It was a couple of years ago when my friend, Randy, first mentioned his idea for combining a Bun Burner (1500 miles in 36 hours) with a tour through all the states that border Colorado. That means Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. It didn't take a lot of cajoling to get me to see the beautiful potential of such a ride. I am quick to jump aboard the adventure train. I told Randy I would love to do that ride with him.

It was a few weeks later that he took up the topic again. Maybe I had asked him if he had done any more thinking about that ride. Or maybe it was the day that I got some new trip-mapping software and showed him some printouts of a proposed route. But what he told me was a blow to my hopes for sharing his adventure. He explained to me that most guys who do serious long distance rides do it alone. He said that is because it is really hard to get two riders to agree on exactly when and where to stop for how long, etc. Each rider's needs are so different, it usually doesn't work for two to try one of these rides together.

Randy is a good enough friend that I didn't take this as a personal rejection. Yes, the thought did occur to me that it could be taken that way. But when I examined all of the evidence, I was convinced that he was just speaking the plain truth. I was disappointed, but we would still be friends and riding buddies. We just wouldn't do that ride together.

This year he and I have been training for a major bicycle ride that we have talked about doing for the past three years, the "Triple By-Pass Ride." That ride consists of three mountain passes, 120 miles and 10,000 feet of vertical climb all in one day. Early on during our training for that, Randy again brought up the subject of his proposed Bun Burner through the border states. I was all ears. He said he had been thinking of doing that ride this year and that he was thinking that our riding styles might actually be similar enough that we could try doing that ride together. Oh, yes!

Randy is the methodical one and I am the spontaneous one. I am sure he spent more than 5 hours for every hour I spent in planning and preparing for the ride. He did more plotting of possible routes, planned all the gas stops, reserved our motel room two weeks in advance, and did many more preparatory activities than I even gave a moment's thought to. He told me a few weeks before the ride that we needed to be out doing training rides on the motorcycles, too, not just our regimen of bicycle training rides. He may be right about that, but I mostly laughed at the notion of needing to practice riding my motorcycle. Right or wrong, I felt I could jump on my motorcycle at a moment's notice and be off for 1500 miles.

Now I am not a complete fool. I made sure that my tires were young and properly aired. I had recently changed the oil and filter. I was taking tools and extra oil and emergency supplies. But my preparations paled in comparison to his. The night before we departed, he told me that he had called his credit card company and asked them to be sure that their software would not block the use of his card after he had made many fuel purchases in rapid succession in many different states. "They have software that does that?" I asked, incredulous. "Oh yes," he assured me. "If you make purchases in several different states in one day, the software picks out your account as one that is likely being abused by unauthorized persons. It is based on the theory that one person can't be in many different places at one time. We will be traveling so rapidly from state to state and not in an obvious single direction of travel, our cards might be shut down."

Who would have thought of that? Only Randy and a very few people like him. I decided that it was too late for me to do anything about that. And besides, I was carrying two credit cards and a debit card, while Randy was carrying only one. But I did decide to carry a little bit more cash… just in case.

Then we started. Oh, the beauty, the inexpressible beauty of riding westward over the continental divide in the predawn hours of a Colorado morning in June with the almost full moon setting as we were rising! How can one put words to the charm of the familiar road made strangely enchanting by the unearthly light, the absence of traffic and the lure of great adventure just ahead?

The moon went down over the Ten-Mile Range as we were descending the west side of the divide beyond the Eisenhower Tunnels on I-70. We couldn't get our Chatterbox radios to communicate, but we know a lot of hand signals. We stopped in Frisco for a quick bathroom break and were back in the saddles and going over Vail Pass before full light. Four or five elk seemed to be playing tag at the top of the pass right beside the road. I didn't know it at the time but they may have been reacting to Randy's horn. To me they looked like they were just feeling frisky and wanting to play.

It was full daylight by the time we rolled through Glenwood Canyon and stopped for our first gas stop. So far, it was more beautiful than I had imagined and we were still doing Interstate highway. I could hardly wait until we got to the interesting part. We got back on our bikes and headed for Utah with the rising sun on our backs, the result of good forethought on Randy's part. It would have been tougher to be going east at that hour.

