Blue88
Junior Member
The Iron Butt Association (IBA) has been around for many years and boasts more than 50,000 members worldwide. As the name suggests, the IBA is all about covering Big Miles on Big Motorcycles, so of course, it all began in America. There are several different qualifying events on the IBA menu, but the poster-girl of the Association is probably the ‘Saddle Sore 1000’: Riding one thousand miles in 24 hours.As a former London Despatch Rider, I’ve completed many accidental ‘Saddle Sore 1000’s’, but as a sane man, I’ve never intentionally set out to complete one. To be honest, unless you’re undertaking an Iron Butt Challenge to raise money for good causes, I’ve never seen the point in trying it. I can understand why Members of the IBA wear their achievement patches proudly, a thousand miles in a day certainly takes its toll on the body, but I’ve always believed that those patches should really belong to the horses and not the jockeys.
Then, following the 2013 Horizons Unlimited travellers gathering at Riders Corner in Chiang Mai, I found myself almost 800km from home. Looking at the map, my preferred route back to Bangkok would take me west towards the Thai/Myanmar border where I’d turn left and meander south towards Bangkok. It looked to be a journey of approximately 1,000 kilometres or 600 miles. If I made the journey in 24 hours it wouldn’t qualify as a recognised ‘Iron Butt’ ride, but the motorcycle I’d be riding wouldn’t be your typical Iron Butt weapon of choice: BMW’s, KTM’s or Harley Davidson’s.
My motorcycle was the Tiger Retro 110, the Thai produced copy of the iconic Honda Super Cub C90. Producing 4.5Bhp at the engine, the Tiger Retro has 2.5% of a BMW 1200 GS’s power but it’s carrying 40% of the BMW’s weight. The Tiger’s top speed is 82kph (50mph) and the cruising speed is somewhere slightly below 75kph (45mph). Theoretically speaking, riding flat-out for 24 hours it would be possible to cover a total distance of 1,200 miles, but Theories are for the Classroom and the Road relies upon Reality.
I set out from Chiang Mai early in the morning and with so little power the hills were quite challenging. But, the Tiger plodded on and seemed to take everything in its short but steady stride. With a fuel capacity of just 3 liters, the Tiger's tank is small, but that matches it's thirst. At around 150 mpg, the journey might be slow, but it would also be relatively cheap.
The new seat that I'd had built for just $10 in Bangkok was an absolute delight and the hours and miles passed with far less pain than I'd expected. Then, just as everything was going unreasonably well, the Tiger began to wobble. The bamboo POORATECH luggage began shaking violently, the narrow handlebars started oscillating and the Tiger dipped down onto its haunches. A puncture in the rear tyre. Bollocks!
As I pulled to a halt, I saw the 'Sign' that I needed. A large tractor tyre painted white with red stripes. The elderly owner of the tyre-shop wasn't big on talking, but after handing him 100 THB, he rode away and returned fifteen minutes later with a new inner-tube and a small bottle of Lau Kow (Rice Whisky). The valve in the original tube had torn out and the replacement product was perfect. Thai's are very proud people and the elderly engineer refused my assistance. I should have stopped him, but I'm far too bloody polite. He only had one tyre lever, which for a tyre fitter, is unusual. He hummed, he harrrred, he struggled, and he sweated while turning a simple task into a complicated exercise in incompetence. But, eventually the new inner-tube was in place, the old tyre refitted and perfectly inflated. The only remaining fly in the engineering ointment was the absence of the security bolt to the rear brake's torque arm. Together, we searched high and low but the missing bolt was nowhere to be found. The elderly man pointed to his dogs ... 'Soonak mai dee' .. His dogs must have eaten it.
Five kilometers deeper into the journey, the wobbles returned. Another rear puncture. Once again, the God's were smiling and another painted tractor tyre was just a few meters behind me. Here, the tyre-fitter was younger, he had several beautiful sets of tyre levers and within seconds of removing the rear wheel, he was grinning like a Cheshire Cat and taking photographs with his smart-phone.
The missing security bolt had been found. It hadn't been eaten by the elderly man's dogs, it had been hiding inside the rim of the wheel, wedged between the tyre and inner-tube.
Mobile again, the boredom of the slow road was broken by random weirdness. For reasons unknown, the Thai's choose themes for everything. In this case, a roadside cafe is based upon the town of Bedrock. Why? I've absolutely no idea, but it does make me smile.
As darkness arrived, the coolness was welcomed but the mosquitoes and the darkness were not. I'd chosen to wear my open-face helmet and forgotten to bring my goggles. 500km from home, and I'd be squinting all the way.
In relation to its speed, the lights on the Tiger are best described as adequate, but my modifications had caused unforeseen problems. I'd fitted s screen, a screen that reflected the light and gave me a heads-up display of everything that I didn't need to know. I shouldn't really blame the screen for destroying all night vision, I should blame the idiot who fitted the front basket right in front of the headlight. That idiot I'm afraid ..... was Me.
After nineteen hours and a few minutes of riding, I pulled to a halt outside of my apartment and killed the Tiger's tortured engine. 1,027km in 19 hours. I'd averaged 32mph and consumed fuel at a rate of 140mpg. An average speed of 32mph sounds quite slow, but I will guarantee that at least half of those miles were competed at full-throttle and the diminutive Tiger never missed a beat. It wasn't an IBA Saddle Sore of 1,000 Miles in 24 Hours, but given the equipment used and the condition of the roads in Northern Thailand ... I'll take it as an achievement.
