Kurt Henning's Ride ReportIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times. -Charles Dickens This year’s rally started well enough, as it usually does. It ended well enough, as it sometimes does. In between it tried its best to break my body, crush my spirit, and kick my ass, as it always does. Dickens' tale concerned only two cities. Mine involves a few more than that, and includes a character named Mr. Murphy who decided to take a special interest in me for the next two days. I don't remember the exact plan I had when I left Bob's Java Hut. I think that's because it was a little too sketchy to be called a "plan", but it involved picking up some of the large points in northern Minnesota before heading west. That's how I ended up in Monticello. It was close and easy and on the way north. The guy behind the counter was standing there like ribbon winning livestock getting his picture taken by one rider after another. He was grateful that the two-up couple before me hadn't seen the need for the flash. I felt sympathetic for the poor man and his dazzled retinas, but points are points and film is expensive. I hit him with the flash. On to Brainerd. O Lord, boats behind sluggish SUVs were everywhere. There must be water in the area. It was hotter than hell, too. I found the blue ox with no trouble. It helped to know where it was in the first place. The fuel stop was trouble, however. The gas receipt showed that their clocks were an hour fast. I can understand an hour slow if they forgot about daylight saving time, but an hour fast? They must have decided to leap them ahead a second time for good measure. So, badger, er I mean politely ask, the clerk to produce one with the correct time. Hackensack and Cloquet were largely uneventful, but hoo boy, hotter 'an hell, I mean Brainerd. I was surprised to see Paul Bunyan's sweetheart with their love child, Little Paul, who looks for all the world like a tall lawn jockey. Who knew? In Two Harbors I picked up some pure gas (no alcohol) at SuperAmerica, and another bum gas receipt. When I asked the clerk if he could fix that I discovered that he was a trainee, a really nervous trainee. He proceeded to go into deer-in-headlight mode as the line behind me grew. Maybe the black leather made him edgy. Heck, it makes me edgy when it chafes. Anyway, his co-worker had to come over and take care the gas receipt snafu. Ely was overcast, and a little cooler, but still warm and humid because the storm that was ravaging Crane Lake at the time was still on its way. I tossed on a rain jacket on the way out of town. Two miles from the city limits, the rain started. It didn't take long for it to turn into a downpour. By the time I could stop and get to the rain pants, my jeans were already half soaked. Oh well, it's only water, forget the rain pants. I started moving again and almost immediately something dark flew up and whapped me in the face. All I could think of was the rain cover for the tank bag, and the paperwork was in the tank bag! So, the tank bag could not be allowed to turn into a sponge. I went back a few hundred yards looking for the cover. Nothing. I stopped and put my foot in what turned out to be a nice deep puddle. Soaked socks, still no cover. I studied the tank bag again. The little voice said, "Hey genius, the cover is still on the bag." The cover has all the same snaps on the top for the map case as the bag itself does, so it's hard to tell them apart in bad light during a heavy rain. And, it only cost me wet boots and socks to discover this. Onward into the storm. 60 foot pines next to the highway were waving like willow wands. A lightning strike near the highway had a flash/thunder delay of less than two seconds. It was raining sideways. How could this experience get any better? How about a detour around a bridge that's out? How about if the detour is a dirt road? My heart sank, but the bike didn't. The road turned out to be packed pretty hard, and only a mile long. All that adrenalin for nothing. After the detour, things continued to not improve. The wind got worse and the visibility went from bad to none. I felt dumb passing cars parked along the road. OK, I really felt a little superior, but I'm pretty sure the people in the cars weren't saying, "Jeez, that guy on the motorcycle sure is one superior SOB." As quickly as it started, it was over. Visibility went from hand-in-front-of-face to about a mile in a matter of seconds. Next stop, Orr. I had enough gas to get to Crane Lake and back, so I blasted through Orr and was feeling pretty good about the ride again. When will I learn to break that habit? As I was buzzing down a hill I thought I noticed a hesitation in the engine, but the