The only time I struggled with sleepiness was on that next stretch to Grand Junction and the Utah border. The scenery is still interesting, but the road is a lot straighter. Once we stopped for a picture at the Utah line, I left all drowsiness behind. I was anticipating Utah 128, running along the Colorado River to Moab.

Randy had told me about this road about two years ago and I had been wanting to ride it. If it was half as good as he had described, it might be the highlight of our entire ride. It was as good as he described and it was definitely one of the highlights. The red sandstone cliffs were alternately lit by blazing sunlight and muted in the half-light of long shadows cast by the still-low angle of the sun. The temperature was toasty after the 38 degrees Fahrenheit we had felt at the top of Vail Pass, but moderate compared to what we anticipated in Arizona. And the road just swept left and right along the Colorado River where the white-water rafters were just beginning their day. It was the kind of road I ride to discover.

After a quick stop in Moab for fuel and to strip off some clothing, we swept southward through Utah. The scenery was still dramatic, but the roads were pretty straight after what we had just been through. We stopped for the obligatory photo at the Arizona state line, and quickly continued south. Our next gas stop was at Teec Nos Pos. I had to ask the Navajo girl at the trading post how to pronounce the name of the place. Turns out it is pronounced [teese NOHS pohs], just like it's spelled! That is, if you speak Navajo.

From there we only had to ride a mile or two to the New Mexico state line. We had been catching a distant view of Shiprock (the rock, not the town) for some miles. But as the terrain would have it, it was hidden behind a hill at the state line. Once in New Mexico, we were on state highway 64 and would be for many a mile. After going through Shiprock (the town, not the rock,) and heading for Farmington, I began to think the fun was over. The road was four-lane with lots of used car dealers, pawnshops, yard sales and drowsy traffic. I set my expectations on zero and braced myself to endure the uninteresting part of the trip.

Premature judgment. Some miles past Farmington, most of the traffic swung southeast off of highway 64 towards Albuquerque and the road began to curve again. The desert gave way to forest as we climbed into the Rocky Mountains once again and my heart soared in delight from the zero expectations to a great and welcome surprise. From there almost all the way to Taos the road was a playground for touring motorcyclists and traffic was negligible. We climbed over the continental divide on curve after curve, left, right, left, right. When we dropped down into a broad valley, we were surprised by the deep canyon of the Rio Grande.

As we swung toward Taos, we could see a dramatic thunderstorm just ahead and we wondered whether we would get drenched before we could get gas. I had been leading and I missed one of Randy's planned gas stops, continuing for many a mile while thinking that it must be just around the next curve. We were both into our discomfort zone with regard to fuel supplies but it looked like Taos was still reachable.

The closer we got to Taos the clearer it became that the storm had the same destination in mind. As we rolled toward the city limit, the road became wet and we saw a few sprinkles on our windshields, but we scooted in under the canopy of a gas station just as we caught up with the back edge of the storm. Water was still pouring through the downspouts off the canopy and other riders were still taking shelter there, but the edge of the storm was already moving farther to the east. And by the time we had gassed up, we didn't even need to put on our rain gear to go look for supper.

This was our first somewhat leisurely stop of the day. We had a sandwich rather than a power bar and we spent maybe half an hour before we saddled up again and headed east. It was our plan to reach Clayton, NM, by about 10:00 or 11:00 and to sleep there for a few hours before continuing through the Oklahoma panhandle into Kansas. Before we could even get out of the mountains, I had to stop to put on my rain gear. We had caught up with a cold front that was kicking up far more rain than the shower we had avoided at Taos. Just as we were coming out of the mountains, I spotted a couple of county sheriff cars getting ready to turn onto the road we were zipping along. I backed off the throttle instinctively and glanced at my speedometer at the same time. "Uhoh," I thought, "this may be close." I was definitely over the speed limit but not going as fast as I feared. It was going to depend on how the officers felt and what else they had to do. While they were apparently trying to make up their minds whether to give chase, Randy swept around the corner and into their view. Simultaneously, the lights atop one of the vehicles began to flash and I thought, "Poor Randy. He doesn't deserve this nearly as much as I do."

Almost immediately the lights stopped flashing and the cops headed the other way. I asked Randy about it later and it was his expert opinion that they had just decided to chase me when he came around the curve and blocked them. That may be a valid interpretation, but I think they had other things to do and just wanted to flash him and me a warning before pursuing other business.

