Buckeye Butt Buster Recap

By Chapter President - Tom Johnson

Bikes went zoomy-zoom

Bugs went split-splat

Butts are now ouchie-ouch

We made it in less than 24 hours flat!

Most people at 3 or 4 am are still in dreamland. Others might have a very early shift at their job! Then there are the brave few who get on a motorcycle and ride 1,000 miles covering the outside of the state of Ohio, and you only have 24 hours, that's right, 24 hours!!! That is what I decided to do instead of sleeping in a warm bed.  I was up by 230am, got my passenger up and ready to ride, and she was unhappy!!!  We got to where we needed to be to start this journey. We joined other 15 bikes and 17 riders who all decided to take on this challenge.  We split into two groups and I briefed my group on the mission.  I knew they were ready to go, and the journey began.  

It wasn't a terrible ride altogether, it was very chilly in the early morning hours, but that's par for the course.  As the day went on, it was a lot better to ride.  It wasn't too hot or cold to ride, which helped out a lot.  As we were moving across the outskirts of the state, you saw just about everything you could imagine.  I have to list these because there were a few:  "orange cone squirrels," there were deer, buzzards, a squirrel--just the one in front of me, all of the wonderful holes & craters & who knows what else on the roads of Ohio!!  The flea market--this was one we stopped at cause I missed the gas station, so I figured everyone wanted to do some "flea" shopping!!! All the wonderful, caring, generous, loving humans in 4-wheel vehicles all around us.  And to the one person in front of us who almost and practically lost his truck to the guard rail.  That person was fortunate, and so were we.  

Towards the end of our journey, we hit our 2nd to last gas stop. I knew everyone was tired, I sure was, but everyone was ready to get it over with.  So we pushed on and finished at the spot we started. We were just ahead of the other group by only a few mins.  What a wild, enjoyable, frustrating, laughable, and some of the stops were...I won't be stopping there again.  I thanked them and told my group how proud they were of making it to the end.  To go home, get clean, and get lots of rest.  This was NOT my first Iron Butt experience.  I went in 2022 down to Knoxville, TN, and it was amazing.  What a great ride, with lots of great people in our group.  This ride though was a little different!  This one was harder due to going from the main highways to the smaller town streets.  I honestly didn't think we were going to make it, I made some mistakes during, but I figured them out.  When we got to the last gas stop we had maybe 45 mins to spare, that really surprised me.  But everyone did such a great job.  Would I do this again? Not anytime soon, but we shall see what's around the riverbend!!

Thank you to all the riders in our IMRG group completed to do this ride, you earned it.  We had such a huge turnout for this, it was more than I expected.   

I am very proud of the ones who braved the entire journey.....and welcome to the class of the "WORLDS TOUGHEST RIDERS"

Many thanks to Chris and Maria Weisgarber for all prep and work you put into this.  Thank you very much!!