What’s the furthest you’ve ever ridden in a single day on a motorcycle? There are so many different reasons that riders love doing what they do—and the only way to have a wrong answer is if the amount of riding you’re doing isn’t making you happy. That said, if you love to challenge yourself by riding long distances, then chances are excellent that you’ve already familiarized yourself with the Iron Butt Association’s variety of mileage-based challenges.
For those unfamiliar, the IBA exists as a community of long-distance riders who offer each other advice and encouragement—as well as maintaining and certifying the applications of riders who meet a given challenge’s criteria. It’s based in the U.S., but has members around the world—as well as chapters located in other geographic regions, such as Iron Butt U.K.
YouTube motovlogger Amanda Zito, the one-woman force behind her channel, As the Magpie Flies, is a busy rider, and one who’s done multiple cross-country treks on bikes. Covering a lot of miles is something that many riders do—but cracking an IBA challenge usually means you cover a whole lot of miles within a specific time limit. In this video, Zito finally tackles the IBA Saddlesore 1000 challenge, where riders have to complete (and document) completion of a 1,000-mile route within 24 hours.
There are quite a few elements to consider with this challenge. Since Zito is an experienced long-distance rider, she knows that her personal fatigue wall hits around the 700-mile mark. Thus far, the absolute longest trip she’s done in a day was about 900 miles back in 2019—and it’s been eating at her that she didn’t go an extra 100 miles to make it a nice, round 1,000. This time, she’s enlisted the help of the extremely gracious and accomplished long-distance rider Kerri Miller to help encourage her to hit that lofty, 1,000-mile goal.
Documentation for the Saddlesore 1000 challenge seems pretty reasonable—as long as you have both the patience and consistency to remember to document at every fuel stop along the way. Official rules say that you have to map your route via something like Google Maps, to check that it really is 1,000 miles. You’ll also need to get a fuel receipt every time you stop, as well as track and photograph it—and photographing it next to your odometer at each stop is also key.
Each receipt needs to include three pieces of information: Time, date, and gas station address. All of this evidence will support your claim that you’ve successfully finished your own 1,000-mile route once you get to the end. Fuel stops should be about 200 miles apart, and at the end of the whole thing, you’ll submit all this documentation to IBA for certification.
What do you get if you make it to the end? Personal satisfaction and bragging rights—as well as an official certificate saying that you did the thing. You also get stickers, which is pretty cool. While people may ask why you want to do something like this, why does anyone do anything they don’t absolutely have to do? Usually, it’s because you want to do it for some reason. Isn’t that a good enough answer? If doing a long-distance challenge like this is what makes you happy, why wouldn’t you want to do it?
