Permission is granted to quote liberally provided the writer is credited. Mr Shaw can be reached at: jimshaw@multiverse.com
"This is my quest: to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far..."
Don Quixote, in "Man of La Mancha" Another madman
It started as an idea when I was killing time in the winter of 1995 in Florida. Only nine other riders have ever successfully completed the 50CC Quest. I didn't say much about it, then. My pal, the incomparable J.J., stopped by Shaw Towers on his way home from Florida, and I told him I was thinking about doing this coast-to-coast ride, non-stop. The response was something like, "Why would anybody wanna do that?" J.J.'s attitude seemed to be one of concern for my mental health, but I knew I had planted a seed of interest, there. We looked at some maps, and when he took off, I was pretty sure I hadn't heard the end of it. The deal was that I intended to ride it alone, but J.J. was probably one of the few people I'd consider riding it with, if he should decide to go. I told him that I thought the period between Tentpegger and the Georgia Mountain BMW rallies would be good. "I know those roads," says J.J., "and November'd be better." I explained that I didn't know where I'd be next November, and subsequent Novembers would be even less certain. He left with a sort of "maybe" plan to ride down to Tentpegger with me.
J.J. took the bait. When he called to say he was coming down to meet me for the ride to Tentpegger, he was already packed and ready for the 50CC ride, leaving his usual companion (the camper-trailer) at home. Good! I wouldn't have to ride all the way to California and back, alone. When he showed up at the Towers, we spent some time going over ideas of what we'd need, repacking as needed. The day I had intended to leave, I had to take my Father in for pacemaker implantation, and I was able to leave as soon as I was certain he was OK.
The central concept of the ride was to avoid any hype or cheering sections, etc. I wanted to do this for me, not for the crowd. No one was to know about the ride in advance. I had told only my trusted friend, Rick Landi, because I needed his help to get a bunch of camping gear and clothes shipped out to California. Butch Hays had written to me about an earlier trip report, and had foolishly offered his guest room to this itinerant rider at any future time. So, Rick and I conspired to recruit Butch as a shipping destination in San Diego, but we didn't even have the courtesy to tell him what was going on. When folks at Tentpegger inquired as to where I was going next, the prepared reply was, "J.J. and I are gonna ride out West; don't know where we'll end up, but we'll be back for the Georgia Mountain Rally." It was the simple truth, omitting only the details.
There are many ways to ride a 50CC, and to meet the requirements of the Iron Butt Association. I was determined to do it the best/most successful way, and to cut no corners on the documentation of the trip. Thus, the plan was to ride to Jacksonville, spend the night, and get an early start for San Diego, weather permitting. We stopped at Rick's place, which is well equipped with the cable television weather channel. Except for rainstorms in North Texas, it looked like a go.
In Jacksonville, J.J. chased down a cop, and made friends with him. We needed a police witness to sign our forms, starting the ride. The rules also demand similar reports at the middle, and the end of the trip. Multiple citizen witnesses are also acceptable, but we decided to go "first class" on this aspect. J.J. traded shoulder patches with his new found officer-friend, and the guy promised he'd have another officer do his duty the next morning. It worked.
It's hard to write about a 46 hour ride, except in generalities. Sleep deprivation is the overriding effect, and it generally disables your short term memory enough to cloud the details. You stop regularly for gas, because most stations are closed at night, and to run out is unthinkable. Almost half of the ride was after dark, making animal hits and tire carcasses a threat. The puny K100LT gas tank is woefully inadequate for this ride, demanding frequent gas stops. But, so is my butt, and my new sheepskin was still an idea, not yet obtained. I tried to explain it to Rick Landi, and maybe those words will help:
"What I really should have done was to ride a test run to perfect gas stop and resting judgement. It got tough making decisions when judgement was impaired by sleep deprivation. I remembered your experience in running out of fuel on the way home [to Orlando] from Death Valley, and ended up erring on the side of caution. I sorta forgot I had the 2 gals of high test in the saddle bag...
