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- Pre Rally
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- My rally started with the purchase of a
wrecked 1997 ST1100. The bike had been damaged on it’s left side and
needed a new cowling stay, that’s the tubular frame that the plastic bolts
on to, it also needed a lot of plastic. Of course I had to buy and install
all the proper rally equipment, Street Pilot, Valentine One, Piaas,
Clearview windshield, ect. When I bought the bike last fall I had already
sent my entry in for the MN2k so a deadline for completion of the bike was
already set. Work on the bike progressed steadily with help and advice
coming from all corners of the US. People on the LDRiders list are very
helpful, as are those belonging to the STOC. There are many people to thank
for the completion of the ST.
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- The bike wasn’t quite done a week
before the rally, 3 or 4 nights burning the midnight oil got it close enough
for the ride, but I really needed a better seat.
One had been ordered from a fellow who has requested anonymity. Mr.
Anonymous had been working on the seat for a few weeks and our last
conversation didn’t sound very hopeful. On the Saturday before the rally
he called and said the seat was ready and that the shipping time to my home
in Minnesota was 4 days, it should be at my doorstep by Thursday. IT
WASN’T…… Friday I checked my front step every few hours until I
finally resigned my self to the fact I was going to have to use the stock ST
seat. At 2:30 I left work for the final time before the rally, my riding
partner, Mike Clair and I had agreed to meet at 3:30 to ride to the odometer
check. When I pulled into my driveway I was both happy and relieved to see a
box sitting on my front step roughly the size of a ST seat. About 5 minutes
later the seat was on the bike and I was on my way to pick up Mike. Man, was
it nice to have that seat.
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- Friday June 30, 2000
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- The
Odometer check at the McStop in Lakeville-Departed at 4:30 p.m. to Warners
Outdoor Equipment in Bloomington. Check-in
and registration were followed by the “Liar’s Banquet”. Mike and I
exchanged pleasantries with none other than Mr. L.C. “Bubba” Kolb;
little did we know at the time how much of that name we would hear
throughout the rally. After the meal the Rally Masters had a few words about
the rules, and Bubbas phone calls, and how we could get kicked out of the
rally (there are many) and then the rally packs were finally handed out.
The rally packs consisted of 3 bonus sections, A, B and C.
You could pick locations from A & B or A & C but you could
not pick from all three-A, B and C. Route
B was easterly and Route C was westerly. I think 118 people were entered
with some from as far away as California, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. The
riders were divided into several classes; Expert, Touring, Sport Touring,
Sport, Standard, Road Warrior and Two Up. The type of motorcycle you ride
determines your class. I rode in the Sport Touring class.
Mike rode in the Touring Class.
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- Saturday
July 1, 2000
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- Around
7:50 a.m., after a few more announcements from the Rally Masters, a few new
bonus sheets were handed out. This
changed many riders’ plans. For
example, an awful trip to Angle Inlet, MN worth 6 points last night was now
the key to an all MN (Route A) bonus worth huge points.
It was the intent of the rally master to get you to second guess all
of your hard work figuring routes from the previous night, many plans
changed with the distribution of that sheet. Our plans didn’t, we
didn’t have a plan. Bubba had a plan; he was heading south, “where
he spoke the language,” The riders were allowed to leave at 8:00 a.m.
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- The
Ride
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- Our
first stops were as follows:
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- Bongards,
MN. 9:13 A.M. Get a photo of the cow statue-450 points. There were three
other riders there when we got there. I had to help a fellow rider with his
photo, seems his camera picked this time to stop working, not a good way to
start a 2 day event.
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- Belle
Plain, MN 9:40A.M. Photograph the Excelsior Henderson sign-7 points, even
the bonus description slammed the Hanlon Bros and the point value was one of
the lowest on the rally. But how else would one get to Mankato from Bongards?
It was on the way.
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- Mankato,
MN 10:50 A.M. At Zanz’s Mexican Restaurant we needed a purchase receipt.
The stop was worth 540 points and the chicken taco was good, too. Picked by
the rally masters because of it’s lack of a public rest room, I’M
SURE…who would need a rest room after starting a rally at a coffee house
at 8:00am then riding south for a few hours. We also tried to put some sort
of plan together, looked like we were heading west; we also topped off the
tanks.
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- Sleepy
Eye, MN 1:00 P.M. A Photo of
large jackalope statue netted 172 points, easy to find. It was starting to
get hot.
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- Trimont,
MN 2:00 P.M. Our task was to write down the zip code as it appears on the
post office exterior. Sounds easy but they had 6 blanks to fill in and of
course zip codes are only 5 digits, right?….117 points.
