HURTS SO GOOD

HURTS SO Moto vlogger and AMA member Whitney Meza takes on the Iron Butt Association’s 50 CC Quest — from coast to coast in less than 50 hours — in the middle of winter GOOD

BY JOY BURGESS WITH WHITNEY MEZA / PHOTOS: WHITNEY MEZA

It was my birthday,” Whitney Meza said when I asked what made her decide to do a coast-tocoast motorcycle trip in the dead of winter, “so I decided to torture myself.”

For the uninitiated, the 50 CC Quest is a certification earned through the Iron Butt Association requiring you to ride from one coast to the opposite coast within 50 hours. And you can’t just say you did it…you gotta have proof, including gas station receipts as close to the coasts as possible and, in Whitney’s case, two vials of sand and water — one from the Pacific and one from the Atlantic.

Riding coast-tocoast inside of 50 hours is clearly not for the faint of heart…but in the middle of January? That’s a different thing entirely. It’s every bit as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one.

But for Whitney, the challenge was a huge part of the appeal.

“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Why am I drawn to longdistance riding?’” Whitney told me. “I really like to see what I’m capable of and what I can battle through within myself.”

And this trip was definitely a battle.

“It started with deciding to do the ride on a bike I’d never ridden,” she

said. “I chose the Yamaha FJR1300, which I rented from Eagle Rider in Los Angeles. Several women who do distance rides recommended this bike, and I wanted to see if I was capable of doing something like this on a bike I wasn’t used to.”

The battle began before she even got started, too. “First, I had to get the bike set up and comfortable, and in the middle of winter I knew I’d need my heated gear, and while hooking it up I blew a fuse. So instead of sleeping before I took off, I was trying to connect the gear outlet to the battery directly and replacing the fuse… all with a very small little tool kit.” Whitney lives in Wisconsin, but flew to LA for the start of the trek and was only able to bring a small tool kit.

She started out just after midnight in El Segundo, Calif., with almost no sleep, and when her open-all-night gas station for her initial fuel stop turned out to be closed, she had to find a replacement. Then, two hours into the ride, she hit a cardboard box headon that ricocheted off a semi-truck, damaging her fairing. “Luckily,” she said, “there was only cosmetic damage, but my body was pumped full of adrenaline after that!”

“There were some great moments riding through

“as I approached my 24-hour mark it was a constant struggle to make it to my next stop. I was running on minimal sleep, but I kept pushing forward.”

WHITNEY MEZA

New Mexico and the north part of Texas,” Whitney remembers, “but as I approached my 24-hour mark it was a constant struggle to make it to my next stop. I was running on minimal sleep, but I kept pushing forward.”

Minimal sleep is an understatement. After starting her journey just after midnight Whitney was still on the road at 1:30 a.m. the next day, and temps were dropping fast. She was pushing to make the 1,500-mile mark by 3:30 a.m. and came up just short.

“That’s when the mental game kicked in,” she told me. “From 3:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. I had to keep stopping every 100 miles or so because my attention wasn’t fully on the road. I’d pull off and doze on the tank for 5-10 minutes — or so I thought. Time was racing by in those dark hours before dawn.”

Once the sun started to rise she realized how much ground she’d lost through the night. “I knew I had to get my butt back into gear if I wanted to make it to the Florida coast in time. I pushed through the bayous and bridges and made it into the Florida panhandle at sunset. Yet I knew I still had five more hours of night riding ahead. My determination set in…along with the cold.” As temperatures dipped into the 30s — and then the 20s — black ice became a concern. “Every gas station stop I made in those late-night hours,” she said, “someone warned me to be careful and watch for black ice. That really put me on edge.”

When she finally made it to Jacksonville, Fla., there

was no big celebration on the beach as she’d originally envisioned. “I clocked out with my final gas receipt at 12:35 a.m. EST, and it was 21 degrees there when I arrived. I couldn’t believe it! All I wanted was a hotel and a warm bed, which was another 20 minutes away. Once I made it, I think I dozed off before my head hit the pillow!”

“Honestly,” she told me, “there was a lot of frustration. I faced 45mph winds in New Mexico and Arizona, and all that cold. You would think the South woulda been warmer,” she said with a laugh, “but if I wouldn’t have had my heated gear, I don’t think I could have completed it as comfortably as I did.”

“The bike turned out to be a challenge for me, too,” she continued. “It had a sporty fairing instead of a touring-style windscreen, and since I’m tall I had to scrunch down to stay behind the screen, especially during those high-wind miles, which really got to my back.”

But in the end, Whitney’s determination to overcome paid off. While the 50 CC Quest requires the trip be done within 50 hours, she did the 2,529 miles in 45 hours and 3 minutes. That’s impressive, though Whitney felt there was room for improvement. “I shoulda done it faster,” she said.

“But when I officially clocked out in Jacksonville Beach,” she continued, “just a bit past midnight after leaving California less than two days before…it was an incredible feeling.”

“Stuff like this is challenging,” she added, “and often painful, and not easy. But the feeling of accomplishment? Of pushing yourself to do hard things you wouldn’t normally do? Nothing like it. Especially for your birthday!” AMA

“You would think the South woulda been warmer, but if I wouldn’t have had my heated gear, I don’t think I could have completed it as comfortably as I did.”

WHITNEY MEZA

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