THE #ironbutt association, based out of the USA, has caught the attention of the youth of India for many years. It was originally designed for the endless open highways of North America, but like any culture originating from the USA, it quickly percolated into the rest of the world. The premise was mostly simple – Burn your adrenaline and fuel to do as many kilometres as you can in the minimum time.

Well, not quite. There were slots that you could choose to make things easier and try and prevent people from going totally ballistic. The most popular (and most accessible) is the Saddlesore 1000. Where 1000 denotes miles, therefore, for us Indians, it is 1609 km and not 1600 km that we usually think.

But I had one thing very clearly defined in my mind – I would not make any such attempt in India. Not only did I owe a lot to the motorcycling community in India, but it was simply too dangerous for Indian roads and conditions. And since many young people will be attempting this, they will probably have smaller capacity bikes that will be running at their braking and engine limits for far too long. Plus we all know the unpredictability of our roads, both the quality and the nature of moving objects, from animals to cycles, to traffic coming from the wrong sides.

Anyhow, I do also love my riding, certificates or not. But after a very long time, instead of saying I have done so many kilometres in a day, I chose an established and recognized organization to try and understand how these numbers were chosen, for example, 1000 miles in 24 hours.

I have done three Ironbutts so far. Each has variables in the form of the bike, weather, road speed limit, and my own physical and mental condition at the moment. All and any of these variables are important, but the most important is your mental preparation. No matter what you think, you will start to wear out after certain kilometres depending on the other variables.

My first Ironbutt in 2017 was peculiar. It wasn’t really planned. Also, it was part of a much bigger ride – 20,000 km around Australia. The bike was a Ninja H2 along with a Ducati Panigale 1299. Both of them are not really conducive to such attempts as far as ergonomics is concerned.

The route was from the city of Alice Springs to the city of Darwin via Jabiru in Kakadu National Park. The total distance was 1750 km and I did it in 16.5 hours flat! The speed limits there were 130 km/h and 150 km/h. All-day cruising was possible because of almost non-existent traffic. The greatest threat was the wildlife at sunrise and then at sunset.

Riding at and after sunset is usually considered criminal and suicide on a motorcycle in such places because of Kangaroos and all sorts of other fluffy, yet potentially dangerous creatures coming out at night. The weather, however, was hot but there was no rain, which saved us many headaches. In both of our bikes, we had a combined total of 15 litres of fuel in spare cans. The Ninja H2 can run out of fuel in 90 km if you keep doing 200-250 km/h and the same bike gave me 270 km to one tank when I kept it at a constant 100 km/h – yes unbelievable.

My second Ironbutt was precipitated by a call from Germany in mid-2022. “Hey we are five riders from different parts of Germany, some journalists, and we are crazy enough to do the Saddlesore 1000. On 125CC bikes. On the autobahn”. This was primarily because they wanted to promote the reliability of the 125CC bikes in Germany which can be ridden without a full license by licensed car drivers as their first motorcycles. And that was one of the major themes at the INTERMOT show in Cologne as well. Anyhow, all the images of my first Ironbutt in 2017 flashed by. However, I knew that it would be much tougher than it looked. And I was right.

We started at midnight from the IVM headquarters in Essen, Germany. IVM means ‘Industrie-Verband Motorrad Deutschland e.V’. Basically, it is an association that works for the betterment of the motorcycling industry and fraternity in Germany as a whole by lobbying with the government, companies, or people as and when required. IVM is also responsible for INTERMOT in Cologne every two years.

The route was supposed to connect various tracks in Germany. Starting from Essen, the first stop was the famous Nurburgring, next was Hockenheim, no.3 was Norisring (circuit since 1938), then Sachsenring (German MotoGP), next Lausitzring, onwards to Berlin with the AVUS (world’s first road test and training area), then Oschersleben – Harzring (Famous for 24 Hour races with scooters and 125). The only circuit we didn’t visit on both trips was the “Bielster Berg” – the newest circuit in Germany.

I was accompanied by two 125CC scooters and two more 125CC motorcycles. I intentionally chose a naked because of a more upright posture, probably sacrificing a km an hour top speed due to the aerodynamics. One tank bag on the bike with a power bank connected to a phone mounted on the bike and a few energy bars. That’s it. Throughout the 1600 km, I didn’t see my speed over 119 km/h on the speedo when the rev limiter would cut the engine. The true speed probably never was above 115 km/h after accounting for the speedo error.