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- Dunnel,
MN 3:38 P.M. Find the historical marker within a few miles of the IA border,
A FEW MILES MY ASS. We spent a lot of time looking for this one and we had
given up on it when Mike decided he would ask at a gas station for
directions. A local lady offered to point it out if we were to follow her,
the “few miles” the sheet spoke of turned out to be about 6. 118 Points.
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- Laverne,
MN 4:59 P.M. Get a receipt for
something-231 points. We had a quick lunch and bought gas, it was now
getting really hot.
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- Mitchell,
SD 7:20 P.M. Photograph the
Corn Palace-436 points. What can you say about the corn palace
that hasn’t already been said….. why were all of those people
there? Oh yeah, I dropped my bike curbside and needed help picking it up.
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- Chamberlin,
SD 9:10 P.M. Answer a question about a plaque in the rest
area. Of course, the rest area
is under construction with 2 buildings-one open and one closed AND a giant
teepee behind the new building. Mike
found the plaque in the teepee. 996 points. This was not as easy as it
sounded.
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- Between Lyman and Kennebec SD, 10:03 –
10:30 P.M. We encountered very high winds and hail.
We had to stop at a gas station and wait out the storm, 0 points.
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- Sunday
July 2, 2000
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- Interior,
SD 12:55 AM MDT We needed a
photo of the 20’ tall prairie dog near the gate of the Badlands.
I missed it the first time but got it on the way back.
We took the picture in the dark of night and we needed the driving
lights from both bikes to light up the statue enough to get a picture.
Riding through the Badlands lit by the PIAA driving lights was very
memorable. 568 points
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- Philip, SD 1:01 – 4:14 AM MDT A 3 hour
layover at a closed gas station with 24 pay at the pump capability was
needed, and we found it at Philip. I
slept for about 1 hour, first on the sidewalk in front, then on a wooden
bench. 987 points
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- Wounded
Knee, SD 6:05 AM MDT We took a photo of the large green Wounded Knee
historical marker. The route to
Wounded Knee from Interior is entirely on the very poor roads of the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation, I wonder if they ever mow the roadsides?
You can also see your share of antelope along those roads, nothing like
seeing the tan head of pronghorn poke up out of the shoulder high roadside
weeds to slow you down a little. -775
points
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- Pine
Ridge, SD 6:42 AM MDT We were to find the main intersection of this
reservation town. The road that
is not labeled is Route 32, take Route 32 and follow it to Route 41,
go south to the Nebraska border. I managed to encounter a suicidal prairie
dog on route 32. The little fellow came out of the weeds roadside and looked
right at me, then took 5 quick steps and leapt into the air as if to get on
the bike with me but he was of course a little short and smashed his head
into the lower fairing just ahead of the rain shield (the fur is still there
under the rain shield). The prairie dog then struck my foot and the impact
knocked my foot right off the foot peg. After seeing the upcoming road I was
thinking the prairie dog might have been on to something,,,,, suicide….
The paved road is very rough; almost so bad you wonder how they could have
made it that way. A fellow
rider later told me he broke a saddlebag off his motorcycle from the jarring
of Route 41. Our task was to
note the time and mileage from the Nebraska border south to Nebraska Route
20. The road is known as Slim
Butte Road and it’s gravel. It’s about fist sized gravel, very rough,
and free-range. There are cows,
lots of them on the road. The
road is 14 miles long-1463 points. For all the bitchin’ about this one
it’s sure to be on future rallys, Eddie promise ….. Please.
A very pleasant Nebraska State Patrolman at the end of Slim Butte Rd
met us. He had just ticketed a fellow rider for traveling at ah, ,,,,ahem
……an accelerated rate. I his words “too fast” for him to
“just let him go… I just couldn’t”
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- Mount
Rushmore, SD11:18 AM MDT A photo of the monument got us our largest bonus
2101 points.
- A lot of points but it was the Sunday of
a long holiday weekend and in the mid 80’s.
Lots of traffic, lots of heat. This was hard to get because I had
selected the wrong route to get there, we rode about 15 miles of switch
backs to get there stopping at every enticing vista of the monument only to
find out that the faces just would not show up on the Polaroid’s. The
rally masters were very specific about the quality of the pictures.
If you can’t tell where you are, either can they. With 2101 points
and a huge investment of time on the line, now wasn’t the time to get
sloppy.
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- Sunday
afternoon
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- Belle Fourche, SD 1:40 – 2:14 PM MDT
We needed a photo of the geographical center of the U.S.
The bonus directions wanted you to drive 25 miles out of town and
check to see if it was where it was supposed to be.
