100CCC SS5K B2B

Executive Summary

This was a trip that Charlie Clemmer and myself had been planning since about January of 2006 but we had talked about it since mid-2005. It was just a matter of time before we put it all together and made it happen. The goal was to do a 100CCC and finish a SS5K the day after finishing the 100CCC. Charlie summarizes the trip's goals pretty well in his report.

The idea is simple, start on the Pacific coast in San Diego, ride to the Atlantic coast in Jacksonville, FL, and then back to San Diego in under 96 hours. Each segment of this trip is roughly 2,370 miles, so the entire trip should work out to roughly 4,700 miles. Once back in San Diego, we would ride an additional 300 miles to bring our five day total up to at least 5,000 miles, so that we could also qualify for a Iron Butt Saddle Sore 5000 ... five days of at least 5,000 miles.
  -Charlie Clemmer

If all was well at that point we would ride from Mexico to Canada in a day which is known as a Border to Border. That would start in Otey Mesa, Mexico and end in Surrey, British Columbia. Both towns are right on the border of the US.

The starting point for this fiasco would be San Diego. There was a lot of prep for both of us and logistics was part of the challenge. In the end we settled on May 13th - 20th. I was going to need at least two days to get to San Diego so I left late on May 10th and returned on the 21st. It was a total of somewhere around 10000+ miles in 11.5 days. Here was the breakdown:

1. Milwaukee to San Diego: 2.5 days, 2000 miles
2. Roughly one day to get ready for the ride, 1 day, 0 miles
3. Coast to Coast to Coast: 4 days, 4700 miles
4. SS5K finish: 1 day, 350 miles
5. Border to Border Insanity: 1 day, 1400 miles
6. Blaine, WA to Milwaukee: 2 days, 2000 miles

I took measures to make sure the bike was ready to go and I put on a fresh set of Pilot Roads that would last me the entire trip. The tires held up great through the trip and I even put some more miles on them after I got home. Love them PR's.

This was one of the most challenging rides I've done to this point and it was great to have Charlie there for support. Doing the ride alone would have made it even harder to the point where set backs would make me second guess doing the ride. Sometimes it's nice to have someone to bounce questions off of and help make smart decisions.

It was a great ride and I'm glad that we did it. I was disappointed that we couldn't both do the border to border ride but I knew ahead of time that I may have to do it myself so I was prepared mentally to do it if Charlie had to head for home early because of work commitments. It was 2000 miles to home no matter if I was in San Diego or Seattle so other than an extra day there wasn't a difference for me other than doing over 1400 miles in a day to accomplish it.

Chapter 2: Pre-Trip Maintenance and Planning