We left on 31st July at midnight, which was a Sunday. It is only on this day of the week that non-essential trucks are prohibited from using the Autobahn. The hardest part would have been overtaking trucks which also would have been plying around 100 km/h. Imagine overtaking a meters-long truck at 15 km/h, while other cars are trying to use the faster lane that you are in. Nightmare and embarrassing, to say the least! I used this information to plan my next Ironbutt as well, as you will read in a moment.

I prefer solo rides. Forget doing an Ironbutt with a group where every minute is important, especially when you have a slow bike like this. More people meant more time at fuel stops and synchronizing rest stops. And while the company of other gentlemen was good, it is exactly what happened. I did complete the Saddlesore 1000 successfully, but just 10 minutes shy of 24 hours!

Apart from overtaking any traffic (that was hardly the case considering how slow we were), the biggest enemy was definitely sleeping. At 115 km/h you cannot do much except brood about everything in the universe going all the way back to the big bang and then hope not to catch a wink again because that could be literally fatal.

At one point I was afraid that the engine would explode because it was being constantly ridden at the peak rpm limit all the time. The amount of torture that the engine could endure was phenomenal. Much respect. We are talking about the autobahn here, you hardly need to come down from the top speed of this bike (119 km/h speedo crouched position), unless there is an under-construction part of the highway.

As I said before, sleep was my biggest enemy. No coffee and no Redbull could help after a certain point in time. And then when there was around 400 km left, it started to rain. Rain surprisingly brought a certain amount of freshness and ‘chill’ that woke us all up. After around 1000 km, it was just me riding along solo which meant I could finally stop and maintain my own pace.

The toughest part of the ride was riding after sunset in the rain. The rain was blinding and the water was seeping down my neck and making it worse. I was staying at around 90 km/h on the speedo, just making sure what was ahead of me. It was crazy and I often wondered what I was even doing there. This was one of the rare times I truly woke up to the fact that cars are better than motorcycles in many use-case scenarios.

My stops became extremely frequent as I closed to 1600 km. Most of them were to get fuel or a food receipt just to create a waypoint on the map that would help the IBA (Iron Butt Association) verify the details.

And then finally, after a gruesome 1600-odd km I reached the same fuel station that I had started from in Essen. With around 15 minutes to spare.
Out of the five riders, two didn’t finish it in time and didn’t get their certificates. The biggest lesson learned here was, don’t ride in groups, and don’t make unnecessary stops (like the ones in this ride to see the racing circuits). Stay focused. If you are doing this for a certificate then you should act on what’s asked in the curriculum.

My third Ironbutt was just two months later, in the month of October 2022. This was precipitated by the fantasy of trying out just how quickly I can do the saddlesore 1000 on the autobahn if I have one of the fastest bikes in the world. Maybe I was just pissed off with all the trauma the 125CC Saddlesore caused and I wanted to get even with the universe.

So I presented myself with the dilemma of choosing between two motorcycles, the K1600B and the M1000RR. Both have their pros and cons, but one of them wasn’t that apparent before the ride. Anyways, I chose the M1000RR because I wanted to have the fastest bike that BMW makes. And that’s (one of?) the most expensive production road-legal motorcycles to be sold in India as well.

192KGS, 212 BHP. Bring it on! I knew that I could really harm my body on this one, and I was also worried about my post-ACL surgery knee (that I had gotten done 9 months ago). But anyways I prepared myself mentally, and I kept the K1600B for a more sedate ride in the Alps as a gift to myself for completing the saddlesore 1000 on the M1000RR.

Knowing that I had a faster bike, I chose to start after sleeping relatively more than my previous Ironbutt. I started from the fuel pump in the morning at 05:24 AM. Fuel slips are very important for you to IronButtAssociationestablish where you were and at what time. And not only that, you need to click a photo of your fuel slip with the odometer and the time showing on the console. There are certain rules and guidelines that need to be followed, hence just twisting the throttle won’t do the trick.