It’s not……It’s displayed at the visitors center in town. I
asked at the visitor’s center and saved us 50 miles. 787 points. Did I
mention it was really HOT! We
also stopped and had a bite to eat.
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- Mud Butte, SD 3:40 PM MDT Find the Ben
Ash Monument on Hwy 212 between Mud Butte and Maurine, an easy one.
The road signs all said Road Construction Next 35 Miles but there was
none. We were to copy ALL the information on the marker for the bonus-1020
points.
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- Mobridge, SD 9:25 PM CDT Photo of Sitting
Bull grave marker-756 points Kind of hard to find but a South Dakota Highway
Patrolman, that we had met earlier at a gas station, was on hand to show us
the way. He sure was a nice guy even through he kept calling the ST a
BEEEEMMMMMERRRRR.
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- Monday July 3, 2000
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- Mobridge, SD 10:05 PM – 2:12 AM CST
4-hour layover-
- We showered, shaved, slept and about 1-½
hours. This layover was worth about 1019 points.
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- We now were on the final leg of the
rally, the hour and a half of sleep and the shower refreshed us but would
that be enough????? We had
about a 400-mile ride to the finish line. If we were to get the Darwin and
Moon motors points back in Minnesota we couldn’t screw around too much. I
had noticed a road construction sign on Highway 12 where we turned north the
night before on our way to Mobridge. The sign said Road Construction 26
miles. I forgot to mention that somewhere east of the Mud Butt Bonus, the
road went from nice pavement, to rough pavement, to gravel, (about 15 miles)
to finally just plain dirt. The sign summed it up “ NO ROAD
SURFACE AHEAD”. The Highway 12 construction turned out to be a stretch
of ground up, grooved tar, the kind motorcyclists hate, but we were too
tired to care much.
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- The weather near the MN border was very
foggy and cold. The 110-watt
PIAA’s and Widder electric vest tested the bikes electric system. At times
the fog turned to a near misty rain, very murky, very cold, very hard to do
with very tired eyes. Almost seemed that this was yet another way the rally
masters could add to our hardships. We stopped for gas in Milbank SD at 6:32
AM CST. I regret not buying a
sign I saw for sale at the gas station, it was on of those little signs that
stick to the window of your car, it said “ HOW WOULD JESUS DRIVE” I
still think that’s funny given what we were doing in Milbank at 6:30 am
with 2 ½ hours of sleep in the last 2 days. Plus it might have looked good
on say …NELS BIKE.
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- Darwin, MN 9:10 AM CST We took a photo of
the World’s Largest Ball of Twine 482 points.
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- Monticello, MN 10:15 AM CST Photo of a
Moon Motor’s employee-488 points. Oh great, more construction. This time
the road construction was on Highway 12 near Cokato.
The Street Pilot was helpful, as it had been many times on this trip,
in confirming a fast route to Buffalo, then a straight shot to Moon Motors.
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- 11:10 AM CST. Monday July 3 Trackstar
Motorcycles, Minneapolis
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- THE FINISH LINE
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- When you get in, they hand you a baseball
cap from Trackstar and a Time/Mileage receipt and they say, “Don’t Lose
This!!!” You are then
directed to parking.
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- You then unpack your receipts, photos and
bonus sheets and you self score your ride.
You then get in line for a scorer-he/she will sit down with you and
go over everything until a total is agreed upon.
Many riders lost points for having their rally flags or other
important aspects not completely visible in the photos.
Some riders lost gas receipts or the receipts did not have the proper
information and this cost them 2,000 points for the fuel log bonus. All of
the bonus locations we stopped at paid us full credit, we were very careful
about that because the rally masters said reading comprehension as going to
be very important. It was.
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- I have to say that the people staffing
this event are top shelf, never during the entire event did I hear any
complaints… except about that one guy and the smiling bastard he hangs
around with…..
- The scoring took forever, we ate meal
provided for us by the rally and waited. I talked to many riders and shared
some stories with several. When scoring was complete the awards were given
out. Some great rides were turned in to be sure.
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- Tuesday July 4th 2000.
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- The final results have been posted to the
Team Strange web site, in searchable data
base form, so it you want to see how your score was in comparison with all
BMW R1100RT riders you can to that, neat. I was happy with my score as a
first time rider. I was in the middle third in my class and 70th
over all in a field of 118. Mike’s
ride gave him an impressive 11th place finish in his class. New
friend L.C. “Bubba” Kolb of Paducah Kentucky scored 10th overall. We
will be seeing Bubba next month in the Butt lite 5000, a 5-day rally by Team
Strange.
- Thanks Team Strange, I had a great time!
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- Rider #350
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- Scott
Smith
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