After crossing Interstate 25, we were dodging between a couple of storms and heading right toward another. From Springer we were making pretty much of a beeline toward Clayton and the darkest clouds I had seen in a long time. I noticed, off to my right, one leg of a faint rainbow. I kept looking back that way, watching as it became more vivid, if not longer. Soon saw a second, fainter leg arching the same direction. Then off to my left I saw the first leg of the vivid bow, but not the faint one. As the sun sank lower behind us and as we approached closer to the storm itself, the vivid rainbow gradually grew from both right and left until it met at the top. Only then did the faint, second leg appear on the left and follow the growth of the vivid one. Just before we entered the rainfall itself, the faint bow completed its arch above the vivid one, completing the double rainbow.

As I was enjoying this spectacle, I experienced my "surprise of the day." The road was wet, but since it was almost perfectly straight, it didn't occasion a lot of concern about traction. And traffic was virtually non-existent. The pavement, though showing various "tar snakes" and patches, was incredibly smooth and seemed to be completely free of water-channeling ruts or puddles. So I was checking out the road conditions less and less and enjoying the growing rainbow more and more.

Then it happened. While I was looking up at the dazzling display, something physically knocked both my feet right off the pegs. Surprise! I was so startled, I looked over my shoulder to see what I had hit, but there was no debris in the road. It took me several seconds to regain my composure enough to realize that one of those "smooth patches" must have dipped down enough to hold a few inches of water. And that water was jetted by my front tire right onto my unsuspecting feet with such force that they literally flew off the pegs.

You can bet I slowed down and watched the road a little better after that. But there were no other puddles. Just the one.

By the time we reached Clayton, the rain was over. We were well ahead of our schedule, and the Texas state line was only 10 miles away. Randy was born in Texas and even though Texas doesn't quite border Colorado, the lure was too much for him. We took a quick look at our motel from the outside and hurried on down to get a state line photo of Texas.

And right there was where I dropped my bike. Bad judgment often accompanies exhaustion. We had come about 974 miles in about 17 hours. Randy pulled up close to the Texas marker for a photo and I pulled up next to him. There was an edge to the pavement right there; it ran between my tires and where my side-stand met the ground. I thought about it for a second but was convinced that the difference in the two levels was not enough to make it an unstable place to park. I was wrong.

As I started to shift my weight off the bike and onto my left foot, the bike rocked back to the right and out of my control. Over it went as I shouted, "Help, help!" Randy was nearby, but not near enough to do anything to arrest the fall. The only help I got was the fact that he had parked about 3" too far to the right for my bike to take his down with it. Small favors! It is always humiliating to drop your machine; how much worse it would have been if I had knocked his down, too!

I stood there reeling with weariness, humiliation and frustration. Randy moved his bike farther away and was eager to make the moment pass more quickly by helping me get my bike back up. As I tried to take my helmet off to get a breath of fresh Texas air, it slipped out of my gloved hands and crashed to the pavement beside the fallen bike. I turned to my very startled friend and said, "I think I am tired."

In just a few more minutes we had my bike back up and my snap-off, snap-on rear-view mirror and turn-signal unit snapped back on. No real damage. We took our photos with flashes and headlights lighting the state line marker and rode back to Clayton for some shuteye.

Because we were still ahead of schedule, we luxuriated in the motel for about five hours instead of the three we had planned. And I, at least, felt refreshed as we started off in the predawn darkness once more. It was still mostly dark when stopped for the Oklahoma state line photo, but it became light as we angled across the panhandle toward Kansas. I didn't expect beauty in the Oklahoma panhandle, but the early, early morning and the wide-open fields combined for a lovely view.

And heading due north in Kansas was not as boring as I would have predicted, either. The rural beauty was not absolutely flat, despite the jokes about being able to stand on a six-pack and see all the neighboring states. The slow undulations of the land seemed to reveal a myriad of variations in the low-angle sunlight and a landscape that was surprisingly inviting emerged. Certainly part of what was inviting was the lack of traffic and the pre-modern atmosphere of the towns that still survived without Walmart and McDonalds.

And then there were the birds. Is it just Kansas where the birds walk along the edge of the pavement only to fly up in crazy zig-zag patterns just yards in front of your windshield? I found myself ducking numerous times as I anticipated collisions with feathery pilots engaged in emergency evasion tactics. After a while, I had just about decided that they were skilled enough that I didn't need to worry. Then one that I hadn't even seen bounced off my windshield with a thump. "Wow, where did he come from?" I wondered. The bird probably wondered the same thing, however briefly.

