Iron Butt -- who's up for it?

Hey LondonBikers,

Just found out about our mad friends from the other side of the pond and their “Iron Butt” ride awards. The idea is to cover a certain number of miles, on a motorcycle, within a given time. They have several different levels of madness:

  • 1000 miles in 24 hours (“SaddleSore 1000”)
  • 1500 miles in 36 hours (“Bun Burner 1500”)
  • 1500 miles in 24 hours (“Bun Burner GOLD”)
  • 10,000 miles in 10 days
  • 100,000 miles in 1 year

…etc. All about it at www.ironbutt.com

I’d love to have a go at cracking at least the SaddleSore or BunBurner awards and was wondering is any of you mad enough to participate?

To clock up the miles the idea would be to get up at 6 a.m. on a perfect summer day, bomb up to Scotland on the M6, do a lap of the highlands on A-roads and come back down by midnight/wee hours of the night with 1200-1300 miles on the clock.

saw the ironbutt thing on the box a couple of years ago and all the yanks had all the kit, hog cruisers, sat nav, air con etc.it was won by an English bloke on a pile of crap and an A-Z of the states.

you gota have the balls for it.

About 25 years ago there was a thing called “Run to the Sun”, a group of six of us done it.

from London to Paris, then down to Bordeaux (spelling?), from there down across the boarder passing Bilbao, straight through Spain,passed Marida or something like that (west of Madrid) and all the way to Seville, ferry across to Tangier.

About 1400 miles in 24 hrs, took us 3 days to get back mind

Cheers Mark.

Yeah, we had good main drags all the way down, you have to push it a bit to cover the distance and it’s really not that much fun, not sure you’d want to be doing that in the highlands

I think the Yanks have the roads more suited to this kind of thing.

Cheers Mark.

Having “bombed” down to Brighton on the M23 on Sunday on the DRZ, my 88mph top speed will not get me very far!! Did give me a sore butt though, does that qualify?

I’ll be on those Scottish Highland roads this time next month for a few weeks … I’m looking forward to it !

Trojan, just keep an eye out for the suicidal sheep on the single track roads!!

Ha ha … will do mate, I’m actually a born and bred Highlander but have never ridden my home roads (nor sheep for that matter before someone suggests it !!!)

Got Family over on The Isle of Skye as well … now there is some cracking roads on the way there and on the Island.

I’d be skeptical if it is poss to do it in this country given the congestion etc unless it was done overnight, which sounds too much like hard work. Go over to France and it might work.

I’d propose something more like LondonDRZ mentioned - reduce the distances by a half and do it on a supermoto. Hehe

No no Andrew I’d say it’s totally possible – the Yanks don’t get to bomb down the motorway at 90mph and this would let you rack up a lot of miles in a short space of time.

Also, most of the Scottish A-roads I’ve been on were brilliant – all the way from Glasgow to Cape Wrath, nothing but nice wide curvy roads with excellent surfaces and very little sheep

The 1000 mile award should be a no-brainer and the 1500 mile one should be fairly possible. Money and time permitting I’ll do at least the 1000 this summer on my crappy ass bike and you’ll see!

Also, 88mph top speed is fine… hey in Back to the Future that’s enough for time travel! I reckon as long as you can maintain 70-80 mph for most of the day you should be able to clock up enough miles…

With sufficient practice, it should even be possible to do 2000 miles in one day – over in Germany. Cruising at 120-140mph most of the day from one autobahn services to the next

Just watch out for the zero tolerance police on the A9!

Mate, You are so not wrong !!

I’m from just outside Aviemore on the A9 and I know how keen they are with the Camera’s / unmarked cars / Gatso’s.

My Sister is a copper up there and they do seem to have zero tolerance when it comes to a bit of speed.

I’m gonna be a good boy on the way up there anyway … not so good when I get there though and I find out from the Sis what the roads are to avoid blue lights and tickets.

So what you’re telling us, is that you went to Brighton at the weekend & came back with a sore arse ?

Really Pat!!! I dont know what you mean

Ok I might be keen. now where’s the number for the pile-cream people…

I remember an articule in Bike last year when the editor did the 1000 mile from I think it was Nottingham to inverness and back.

By the way he did it on a Deauville!

Personally I’ve never seen the attraction in seeing how far you can ride defore lack of sleep screws your concentration up so badly you end up in a ditch someplace…

However, those of you so inclined may be interested in joining like minded masochists in doing the national rally -

http://www.national-rally.co.uk/2006/index.htm

It’s on the first weekend of July this year, so still enough time to prepare, you do need to register by 31/05 though.

I had planned to do the Saddlesore last summer but a change in circumstances back then prevented it, in fact I had to pull out of the National Rally as well.

All being well I’ll do it this summer

For a short period of time in my life I was a courier. I did all the companies longer haul stuff aas noone else wanted it and I didn’t want to be stuck in town. I racked up just over the 1000 miles one day on a GSX600F. Started at 05:00 and finished at 21:30. I did have time out inbetween doing stuff to relieve the butt cheecks from the tedium.

1500 Miles in 24 hours… That’s an Average speed of 62.5 MPH Non stop. Taking in to account that most bikes only have a 15 litre fuel tank so will probably need to refuel every 150 miles. Thats 10 stops at say 10 minutes per stop with a bit of time for food, water and urination. That brings the average speed require to 67.17 MPH. The only place your going to be able to do that (Legally) is around the M25 on a Sunday.

I did 700 miles over the weekend and my arse cheeks are still tender… 1500 miles would be a real challenge!