fuel gauge and the trip odometer both told me that I had enough gasoline to go at least another 75 miles. I figured it was my imagination. About 15 seconds later the engine decided to make a bolder statement this time and stopped completely after a brief gasping period. Since it wasn't likely that I could coast the remaining 20 miles to Crane Lake, I pulled over to assess the situation. I started to go down the list: Battery, wet plug wires, dead fuel pump, water in the fuel. Lights worked and the starter cranked smartly, so it wasn't the battery. The ride through Mother Nature's car wash, with the engine ticking over like a Swiss watch, argued against the plug wires being the problem. The fuel pump continued to chatter every time I futilely cranked the engine, so it probably wasn't that. "Must be water", I thought. Since two of my float bowl drain screws have been mangled beyond recognition for years, I thought maybe I could crank the water through. No start. A little choke? It caught and ran at high idle for a few seconds, but no cigar. A lot of choke? Crank, cough, sputter, vroooom, sputter, cough, crank, crank, crank. One more time? Vroom, shudder, shake. It was running, but not well. I decided to let it run as long as it wanted to and waited. The idle started to improve, so I put on the helmet and tried to decide which direction to ride. Going back to Orr would waste valuable time, but if I continued towards Crane Lake and more water appeared, I might be stuck again even further from those gas pumps I’d blown by in Orr. Back to Orr and more gas receipt problems. Orr time is, apparently, 45 minutes behind the rest of the world. I discussed this with the Honey, the clerk. How often does one get the chance to say "I have a problem with this receipt, Honey", and get away with it? I love this game. Anyway, with notarized receipt in hand and alcohol laden fuel in the tank I headed for Crane Lake to get a snap of the Lincoln Log post office. The next stop was International Falls where I picked up fuel for the bike and myself. I must have been a little tired because, before I knew it, I had been in International Falls for over an hour. While I tried to figure out what to do about this, another 20 minutes went out the window. I decided that this would be my 3-hour rest stop since I had already spent almost half of that time dinging around in International Falls. I also decided that the Minnesota 2000 Bonus Bonus looked a lot more interesting than it had that morning and changed my "plan". There is a lesson here that will be illustrated more fully later, but it is basically this: Never make critical decisions concerning course changes when you are sunburned, wet, cold, and haven't slept for awhile. After the 3 hours were up, I bought a quart of oil to close out the rest stop and rode the Hwy. 11 "How long is this road?" checkpoint. A splash of fuel on the way out of town, just in case Warroad was closed for the evening, and I was gone. On through Warroad and towards Canada. I had to pick up Angle Inlet to make the bonus work. It sure wasn't for the 6 whole points! The sun came up, and the pavement ran out, shortly after I got across the border. I'm not normally intimidated by gravel roads, but this was no normal gravel road. Eddie and company should be ashamed for inflicting this washboard, gravel pit, lumber road on the unsuspecting riders of anything with less suspension travel than an enduro bike. By the time I got to Angle Inlet I was missing windscreen fasteners and the steering head bearings needed tightening. My morale was sinking steadily. Since I didn't feel like buying anything from people who would live at the end such an atrocious bike killing road, I got a photo of their post office, stepped into the customs and immigration phone booth, made my country selection, explained to the disembodied Canadian voice that I hadn't stocked up on drugs and firearms while visiting Angle Inlet, and slogged off down the Highway to Hell again. Back in Sprague, Manitoba I decided to take a look at the route sheet again. When I got to the entry regarding Watertown, SD the grim reality of the previous night's plan changing folly sank in. Watertown had only been available through Saturday afternoon. The bonus was a bust. Angle Inlet had been completely unnecessary. Suddenly, I was all dressed up with no place to go. After breakfast in Winnipeg I decided to get some points at the border, sleep in Grand Forks, and go home. I had wasted too much time chasing phantoms to have a chance at a decent score. At the border I ran across another rider on a BMW GS. We took snap shots of our rally flags and discussed our progress. My tale of woe didn't impress