so much fun this time. It was very congested from people taking off on vacation and the traffic was slow. The speed limit is only 90 km / h and often we were going much slower, with few places to pass. To make matters worse, I was followed by a police car for about 30 km. Not that I was riding exceedingly fast, but my cruising speed was a bit higher than the posted limit.
Here's a picture at 'L'étape', a rest area / restaurant in the middle of the provincial park between Quebec and Lac St-Jean. I stopped there for some cheese sticks and a 'Hot Rod' meat stick. The Hot Rods were a very good choice for a snack.
Trudged my way up to Hébertville. There was a lot of construction on that road with only one lane open for long areas where you have to wait in line for your turn to go through it. I was getting frustrated because the buffer I had built up was quickly disappearing. I was still ahead of schedule, but my 45 minute advance was now about 20 minutes.
I stopped at my turn-around point in Hébertville and gassed up. I also called home to tell Hélène that I was still alive and was doing well. A guy walks up to me and sees my Iron Butt plate back and had read Peter Hoogeveen's write-up in Cycle Canada and asks me if I was part of that Iron Butt rally that went up to Alaska. Not quite...
Here's a pic of my destination on this leg of my journey. Fantastic isn't it ?
Turn around and head back for home. Happily the traffic was much lighter in my new direction and I was able to make up some time. Beautiful weather, 25 to 30 degrees and I was really enjoying all of this. I opened up all the vents in my suit and was very comfortable
Ride back up towards home. I stopped about an hour away from home to tell Hélène I'm making good time and will have the chance to stop for a meal near Fredericton.
Most of these pictures are pretty boring, I know. Gas stations are the only places I really stop, so no fancy views. This one is at Woodstock, NB. Notice the flag, no wind at all, clear sky and hot.
Just thought I'd throw in a picture of the cockpit. the yellow note on the triple clamp is a little chart of places I need to be and what time I need to be there for to remain on schedule. On a whim before leaving I decided to put on my heart monitor and put the watch on the right side of the triple clamp to see if during the ride my heart rate would go up when I'm tired etc... I didn't get the chance to see what would happen, as with my jacket the signal to the watch wasn't strong enough.
I stopped near Fredericton for a sit-down meal with Hélène at the Irving 'Big Stop'. It was nice to relax a bit in the middle of such a non-relaxing ride. I was feeling very good at this point. It was about 8:30 in the evening and I was about one and a half hours ahead of schedule. We took our time and then I changed face shields for the clear one and put on my electric vest.
The amount of flies I killed during the next 2 hours was really amazing. Nightfall began and when I had my high beam on, it looked like it was snowing. I had to stop in Moncton to wash off my face shield and headlights. Oh yeah, the headlights. I had installed some new bulbs with normal low beam but a 100 W high beam. While this wasn't really 'legal', it lit up the road like nothing I had ever seen. I saw a total of 5 deer on the trip and most of them were fairly far away from the road, I really felt secure with my headlights that I would see danger long before I came up to it. The only problem is when I had my low beams on for oncoming cars, I felt a bit vulnerable that something could leap out of darkness in front of me.
With nightfall came cold weather. I usually very seldom feel cold, but I think that the combination of a bit of fatigue and cool weather made the difference. I stopped to put in the liners in my jacket and pants. Even with these and my electric vest I still was cold when I finally arrived in Halifax at quarter to one in the morning. I had a cup of coffee to warm myself up then set back off for home.
I only felt tired at one point in the ride, it was on the way back through Moncton at around three in the morning. My eyes didn't want to close but I had trouble staying focused. I started imagining that some of the reflectors on the side of the road were actually other motorcycles. I would rationalize that they weren't but the next one I saw, again I thought it was a motorcycle. This wasn't good and happily there was a Tim Horton's coming up. There I stopped and walked around a little and felt immediately better. I bought an extra-large coffee and put it into my camelback. I had never tried this before but I was impressed with the results, it helped warm myself up on the inside and it kept warm for the 2 hours it took me to get to Fredericton.
I passed the 1500 mile mark with about 50 km to go on the trip. I gave out a little cheer inside my helmet and punched my fist into the air for the deer to see. I had done it ! I was also very concerned about hitting some wildlife before I got to get a time stamp to prove my accomplishment.
Here I am back to where I started, 22 hours and 5 minutes later, at 4:55 AM Sunday. According to the GPS, I traveled 2 480 km (1 541 miles) and according to the bike's odometer, 2 512 km (1 560 miles). I stopped 7 times for gas (but didn't fill the fuel cell at my last stop) and put in a total of 164 liters ($ 132.50). As you can see from the GPS, I was moving for almost 19 hours and stopped for about 3 hours.
Went back to the police station for the end witness and then back home for a good night's sleep.
Bike was flawless, I was well prepared and the whole thing was very enjoyable. I slept for 5 hours or so and woke up feeling well, with only a slight pain in my left shoulder (I've had this a lot after long rides, probably a bit of impingement). Corbin saddle is MUCH comfier than stock seat and the Throttlemeister was also a very wise investment. Weather cooperated, not a drop of rain during the whole thing.
Can't do a report without showing the flies
I'll be sending along the appropriate documentation to the Iron Butt Association and hopefully they will be happy with it.
Next bike thing for me is August, Endurance rally in North Bay Ontario, the 'Blackfly 1600'. Looking forward to it.
-Bob