Bun Burner4500 turns into a Bun Burner 3000 Gold:

I got home tonight and could not have been more pleased to spot a manila envelope waiting for me in the mailbox that stands in front of my home. Enclosed I was proud to find My Bun Burner 3000 Gold certificate from the good people at IBA. What better way to mark Groundhog’s Day then hold this paper of accomplishment and remember what it took to get it. And now …the rest of the story. Some of you may remember my post last October about my failed attempted at the Bun Burner 4500. You may better remember the successful completion of this ride by my friend and riding partner Pete Murray. The ride had its fill of hurdles to overcome; butt there was never a time that we were not sure that we would pull into the finish location within the 72 hour limit. That is until my bike stopped dead going 60MPH on the I-71 north of Columbus, about 500 miles from home. At the time of my first post I believed that the problem came from a wire under the seat that had rubbed its way clean of insulation and grounded itself to a short, butt this was only the tip of the iceberg. In fact what had happened was a major melt down of the wire harness on my Y2K BMW RT. On this last leg of the three part trial, Pete and I were faced with riding thru the storm called RITA. This weather stayed with us for more than 9 hours prior to my break down and then with Pete until the ride’s conclusion. We had driven through so much water that it found its way into my side stand cut off switch. This switch apparently has no fuse in its layout, because what had started as a melting switch down at the side stand managed to worked its way up to the instrument console and then back down to the neutral indicator switch down in the gear box. The wire I originally thought had rubbed its way to a short had actually been melted as a result of the wire harness that had begun to fry. I ended up having to replace the entire wire harness on the bike. As fate would have it, I later found out that my speedometer drive unit at the front wheel had somehow managed to mechanically self destruct just 7 miles south of my electrical failure. So even if I had finished the ride, I would have had no speedometer readout to confirm my effort. The morning of this fateful day we headed out of Gothenburg, NE under blue skies. We had heard that we may hit some rain; butt the forecast looked like we would be riding ahead of the mess most of the way (so much for predictions on the weather channel). We were able to get about 3 hours of sleep that night at the local Super-8. That morning, for no good reason, I went about getting signatures from three witnesses when one would have done the job. I had no premonition as to the events to come. I just automatically went about collecting the signatures. The last one I got at the gas station right before take off. The attendant took his time about helping me out. When I walked outside I could see Pete was starting to steam about me holding up the ride. Can’t much blame him; after all I was burning up time. Well as it turned out, if I had not gotten those witnesses I would have had squat to have shown for my effort because it was those signatures that allowed me to file for my Bun Burner 3000 Gold and today I’m glad I did.

2005 Tinbuttu Rally

2006 Minuteman 24 Hour Rally - RAIN

2007 Rhode Rally

2007 MD 20/20

Fourth Place over all and Most Miles under rally's mileage cap

---