Record Motorcycle Ride

tawilke46

tawilke46

Joined
Nov 26, 2011
Messages
327
Location
Baton Rouge, La
Very impressive, though not on an NT. My body would have quit on the first day......:rofl1:




New Motorcycling Record.
On July 10, 2018, Matt Wise has a set a new record, riding his 2015 BMW R1200GSA a total of 45,425.5 (GPS) miles in 45 days!

While the ride is pending verification, IBA officials were aware of Matt's goals and was tracking it as it unflolded, so there should be no issues with verification.

Matt started planning this ride in March of 2016 at the IBA Pizza Party when we announced that Dave Zien had ridden his Harley-Davidson 31,000 miles in 31 days during our rider recognition segment at the party.

Matt's trip would be anchored around retracing Ron Ayres' 48 state route. He would fill in the other days by hitting the four corners of the US, doing the Lap of Florida and the Ride Around Texas as well as some local riding loops and day trips from his home. Matt even managed to take a quick time out and have dinner with the group of riders doing the cross-country George A. Wyman Memorial ride in Laramie Wyoming.

Matt's SPOTWALLA track is located at:

https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php...=0&showAll=yes

Some interesting statistics from the ride:

45 days (1074.5 hours start to finish)

45,425.5 miles

1,195 gallons of gas

23 hotel stays

4 rear tires

2 front tires

2 sets of brakes

3 oil changes

6 unpaid days off from work

Matt went on to say:

"It was the ride of a lifetime and over way to soon. Some days were better than others, but every day was better than being in the office."
 
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Rides/numbers like that are amazing. Many of you here have put in many miles.
IBA rides and such are not for everyone. I find it easy to make excuses like it is too hot. We all have our limits. I wonder what Matt Wise limit is.

Brad
 
ARKNT said:
Rides/numbers like that are amazing. Many of you here have put in many miles.
IBA rides and such are not for everyone. I find it easy to make excuses like it is too hot. We all have our limits. I wonder what Matt Wise limit is.

Brad
Click to expand...

His limit is apparently ..... "every day was better than being in the office."
 
Mmmm...Marr did 1009 mi/day for 45 days. On my Epic Ride, I did 21,090 miles in 80 days for a whoppin' 263 mi/day. Oh, well. I still feel like my ride was sorta' epic. I did the Four Corners Tour on the Epic Ride and I have done a Bun Burner Gold (1529 miles in 23 hours and 48 minutes). But I cannot imagine riding 1K/day for 45 day.

Incredible!
 
Riding for adventure and enjoyment vs. riding for statistics.

I'll take the former.
 
Au contraire', mes amis! Just another opinion, but everyone ride the rides that are most satisfying to them. As a person who's done a number of Iron Butt Certification rides and who has tried a couple of rallies, I'd say that some of my very best rides have been those Saddle Sores and that one Bun Burner Gold. I didn't do them simply to achieve some statistical notoriety or to be a winner in competitions. I rode them for the "adventure and enjoyment" (to quote Sojourner) and remember them with a great deal of pleasure. I never pushed beyond what I believed to be safe and satisfying.

The Rally scene is fascinating because of the planning and skill needed to find and ride a route. On the "Working on the Railroad" Rally I did in '15, I planned a route that would have placed me fairly well among the Rally rookies, but I learned how important attention to detail in riding the route is when I didn't get my Rally Flag number into two of my pictures. I still was a finisher, but was at the bottom of the rookie class rather than in the middle.

In the "How the West Was Won" Rally last year, I planned a ride that would barely have qualified me as a finisher, and then decided that with my knee issues, I wasn't going to be able to get on and off the bike the number of times needed to get the rally pictures and turned my Rally into a Ride (which I thoroughly enjoyed, BTW). My roommate finished 3rd with a ride that was only 100 miles farther than I rode, but had more than FIVE times the points my ride would have had. I'm not a Rally Rider, but they are great people and fun to be around.

Enjoy what you do, but don't just assume that people who do other things are simply crazy.

We all ride our own rides...if we're smart and if we are self-authenticating people.
 
I'm not saying someone is crazy for riding iron-butt type rides.

Now, the ride in question Is a bit crazy. To get to the end goal, tons of things have to be worked out like those tire replacements -- getting them done in such a way that it doesn't derail the average daily mileage necessary to get to the goal. So the end distance and timing is always driving your 'adventure'. Long distance hikers (like on the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, etc.) often take the occasional 'Zero day', where they hang out in a town and rest, putting in zero miles that day toward their hiking mileage. You really can't take a 'zero day' on a ride where you're logging an average of 1000 miles per day.

'Ride you own ride' is great, but when a structured ride keeps you from taking detours and inserting scenic stops along the way, then a time-limited/mileage-dependent ride kind of goes against that. It's like getting on one of those senior bus tours. You're on vacation, but you have X number of hours at this particular stop, then it's everybody back on the bus. 'Ride your own ride' is more like the self-determining vacation, where you can decide to stop and spend the day at a scenic place, and maybe have to adjust the expectations of your overall vacation down the road. In fact, those AT/PCT hikers use the same lingo: 'hike your own hike'. Do it at your pace, stop and smell the roses, take a zero day, take an off-trail detour to see something unique, etc.

