Preparing for the Iron Butt

The mission

I intend to become a member of the Iron Butt Association by riding a Saddle Sore 1000 run – “At least 1000 miles in less than 24 hours”, according to the rules – this summer.

The original plan was to ride solo, but now a friend wants to tag along as an introduction to his driver’s license. The reason I’m even thinking of accepting is that even though his papers will be new, he’s reasonably mature, has been driving cars at least as much as I have, and also has been riding motocross for a couple of years, so he’s by no means a rookie when it comes to riding on two wheels, staying awake and to traffic in general.

Also, if he has a driver’s license, it doesn’t really matter if one of our bikes would break down on the road, or if one of us would have to abort the ride, since the other one could finish the run independently.

The route

Each leg of the ride starts and ends at gas stations. The oligopoly here in Sweden means that you can find “your” brand of gas station almost anywhere, and use your brand specific credit card at all stations, which makes planning for night-time stops a lot easier. My route is planned from a safety perspective: I know more than half of the road like the back of my hand, and the final leg is almost all super slab, which makes for less chance of deer encounters during the time when I expect my reflexes to be toast.

The route follows the main roads from the westernmost town of Sweden, across the country to Stockholm, down along the east coast to the southernmost point, and back up along the west coast to the starting point. I will be passing Sweden’s three largest cities, which means I will need to plan my time to avoid traffic jams.

According to the Google roadmap, the trip is supposed to take about 20 hours, which leaves 4 hours of margin. Counting 200 km between gas stops, gives 8 stops á 10 minutes – say up to 1.5 hours including a couple of snacks. Four proper food/toilet stops á 1/2 hour each (separate from gas stops, as per advice from the more experienced), gives a net margin of half an hour. Given that we should be able to ride perhaps 10 km/h faster than the posted limits in most places, we should be able to save up another couple of hours, which could be used for an additional rest/nap stop on the last leg of the trip.

The bikes

I will be riding my almost-stock ’06 Buell XB12X Ulysses. I have mounted the pannier racks, but expect to do without the top box. I feel I can trust the bike now, having ridden it almost two thousand kilometers after putting it together earlier this season.

Rijad will, if he chooses to go, be riding his Kawasaki ZX7. It too has been along for a few hundred kms, so I’m not particularly worried about it.

Since I have the stock windscreen and Rijad doesn’t have a screen at all, orangutan arms will be an issue – extended highway speeds will be limited to well under the point where our licenses are in danger. I am confident however, that he’ll have more of a sore butt than what I’ll have: The Uly saddle is great.

The gear

My current riding boots are done for and need to be changed. I just bought a new pair of Lindstrands Max Tour which I got at a good price at Hansson’s Skinn & MC. They’re a bit thicker than my old boots, so I’ll have to adjust the shifter accordingly stop sissying around and just get used to moving my foot a bit more, but they’re so much more comfortable that I actually just threw the old ones away in a dumpster right outside the shop. I’m pretty sure my feet won’t go numb after a couple of hours on the bike in these boots.

I’m still unsure of what jacket to wear: my leather jacket has less lining than my textile one (both are of the Halvarsson persuasion) and will be more comfortable during the day, but the night part of the ride might get pretty cold, depending on how late in the season we go. On the other hand, I can just compensate with more layers of clothes.

I haven’t given rain gear any great thought, simply because I don’t intend to ride in rain. The area we’ll be covering is small enough that the weather should be predictable within a margin of a couple of days.

For communications, I plan to use a NeckMike/Cobra MT600 radio combo from Bikeman, along with a cable to connect the headset to an iPod.

When it comes to food, the overall advice seems to be to eat lightly. Cous-cous based salads are readily available on most gas stations and should do the trick, along with regular water.

The tools I will bring will be the most basic set: duck tape, a good knife, pliers, a small hammer, screw driver with bits, a tube of Loctite and a can of puncture spray. What I can’t fix with that will probably require more tools than I can bring anyway.