him since he had one of his own, and that got me to thinking that maybe I shouldn't wimp out. Maybe I should continue and try to get a respectable, if not trophy winning, score. A few hours later I found myself not in Grand Forks, but in Bottineau, ND taking a photograph of a really big turtle riding a really big snowmobile. Where do they find this stuff? An hour after that I was in Rugby. I got the points and rolled over to a truck stop with a motel. A real shower, clean sheets, three hours of sleep, fresh skivvies! Four hours after I checked in, the phone rang and reality returned. There are various stages of fatigue during one of these things. At somewhere around 24 hours you'll start to feel like you've been beaten with a sack of marbles. At 30+ plus hours this is replaced by a sort of euphoria that tells you that you can stop bullets. After 36 hours, you may be convinced that the phone poles along the road are lunging at you, or find your speedometer so fascinating that you can stare at it for long periods while the real world whizzes by unobserved, at 75mph. When I had arrived in Rugby I was in fatigue stage three. It turned out that three hours of sleep was just enough to rewind me to stage one. I packed up the bike, slowly, topped off the tank, wished for a Camelback full of coffee, and headed into the dark hinterlands of North Dakota on my way to Mobridge, SD. I was just trying to put the detour at Harvey, ND in my mirrors when the rear end of the bike jumped a foot off the ground and engine died. Suddenly I was fishtailing and skidding to a stop. What the hell?!? I assumed I had lost a master link and had bunch of chain wrapped around the rear of the bike somehow, but I needed to get the bike out of the road first. Since the rear wheel was locked up tight, this meant dragging 600 pounds of FJ1200 off the road, and onto a shoulder composed of... gooey wet clay. I got a hold of a flashlight and took a look at the rear of the bike as it sank into the mud. The little voice chimed in again. "Hey, where's the tailpack?" "Oh, here it is, wedged between the rear wheel and the fender..." Jeez. I yanked it loose and took inventory. Maguire’s plastic cleaner: bottle worn through and contents distributed throughout the interior of the pack. Blue jeans: chewed, frayed, and coated with plastic cleaner and chain lube. Quart of oil: now spherical, but unbroken, miraculous. Spare headlight bulb: ground to a fine powder. Other odds and ends: scattered around the countryside. After I got things cinched up again, I started the bike and tried to drive it out of the mud. After a few close calls, it crawled back up onto the road with what now looked like a set of adobe tires. The truck stop in Steele, ND was another decision point. Take the easy route and zoom down I-94 for home to take the last four-hour rest stop in my own bed, or keep moving towards Mobridge and Ipswich for a chance at a few more points than the rest stop would be worth? Why exhibit good judgment this late in the game? Mobridge it is. Sitting Bull's tomb was a lot more difficult to get to than
I had bargained for (stop smirking, Eddie) and I was glad to have it behind me.
I had started out by taking a picture of the wrong thing, and almost left
it at that. Luckily, I realized the
mistake and corrected it before riding away.
Next stop Ipswich. I thought
I'd be clever and take Hwy. 20 where it split from 12.
That way, I could ride down 20 to 45 and take 45 north, right back to 12.
If there were any historical markers along the way, I'd see them.
What I didn't count on was the pea soup fog that developed shortly after
I got onto Hwy. 20 (I said stop smirking, Eddie).
By the time I got to Aberdeen it was well after 7:00 a.m., and I needed
fuel. By the time I was out of
Aberdeen and making my run for the border it was 7:45.
I can still hardly believe I was able to cover the final distance without
resorting to triple digit speeds or the air cargo desk at the Aberdeen airport,
but I made to the check-in by 12:10.
I was feeling good about the ride again, and we all know how foolish that
is. It turned out that the first
gas receipt from International Falls didn't actually say "International
Falls" on it. This of course
made all the gas receipts inadmissible. It
also meant that the three-hour rest stop never really happened.
3000 points off the top within moments of sitting down with the scorer.
I was thinking I should have gone to Grand Forks for the sleep after all.
So, imagine my surprise when they called my name for 5th place.
It turned out that virtually everyone else had gas receipt trouble too. Next year. There’s always next year. |
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