Last year on the SS1K Kevin rode his '83 R80RT BMW and I rode my '77 R100/7. Both bikes performed well on the 1000 mile run, and I initially planned to do the BBG on the R100 as well. However, it's relatively poor mileage, age and a few other things made me reconsider, and a couple of mechanical problems made the decision a little easier. In early April I sold the R100 (don't worry, I still have the R90/6) and bought a 2000 Kawasaki Concours. Over the next month or so I did a couple of one day, 400 mile North Cascade Loop runs on the new bike, and I was pretty sure it would work for the big run. It was reliable, fast and had good high speed handling. It got good gas mileage, and actually didn't buzz very much. After adding a 17" Rifle windshield and a pair of handlebar risers, I was ready to go.

The SS1K was relatively easy, with the exception of a couple of legs towards the end (due to poor preparation on our part). We took a circular, scenic route through Washington, Idaho and eastern Oregon. We rode on a lot of secondary roads, took frequent breaks, had a couple of sit-down meals, and generally enjoyed ourselves. We knew the BBG wouldn't be anything like that. To ride 1500 miles in 24 hours you have to ride, get gas, and ride some more. No meal stops, no sightseeing, no secondary roads. We discussed the trip with local Long Distance legend Dave Hooker, who did a BBG last year over the same route. His suggestions boiled down to "Get through the mountains before dark; there are a LOT of critters out there." It turned out to be good advice. Kevin showed up at my place at Machias on Friday evening, June 1, after having spent the day in Vancouver packing and getting his bike ready. I spent the evening packing my bike and putting my cold weather gear together. We turned in reasonably early, and got up about 6:00 AM on Saturday the 2nd. It was raining, of course. We had a nice solid breakfast of waffles, eggs, sausage and coffee, and then got into our gear. I was wearing padded bicycle shorts, expedition-weight polypro long johns and my Firstgear overpants (no jeans) on the bottom, and a T shirt, short sleeve sweat shirt, polypro pullover top and my Canyon jacket and liner on top. Kevin was decked out similarly, only with a Firstgear jacket and his electric vest. We get the bikes out, and do a final check. "Think this back tire will make it?" Kevin asks. I take a look at it- it's a Metzler ME88, and the center rib is just about worn off. "How long have you been running this damn thing?", I ask. "Long time; I'm pretty sure it'll make it a few thousand miles more". I'm not so sure, but we're committed, and off we go.

We stop at the Texaco station in Lake Stevens and our witnesses are already there to meet us. Dave Hooker, official IBA witness, and fellow Airhead and LEO Bill Koonce (Beemer Bill) sign our witness forms for the start of the trip and wish us well. We gas up, grab the computer pump receipt for our starting time and we're off at 8:14. It's raining.

The first leg is uneventful. We take I-5 to 405, go through Bellevue and on to I-90, which will be our friend for the next few hours. We make average time getting up to Snoqualmie Pass, riding mostly in rain and drizzle, and sticking to the speed limit. Once over the pass the weather rapidly clears, and we gradually increase our speed to about 80. 208 miles later we make our first fuel stop at Moses Lake. We get off in town, go through some new construction, and I pull into the gas station, get off, get the wallet out and WHERE THE HELL IS KEVIN????? He was right behind me on the off ramp. I jump back on the bike and head back only to find him at an abandoned Chevron station just off the freeway, trying to get a dead gas pump to work. He didn't realize the station was closed.......after a few choice words we meet at the Texaco station and gas up. We both get something to drink, hit the restroom, and meet outside. We have burned up almost 22 minutes at this stop. Got to do better. Much better.