"East Texas was really tough for me. It rained in torrents for at least three hours, finally ending past Houston. By then, any rain suit would have leaked - as did mine. My feet were wet, and my pants had gotten wet from a minor leak. Then it got cold (we passed though the cold front). Temp was only like 55F, but it seemed really cold. Instead of stopping to change out of wet socks and pants (I was afraid we might have more rain, and I only had one extra pair of Levi's), I elected to put on the electrics. They saved me, but it was like riding in a steam room. Warm, wet pants and socks. Yuk.
"...The mind does funny, survival kinds of things when it has to. I found certain functions becoming automatic. Riding, passing, signalling, swerving to avoid tire carcasses, etc. became very automatic. I began to think as in a dream. I was totally unable to do arithmetic (computing mileages, speeds, etc.). Daydreams became most vivid, while vision became very two dimensional. This went on for several hours. Then, I rode down the mountains into the vast eastern California desert, into a cloudless, moonless, surrealistically star-filled sky. It looked like something out of a good space fiction movie, but in three dimensions. It completely upset my automatic riding system, and I found myself speeding along in the mid eighties looking 45 degrees upward, and all around; an absolutely magnificent view, but hardly conducive to safe riding! The end effect, after an hour or so, was to change my perception to require more attention to riding. I had broken out of the cocoon of two dimensional vision, with the simultaneous loss of autopilot. Then, we started into the San Diego sprawl of tight turns and cages doing housewife-style careering, and it is a good thing I wasn't on autopilot. This is the kind of feeling that is hard to share with anyone else. Perhaps it justifies the Iron Butt style rides; perhaps not..."
"I had ridden several nonstop rides in preparation, but they did not prepare me for getting over-the-hump of New Mexico and Arizona without rest (Editor's note: most 50cc Quest riders stop somewhere in Texas for several hours of sleep...). Have you ever watched amateur home movies, where the scenes "jump-cut" from one place to another without anything in between. That is what began to happen to me in West Texas, and continued until I went on autopilot in New Mexico. I would be zinging along at 85, watching the scenery go by. Then, without warning, the scene would change drastically. I would still be in the same spot in the right lane, still doing 85, but all the scenery had changed. Startling, to say the least. And it happened a lot. That's when I stopped for a ten minute nap. I still don't know how I willed myself awake after just ten minutes.
"You're wondering why I am telling you this? Because I've been thinking about it very much - as a curiosity. You happen to be the unwitting victim of my desire to set it down in print. You may see this text again, in a trip report."
And so, you do see it.
I found a cop at a truck stop in San Antonio, to sign the midpoint witness form. Ended up having coffee with he and his partner. They seemed properly baffled that anyone would want to do this. But, dear reader, WE know who's sane and who's not, don't we?
Downtown San Diego was pretty much asleep when we arrived at the central police headquarters at 01:37, local time. Not a cop in sight, so J.J. gets on the pay phone, and asks for one. "It'll be a while; everybody's busy," came the reply. It took about twenty minutes, and in the meantime, J.J. had found a squad car out back, and hailed the officer to sign him in. A friendly lady officer rolled up out front as promised, inspected the bike, odometer, and her watch, and signed my form. I asked her where it would be best to stay the night. "Any place but here," came the reply. "Those motorcycles wouldn't last five minutes, parked here!"
As she pulled away, J.J. and I shook hands, saluting the achievement of our goal. I will not soon forget his words: "It doesn't matter whether anybody else cares; we know we just did it, and that's what matters."
It's that simple.
We found a Motel 6, and I don't remember anything 'til about seven hours later. I called Rick, giving him license to put a short, terse note on the list explaining the success of the venture. J.J. rode down to Tijuana, to buy some gifts for friends. I called BMW rider/friend John Diaz to get the address of Mike Kneebone, to mail the documentation. I washed the LT, removing about twenty-three hundred miles of filth and spooge. I called Butch Hays, and he offered to get a gang together for a couple of beers at the local microbrewery. Good time, but I'm afraid I was a little out of it. My apologies to those who might have found me somewhat hard to follow.
The tale continues but this, gentle reader, is enough for a while.
Jim Shaw