In hindsight, wearing the Dainese wind protection waterproof gear over my Dainese leathers was a very good idea as it protected me from extreme and constant wind blasts on the highway. And it was October in Germany. I also skipped a tank bag on the bike because last time I couldn’t crouch properly on the Z125. Instead, I bought a cheap motorcycle backpack to carry a spare action cam and batteries. This was again a mistake because it actually caused just enough drag for me at speeds over 290 km/h that I couldn’t eliminate.

Not only that, the constant wind blasts ensured that one of the zippers opened slowly but surely resulting in my spare action cam flying out and being forever lost in one of the endless stretches of the autobahn. Another lesson learned, as that could have been dangerous for the vehicle behind me. Instead of the tank bag, I had a Rynox waist bag, that was literally the control centre housing the power bank and credit cards. I had mounted a phone and a 360 camera on the M1000RR, again very difficult to find space to do so. The phone was connected to the power bank all the time.

The first few kilometres saw me ride out of the city of Garching before dawn and onto the autobahn where it was extremely cold. Slowly I started to pick up speed. I must mention that a pin-lock antifog is definitely required for such an attempt, especially when you know it will be cold. Balaclava with a neck warmer is also a must. However, all these things just make you stiffer and in the long run cost you a lot of comforts, especially on such a bike.

My route was starting in Garching in Germany continuing to Nurnberg, Delbruck, Ohrenbach, Landsberg am Lech and returning to Garching.

In the morning and dusk, the interplay of shadows and light on the autobahn made it an issue to properly gauge if there was a car or a bend at high speeds, hence I had to slow down often and then pick the pace back up. This was not too much of a problem considering how light and fast the bike was, but it did eat up my mental energy a bit.

Even the slightest of the crosswinds were enough to make me feel uncomfortable at speeds over 250 km/h. Another issue is that you can never be cent per cent sure that a car will not come in the fast lane because when you are crouched you cannot see if there is another car ahead of them. So planning that far is problematic. And you always remain tense with the right two fingers on the brakes for any such eventualities. This prevented me from going flat out most of the time. Another thing that I discovered is that even if I was at speeds of around 270 km/h there was no guarantee that there won’t be a car behind waiting to overtake me. Make no mistake, Germany has some stupendously fast cars, and a lot of them don’t even look fast but pack a lot of horsepower and are streamlined enough to do speeds of 300 km/h easily.

You might think that I would have hit 300 km/h multiple times easily on the autobahn in the 1600 km that I did. In fact, I also thought I would, but incredibly I didn’t go past 296! That’s a shocker for me as well considering I have been to 299 even at the Buddh International Circuit on my 2018 S1000RR!

There are a lot of factors behind this, from the backpack to the body position being strained by the multiple layers of clothes and the conditions being just not right when the autobahn was actually a straight line. For me, safety is paramount and the moment I felt that I don’t know what was ahead or what the move of the car in the immediate slower lane would be, I would ease off the throttle. After all, the aim was to do the 1600 km quickly, but not to set any records.

Talking about records, I immediately realized that the fastest I go, the quicker the fuel economy would drop. I was sick and tired of stopping for fuel every 100-odd km. The moment the range would show 50 km, I would have to start looking for a fuel pump. And I just cannot stop on the autobahn and enter on the GPS. So many practical challenges crop up when you start doing something that you need to keep a record of using receipts.

Later I discovered that I was right in not taking the K1600B for the Ironbutt. It may be far more comfortable but the fact that the practical cruising speed on it was 180 km/h, as it cuts off at 199 km/h! Plus the windscreen was in a very odd position, giving enough disturbance at the top of the helmet to force me to slouch a bit. Though it would have also meant lesser fuel stops, I feel the M1000RR was better at keeping me from feeling really sleepy by keeping me involved all the time. And that’s an incredibly important factor.

I have always maintained that Saddlesore is not made for India, and I stand by that. So why Ironbutt rides at all? I do it as a test and wake-up call for my mind and body. Kind of a sauna for my motorcycling being. In fact, I may have done a total of six or seven Ironbutts in total, but never had I gone for a certificate until the first one in 2017 with the Ninja H2. But that was part of a much much bigger roadtrip, like my earlier certificate-less Ironbutts.

I have many things to discuss, and they are best done in a video that I will plan to make some time in 2023.

This article was published in the Dec’22-Jan’23 Issue of the xBhp Print Magazine.

Order your copy here, or read it online here.