We head east again, and wick the speed on up, first to 85, then to 90. We haven't seen ANY cops, and at 90, we are barely keeping ahead of traffic. We continue making excellent time on to Cheney, where we slow down for the transit through Spokane. After Spokane, back up to 85 to 90. We don't even slow down for Idaho, and are in the mountains of Montana before we know it. Our next stop is 218 miles past Moses Lake, at a casino/gas station that isn't even a town. The gas pump tickets don't have a location on them. I think the casino is the Lincoln something, so that's what I record on the log. 3:09 in the afternoon (lost an hour due to Mountain time) and we are feeling great. Gobble a Power Bar on the way out of the gas station and hit the slab. Power Bars are nasty and all the flavors taste alike, but at least your jaw muscles get a good workout.

A ways ahead are four other folks on motorcycles. As we get closer it's obvious they are riding Harleys. It looks like they are all wearing helmets, but as we get closer we can see that only the last rider, a woman on a Sportster, is wearing a shiny black one. The other three riders, guys on Duo Fat Dog Wide Boy Night Train No Muffler Glides are wearing what look like coyote fur hoods. Oh well, this is Montana......

It's a little chilly, but the freeway through the Rockies is great. I'm taking the sweepers at 90 and having a great time. Kevin's RT doesn't like the downhill high speed sweepers, though, and at one point threatens a tank slapper. He hangs back at about 80, but when the road levels off he catches up without a problem. Once the road levels out we continue to cruise at 85 to 90.

6:10, 210 miles past "Lincoln" we stop again at Butte. Not much to say about Butte other than we were in and out pretty fast. I remember gobbling a couple of granola bars as we got back on the freeway. Next time I'll save the money, and just get a handful of sawdust out from under the table saw. Still good weather, lots of light, but the eastern sky is starting to look threatening.

According to my log, our next stop was Columbus, MT, at 8:48 PM and 188 miles. I can't remember it at all. By this time the ride had become boring, mind numbing routine, and we were starting to get stiff knees. Fortunately, because we were both wearing padded bike shorts, and the weather was cool, neither of us had burning buns- yet. We both try to keep moving around on our bikes, standing up on the pegs, stretching our legs out, anything to keep the circulation in our legs going. It helps a little, but not long after leaving Columbus it starts to rain, and the wind is picking up, out of the south, directly across our route. And we are entering Road Construction Country.

We picked this route and Saturday/Sunday travel because we hoped we would be able to avoid a lot of lost time due to road construction. Until we left Columbus we were lucky- no construction to speak of. Now, however, and almost until eastern North Dakota, we had almost continuous stretches of construction. Long stretches, 10 to 20 miles, would narrow down to two lanes, one in each direction, often with no divider. Often, the road surface would be ground off or otherwise beat up. That, plus the rain, and the constant WIND made this the worst part of the trip. Oh, and it finally got dark, too.....

I do remember the stretch leading up to Miles City, MT. It was dark, and very windy and rainy. The wind was gusting and starting to blow us around, and we're starting to get tired. We had to slow down to 55 or 60 most of the time; our average speed is going to hell. At about 11:30 PM, 189 miles out of Columbus we had enough, and got off what was no longer freeway at Miles City. No services at all on the highway, and we had to ride about five miles to town, only to find the only gas station, a Cenex, closed. Fortunately, the pumps still took our credit cards, and we gassed up and gobbled another Power bar, and drank what was left of the water we bought in Moses Lake. There were three or four carloads of high school kids hanging around the gas station, screaming at each other, bumming smokes, and generally enjoying a lively Saturday night in Eastern Montana. The local cop, who's belly was readily evident even sitting in his squad car, cruised by giving us the evil eye and ignoring the kids. Hell, for all we know, he's probably related to all of them......"Why aren't they all in a bar somewhere like normal kids?" Kevin asks. This is the U.S., I remind him. "Oh, yeah, 21 to drink here....." Tonight, probably a good thing.

