So I check out the Summer issue of Iron Butt magazine:
Nice cover shot
and go the table of contents and browse the article titles
Wait! What is that on page 46? "Extreme Ride - Saddle Sore 1000 on a Scooter" What? Could it be? flip the pages and:
Yes! That's me, right there in a magazine. None of my friends or family subscribe to, or have even heard of the magazine, but I'm still excited.
Please forgive this totally self-serving moment, but I just wanted to share it with some folks who share my passion for riding scooters.
You may return to your regularly scheduled programming:
Howard
Iron Butt Association Member Number 42256
Club - The Sky Island Riders.
Publisher: The Scooter 'Zine thescooterzine.com
Very nice Howard, we all new you were and iron-butt beast, but now the whole world knows
well at least the segment of the world that reads that magazine.
"Hey You, yeah, all you'se thoughts, specially you, creepy wierd one in the corner, Screw you guys, I'm going for a ride..."
Deadhead - If you go to skyislandriders.com and look on the "ride maps" tab, you'll find several ride maps to get you between Tucson and Phoenix just using back roads.
I'll be up in Phoenix for the Great Southwestern Scooter Fiesta. Maybe I'll meet you there.
Howard
Iron Butt Association Member Number 42256
Club - The Sky Island Riders.
Publisher: The Scooter 'Zine thescooterzine.com
Howardr wrote:Please forgive this totally self-serving moment, but I just wanted to share it with some folks who share my passion for riding scooters.
Seriously Howard? You put the Buddy on the map and earned us all serious respect for what you went through, so enjoy the hype while it's fresh. I owe you a cuban cigar if I ever meet you.
Howardr wrote:Deadhead - If you go to skyislandriders.com and look on the "ride maps" tab, you'll find several ride maps to get you between Tucson and Phoenix just using back roads.
I'll be up in Phoenix for the Great Southwestern Scooter Fiesta. Maybe I'll meet you there.
Howard
Thanks for the link. I am looking forward to the Scooter Fiesta, It will be my first rally, I have only had the Buddy 3 weeks so far. Can't wait for the temps to cool a bit and make it even more fun to ride in AZ.
The editor from the magazine actually heard about my blog post on the subject. So he, for the most part, used my story, which is, I suppose, the reason why the by-line is mine.
That's really awesome! I'm amazed that you could pull that off on a scooter, my record was 520 miles but that took me almost 20 hours! Great job scouting the route and optimizing everything for it, quite the adventure. Really cool to see it published too!
OopsClunkThud wrote:For the Scooter Cannonball I was thinking of making it an ironbutt coast to coast in 50 hours. Be cool to see a buddy on that.
Pet Peeve Tangent Alert:
You know, I really wish the Iron Butt folks called that particular challenge something else. When I saw that there was a "50cc Quest" I thought they had come up with something appropriate for 50cc vehicles. It isn't. They haven't. Apparently you need to be able to go 40-50mph to have an Iron Butt.
OopsClunkThud wrote:For the Scooter Cannonball I was thinking of making it an ironbutt coast to coast in 50 hours. Be cool to see a buddy on that.
Pet Peeve Tangent Alert:
You know, I really wish the Iron Butt folks called that particular challenge something else. When I saw that there was a "50cc Quest" I thought they had come up with something appropriate for 50cc vehicles. It isn't. They haven't. Apparently you need to be able to go 40-50mph to have an Iron Butt.
Agreed! But they make the rules...
It is fun to look at the displacement of the bikes that have done each challenge. And they do call it out when someone makes it on a ridiculously small bike, normally defined as anything less than 1000cc.
Smallest Motorcycles to finish the SaddleSore 1000:
Mike Johnson 04/10/91 Yamaha YSR50
Henry Tate 06/14/08 Yamaha XT-200J
OopsClunkThud wrote:Agreed! But they make the rules...
That was made very clear to me when I pointed out in an e-mail my disappointment that the association had no challenges appropriate for 50cc bikes.
OopsClunkThud wrote:And they do call it out when someone makes it on a ridiculously small bike, normally defined as anything less than 1000cc.
Under 1000c is "ridiculously small"? And I thought the guy's comment that "any reasonably-sized motorcycle" could handle their challenges was condescending... it was almost respectful in comparison to that.
I had actually considered making a scooter specific list of "distance" rides which would equate to the IBA rides. About as far as I got is:
1. that it would only apply to bikes up to 150cc. 250's and certainly the bigger maxi-scoots can do the same speed and distance that motorcycles can do.
2. Distance would be a relationship between miles and cc's. This would help you create a level playing field between the smaller displacement scoots.
My brain started to hurt trying to figure all this into rides of various distances, so i stopped.
Howard
Iron Butt Association Member Number 42256
Club - The Sky Island Riders.
Publisher: The Scooter 'Zine thescooterzine.com
Just having a few "classes" of vehicles would solve the IBA's insistence that the only way to make the rides difficult enough is to impose a flat time limit. So maybe a 250cc-and-up bike would have to go 1000 miles, a 125-249cc bike would have to go 800 miles, and an under-125cc bike would have to go 600 miles.
I just pulled those figures out of thin air, but if you figured out what an appropriate "handicap" factor was for each class, you could simply apply that to any of the IBA goals and be set. Or for the geographically-defined ones (e.g. "around Lake Superior", "coast to coast"), you could apply that factor in reverse to expand the hours allowed.
Howard - Congrats! I hope to get to Southern Arizona this fall/winter and follow some of your posted routes. I love that part of the country (when it's not insanely hot).