And it was only about 40 miles farther when another one that I hadn't seen suddenly bounced off the brow of my helmet. "Now there," I thought, "is an excellent argument for wearing a helmet." I don't know what a bird's beak would feel like on my scalp at 85, uhhh, I mean 55 miles per hour. But I think I would rather not know.

At St. Francis, we turned west. It was Randy's intention to stop and take a state line photo as we re-entered Colorado on this leg, but the sign had apparently blown down. So we went on down the road. We still had Nebraska and Wyoming to collect. Shortly after entering Colorado we turned north again with that in mind. When we stopped in Wray, CO, for gas, we followed a big guy on a Goldwing into the station. While we were fueling up he commented, "I wish I was you guys."

"Why do you say that," queried Randy.

"Because no matter where you are going, it is better than what I get to do. I just rode over here to fuel up and then I have to go back home and mow the lawn." He was right. What we were doing was way better than mowing the lawn. While Randy went inside to take off some excess clothing I told the poor gentleman a bit more of where we were riding what he was missing. It probably didn't make him feel better about mowing the lawn, but maybe it inspired him to think of a future weekend and exploits of his own.

In order to document the northeast extremity of our route, we got on I-76 eastbound at Julesburg, CO and rode onto I-80 and the first gas stop beyond that. That was Big Springs, Nebraska. There it was that Randy's prediction came true. My American Express card was rejected. I tried it three or four times, but no deal. The software had caught up with me. Eight gas stops in 7 states in little over twenty-four hours is just too improbable for them. It was a good thing that I was carrying other cards. Purchase completed. On to Cheyenne.

The trip to Cheyenne was probably the least interesting stretch of the route. Buzzing along a busy interstate in near 100-degree heat is not my idea of fun riding. But we were nearing our goal. The most interesting thing I saw between Big Springs and the Wyoming line was a state trooper cruising down the lower-than-pavement grassy median, on the prowl for scofflaws. Fortunately traffic was so heavy along there that it was almost impossible to speed and we slipped by without incident.

When we stopped for the Wyoming state line photo, Randy and I talked about where to conclude our ride in Cheyenne. He said, and I quote, "Let's stop at that big truck stop right beside I-25." I agreed. It was dead clear in my mind. That could only mean Little America. It is a big truck stop that has been right beside the junction of I-80 and I-25 since the 1960s. But no one said the words, "Little America." And wouldn't you know it, Randy and I got separated by the heavy traffic just as we were entering Cheyenne. I got off the interstate and went directly to Little America. But Randy didn't.

After almost 1600 miles, we had reached our goal but couldn't find each other. I tanked up and kept looking back over my shoulder but no Randy appeared. I spotted a guy in riding gear and hailed him. He was kind enough to sign off on my mileage, and we chatted a while about the Iron Butt Association. But it just didn't seem right to end it without Randy.

I dug out my cell phone and called Randy's wife. "Beth, I am not calling with bad news, so don't over react. Randy and I have reached our goal but we lost each other here in Cheyenne." She laughed.

I told her what Randy had said about the big truck stop right by I-25 and asked her if he might have meant some place other than Little America. Fortunately, she knew exactly where he meant. And she was able to describe the location to me. I told her that if he called her she should tell him to stay where he was. I was on my way.

By the time I found Randy, he was looking cool beside his bug-covered Concourse, wearing his ball cap instead of his helmet. He ragged me a little bit about not going to the right truck stop, but I still maintain that his words were criminally vague. We both laughed and congratulated each other at our mutual success.

The ride from Cheyenne back to Littleton, CO, was definitely anticlimactic, hot, and overly populated by 18-wheelers, tourists, and Harleys. But we had done it. We had documented about 1580 miles in well under 36 hours. I waved goodbye to Randy about 4 miles from home where our ways parted. Then I realized that I had just turned 1700 miles and was still a few minutes under 36 hours. And, would you believe it, the traffic lights cooperated for those last few miles and I pulled into my driveway 35 hours and 59 minutes after our departure with a total of 1705 miles.

- Terry Todd, Littleton Colorado