The next leg was hell, mostly, in a dark, wet, windy place. It was the low point of the trip for me. It's as dark as the inside of a cow, the wind is blowing across the road at about 40 MPH, it's raining, and we are riding on a two lane highway that has had all the top surface ground off, leaving ruts in the concrete that would give a tank problems. Several times wind gusts blow me all the way across the road, almost into the opposing traffic lane. After about 50 miles of this we stop at an intersection where the divided highway begins again and have a short discussion. I'm ready to pack it in. We went over 1000 miles in Miles City, and I don't feel like the conditions are safe enough to continue, given the "road" condition and the weather. Kevin thinks the road is going to get better, and, besides, he said, there's no place to stop here, anyway. He's right, and we keep going. The road does improve, and stays four lane, and the weather even breaks. We stop at the last rest stop in Montana, even though it's only been about 100 miles since Miles City, just to take a break from that horrible road. A guy going west tells us there is a good gas stop just across the North Dakota state line, so we saddle up, and ride to Beach.

It was a dark and stormy night..... Well, actually, we were pretty much through the stormy part, and now it's just dark.

We are finally out of Montana. It's been almost as bad as driving across Texas, I didn't think we would ever get through Eastern Montana. We have just left the last (or first) rest stop in Montana, just west of the North Dakota state line. We're beat from the wind, rain and rotten road for the last two or three hours; our average speed from Miles City is probably about 35 or 40 MPH. It's nearly 2:00 AM local time, and our bodies think it's closer to 3:00. We have only been on the road 117 miles from Miles City, but we're been hammered. According to the guy we talked to at the rest stop, the gas at Beach is "just a mile or so down the road". It's more like five or six, but we finally turn off into a pretty nice truck stop. Unfortunately, the pumps are manual, and we have to go inside to pay. I drool a little bit over the corn dogs in the hot cabinet on the counter, but this is really no time for grease to be sitting in the bottom of my stomach. Later I discover there is no time stamp on the gas receipt, but at least it gives the date and location. There are a couple of pretty nice looking motels here, and they even still have their vacancy lights on. Kevin and I discuss continuing, and since it looks like both the weather and road are improving, we decide to push on, at least to Bismarck, see how things look. The two short stops at the rest area and gas station have refreshed us, a little, and we saddle up and head east.

I-94 is pretty decent. It looks like the worst of the construction is behind us, and we are soon able to get the speed back up to about 85, riding side by side with our high beams on. The road is almost perfectly straight, and there is little traffic in either direction The wind and rain have let up, and now my biggest concern is critters. We have seen a LOT of dead deer and antelope along the road through Montana, and the dead possums, raccoons and other small animals have been too numerous to count. I keep looking as far ahead on the edges of my lane as I can, and hope Kevin is doing the same. A deer or antelope in the road, at this speed, wound be a real problem. Fortunately, we're lucky, and all we see on this leg of the trip are two coyotes. One great big one decides to play chicken with us, but he has a good head start, and crosses about 50 yards ahead of us. One, much smaller, decides discretion is better than roadkill, and heads back into the median. Good thing, it was a lot closer. Other than that, the ride from Beach to Bismarck was like going through a long, very dark tunnel, but eventually the eastern sky starts to show some light streaks. Very encouraging.

We finally pull into Bismarck about 5:30 local time, after having lost another hour due to the time zone change. We roll into a regular suburban mini-mart / gas station, and stagger to the pumps and fill up. By unspoken mutual agreement, we then move our bikes to the regular parking and head in for some coffee. Conventional Iron Butt wisdom suggests you should stay away from junk food and coffee. This is probably good advice on an 11 day, 11,000 mile Iron Butt rally, where you want to establish a natural routine for your body. However, if we were on a regular Iron Butt rally, we probably would have stopped for an hour's nap or maybe an even longer break back in Beach or Miles City. We, on the other hand, are pushing to finish our 1500 miles, and then we can take a nice, long rest. We both hit the restroom to clean up, and get a big coffee and some junk food. Just walking around, drinking the coffee and eating helps more than you can imagine; I feel 100% better now, and all thoughts of quitting are behind me. We finish our coffee, screw in our earplugs, bolt on our helmets and hit the road.

