MO's American Iron Butt Saddlesore 1000 Starts Today, 12:00 PM Pacific
Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness. – Sacha Guitry
Today, two MOrons set out to pursue one of their bucket list rides, namely an Iron Butt Association Saddlesore 1000. What is a Saddlesore 1000, you ask? It entails riding a motorcycle – and documenting the ride in exquisite detail – for 1000 miles within a timed 24 hour period. Why would we do something so foolish? There are any number of reasons. For myself, I can only say that the Saddlesore 1000 has exhibited a gravitational pull on me since I started riding motorcycles. I have an affinity for doing stupid things. That’s why I’ve ridden in 24 hour races, taken a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Ultra on an 800 mile round trip to the Arctic Ocean – over gravel roads – and wore anti-George W Bush t-shirts on a ride through Texas in 2005. While maybe not the smartest things to do, they’ve enabled me to live an extremely interesting life.
Of course, I could always claim some kind of higher pursuit and find endless quotes to add a sense of scholarship to the undertaking. (“The only source of knowledge is experience.” – Albert Einstein, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” – Helen Keller, ”The mountain is the mountain, and we are the people who go there.” – Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, etc.)
The real reason for this trip was the desire to rack up some big miles on a pair of Harleys, specifically the Electra Glide Ultra Classic and the Road Glide Ultra. Our intention was to explore the differences between touring bikes with a fork-mounted fairing versus a frame-mounted fairing using a pair of reasonably similar motorcycles. This ride would do just that.
And Tom Roderick was just crazy enough to volunteer to do this ride with me. Will spending 24 hours together riding strengthen our friendship or destroy it? We’ll know in 1,440 minutes.
So, strap on your gear and (virtually) hit the road with us. Barring technical difficulty, we’ll be broadcasting our location and fun tidbits throughout the 24 hours of the ride. Knowing that somebody is watching us will help us keep going in the wee hours of the morning.
Live feed of the Motorcycle.com American Iron Butt Saddlesore 1000 on Spotwalla
Like most of the best happenings in his life, Evans stumbled into his motojournalism career. While on his way to a planned life in academia, he applied for a job at a motorcycle magazine, thinking he’d get the opportunity to write some freelance articles. Instead, he was offered a full-time job in which he discovered he could actually get paid to ride other people’s motorcycles – and he’s never looked back. Over the 25 years he’s been in the motorcycle industry, Evans has written two books, 101 Sportbike Performance Projects and How to Modify Your Metric Cruiser, and has ridden just about every production motorcycle manufactured. Evans has a deep love of motorcycles and believes they are a force for good in the world.
More by Evans Brasfield
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These days I'm good for upwards of 800 miles in a day, but after that I want to spend a day with downtime. I'll have to see about trying to do 1000 in a twenty four period at some point.
When I was younger, twenty five years ago or so, I was definitely able to handle those long 1000 mile rides, did it all the time back then.
Edit: forgot to mention, really look forward to reading the article after this is all over. :)
Will there be a follow up to this soon? My buddies and I are going attempt a Saddle Sore 1000 and Bun Burner 1500 in June. Would love to see your follow up on your ride.