There are records for thru-hiking -- and even thru-running! -- the Appalachian Trail. Like this guy who did the whole 2200-mile Georgia to Maine hike in 45-1/2 days, averaging 45 miles per day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...0e0df0-90c3-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.html

Now, did he 'enjoy' the hike? Did he hike his own hike, or did he hike to break a record, and that determined his hike for him?
 
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Sojourner said:
Now, did he 'enjoy' the hike? Did he hike his own hike, or did he hike to break a record, and that determined his hike for him?
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I would be willing to bet that he did enjoy the hike and that it was his hike, even if he was hiking to break a record.

BTW, my brother started the Pacific Crest Trail and hiked to a location south of Donner Pass and west of Lake Tahoe. He had weighed about 170 pounds when he started. Part of his plan had been to get to that location before July 4 (his wedding anniversary). He made it and his wife picked him up and they went back to Reno to celebrate their anniversary. When he was getting ready to take a shower in their hotel, Joyce said, "Michael, look at yourself in mirror." He did and she suggested that maybe he'd best not continue with the hike that year. He agreed and after a few days in Reno, they flew back to South Carolina.

The next year the rest of the family was going to Germany, but Mike was going to finish his PCT hike. He flew to Reno and found a "trail angel" to take him to the trailhead where Joyce had picked him up the year before. By noon he was on Donner Pass and sat down at picnic table to eat his lunch. A Forest Ranger sat down with him and asked him if he was having fun. He was still sitting there when she left. A half hour later he called an old Army buddy who lived in Grass Valley, CA. When his friend answered the phone the first words out of his mouth were, "Ready to be picked up?" Mike told him he was and the friend said, "Be there in an hour."

Three hours later, Mike was on a plane leaving Reno for South Carolina.

The nest year, he decided to give it another shot. That time, he lasted for five days before deciding that it wasn't fun and wasn't going to be fun. He continued to hike and climb mountains in the Appalachians until he had a heart attack and died the day after his 70th birthday.

What appeals to us and what satisfies us can change.

Personally, I kind of doubt I'll ever do another Iron Butt ride. But, who knows...?
 
So what we've concluded, then, is that 'ride your own ride' is a meaningless statement. If someone likes to stop and smell the roses, take side trips, take days off, and not meet a mileage or distance or time goal, they're 'riding their own ride.' On the opposite extreme, if someone wants to be glued to their motorcycle seat for umpteen hours per day in their pursuit of a numerical record, holding their poop and fueling as fast as possible, merely enjoying the scenery from the endless ribbon of tarmac, they, too, are 'riding their own ride.'

I'm reminded of Ecclesiates 1:1: "Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

To me, stopping to smell the roses and taking life at its pace is 'riding your own ride.' Riding with a constant eye on the stopwatch and the odometer is not 'riding your own ride.' That was my initial point.
 
It takes all kinds to make the world go round. Some move slow and enjoy the details. Some enjoy themselves by pushing themselves hard.
It is all about making memories. None of us here are what most consider normal. Why subject yourself to cold, heat, bugs, and rain? We do it because it checks off a box in our heads somewhere.

Brad
 
Sojourner said:
To me, stopping to smell the roses and taking life at its pace is 'riding your own ride.' Riding with a constant eye on the stopwatch and the odometer is not 'riding your own ride.' That was my initial point.
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It's the"To me" that's the critical point, Sojourner. "Riding with a constant eye on the stopwatch and the odometer is not 'riding your own ride'."

It's not always my own ride either, but I can remember nearly every mile of that Bun Burner Gold I did in Nevada in May of '15. it was my/I] ride that day, and I'll never forget it.
 
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You're making my point for me. The phrase "ride your own ride" has absolutely no meaning.

If you can go on a no-time-or-distance-restricted ride (stopping to smell the roses), and it is 'riding your own ride', and you can go on a ride where it is completely time-and-distance-restricted (your butt must be in the seat for as many hours per day as possible), and that, too, is 'riding your own ride', then explain to me how ANY ride is NOT 'riding your own ride'? What ride does not fit the definition of 'riding your own ride'?
 
Sojourner said:
What ride does not fit the definition of 'riding your own ride'?
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Hmm, I've been in a few group rides that were definitely not "riding my own ride"... And I really wondered what confused, demented soul thought they were his ride! :nuts: :rolleyes1: Even the local Toys For Tots Rides here are usually a SNAFU. :eek1: That's why I ride alone almost all of the time...those rides are always "riding my own ride"...:)
 
When I started riding, there was a once-a-month group ride in Ft Morgan. About 8-10 bikes, mostly couples would do a ride-to-eat. They rode in a staggered formation at about 10mph under the speed limit with maybe a 2-second interval. it didn't take me long to figure out that that wasn't my ride. Same deal on a group ride that turned into a race.

If you were with others doing what you didn't want to do or by yourself doing what you didn't want to do, you wouldn't be riding your own ride.
 
Those large group rides are often done in what I call "parade formation." And I've often wondered, when you stop at a service station for fuel and potty calls, how long does it take when you have several dozen riders? Way too long for me so I limit my rides to 3-5 pals at the most!

And those large group rides seem to be done at 10-15 mph below the posted speed limit so it only angers car/truck drivers and I certainly don't blame them.
 
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[...Duane certainly doesn't have us riding 10-15 mph below the speed limit...]

He's trying to avoid the formation of moss on the north side of your tires! :)
 
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