The next 150-odd miles are more of the same, although the sky is getting lighter, and in an hour or so we get some actual dawn. We try to maintain our 85 mph speed, and the critters stay away. After almost two hours we roll through Bismarck, deserted at this hour on an early Sunday morning, but we slow down to around the speed limit anyway. No point in getting a performance award this late in the ride. Kevin is having a little trouble keeping up now, and we are both cramping up in the knees. Kevin initiates the next stop on the east side of Bismarck, and at 163 miles we stop at another mini-mart and gas up and get some more coffee and junk food. Kevin said he had trouble staying awake on the last leg, which was why he stopped a little early. Fine with me; we have been making good time, making up what we have lost in the Miles City area. It looks like we're on track for a 23 hour BBG, and we can afford another short rest.

This gas station is full of GI's in camo BDUs, filling their pockets with candy and junk food and hitting the ATM. I figure they're National Guard or reservists, doing their weekend warrior thing like I did, ten years ago, but talking to one of their sergeants I find out they are regular Army, getting ready to form up a convoy headed to St. Cloud, MN, several hundred miles away. At 45 mph. I don't envy them. Clean the helmet visors, check the gear and head out. Since it's early morning and we're heading east, Kevin suggests we dig our sunglasses out. Good call. The weather is much better, and we'll need them.

We head out again, east through farm country. The freeway is deserted and straight as a laser beam, bordered by row crops along both sides. Lots of water on the fields, looks like they just got a lot of rain. Imagine that. Lots of big birds, gulls or something, sleeping on the pavement. They wake up and fly off about a second before we hit them, but fortunately we don't have any messy bird impact incidents. After about an hour, Kevin pulls off at an overpass in the middle of nowhere and gets off his bike. Apparently he can't figure out what hurts worse, his knees or butt. I'm ok, knees a little stiff, but my butt's ok. I have dumped about half a can of baby powder into my bike shorts during a couple of rest stops, and it seems to have helped. I have also been eating Bufferin a couple or three at a time at about every other rest stop. Seems to be working. Since we have stopped anyway, I take the opportunity to get rid of some coffee, and soon Kevin is ready to go. A little while later we roll into Tower City, ND, 149 miles from Bismarck, for another gas stop I absolutely can't remember; zoned out again. If I hadn't logged it in, I wouldn't have any idea we stopped there, but according to my records I bought 4.84 gallons of gas.

Soon after leaving Tower City we cross the Minnesota state line. I vaguely remember seeing a sign to that effect, and the road makes it's usual subtle change from one type of pavement to another. I know we're getting close, and after about an hour or so Kevin is waving his fist in the air. According to his GPS we've gone over 1500 miles. According to my bike odometers we went over about 30 miles ago, but I know the bike odo is probably a little optimistic We have a brief roadside discussion, and agree to pull off at the next town and get a gas receipt and discuss our next move. About 10 miles later we get off at Fergus Falls, MN. There's nothing here on the freeway but a raggedy looking gas station and diner, and we can smell the stale grease from the road. The parking lot is potholed gravel, and I worry about keeping the bike upright long enough to get in and out. We get gas, and look at our time and mileage. We have gone 1510 miles in 23 hours and 10 minutes, according to his GPS and my clock. I remember some more of the Iron Butt wisdom- don't trust your odometer, go for extra miles if you can. Besides, I really don't care for the look (or smell) of this place, and want to get some insurance miles, since we have almost an hour to go. Kevin agrees, somewhat reluctantly, I think, and we take off again. We continue east, and the next likely looking town is about 55 miles down the road, Alexandria, MN. The sign says "next two exits" so I take the first one, which, of course is the long way through town. After a little screwing around we find the end of town with the motels and gas stations, and pull into the first one we see. Pump in 1.8 gallons, pull the ticket. 10:22 CSDST, 24 hours and 8 minutes from Everett, 1566 miles according to Kevin's GPS, 1598 according to my trip odometer. It'll have to do.

To be continued: Resting up, getting witnesses, finding tires in Winnipeg, and The Wild Canadian Prairie.

Dave Cavanaugh #1158