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2003 Minnesota 1000 Ride Report
Team Strange Takes the Newbies Fishing
This writing is not necessarily an accurate description of the events due to
the author's natural ability stretch the truth

September 2002: Carrie and I have been riding motorcycles for a year now. It turned out we loved going to far away places on motorcycles and it became our primary hobby. We started out with old crotch rockets and soon graduated to more tour worthy bikes. I purchased a 2002 GL1800 in August 2002 before a long trip to Colorado with our buddy Kerry. Carrie road our ZX-6 since she refused to be a pillion. After the trip, I pried Carrie off the seat and a visit to our local motorcycle dealer, Moon Motors, was in order for a replacement bike. Due to her inseam, we were having a hard time finding a motorcycle that would be a good fit for her. So we run into this joker working at the dealer named Mark Foster. That name seemed strangely familiar. He put her on a 1999 BMW R1100RT and it turned out to be perfect for her. Mark was a strange but friendly fellow. Constantly muttering "I'm number 1, I'm number 1..." and "I hate you Eddie, I hate you Eddie..." We thought he might have a few screws loose, but befriended him none the less. The ink hadn't even dried on the title before he started into his next sales pitch "So are you going to do the Minnesota 1000 this year on that RT?" Then it
clicked. "We know you! and yes!"

March 2003: Minnesota 1000 event information is finally posted. Carrie and I make our plans to submit and start looking for others to share the pain with. Our normal riding buddy Kerry is somehow involved with the Team Strange people now so he's out. Paul is too busy staring at a bucket of bolts that used to be his old Norton Commando before he started working on it so he's out.  Enter neighbor Chris Berg. Just started motorcycling a year ago and recently purchased a 1000 worthy Concours. He's already crazy so I know he's in, despite never meeting Mark Foster. Team Newbie is complete and
entry forms are mailed off.

June 2003:  There were 5 mandatory bonus spots you could start getting a week before the rally. These spots were also sponsors for the rally. A $3 donation at each spot went to door prizes for the rally.  Carrie and I cleared our Saturday and hit them all. Moon Motors was the first stop. Next stop Delano sports, then Midwest Cycle Supply. Then we go to Warner Power Equipment. The hours posted were different than what the bonus sheet said but we made it before they closed. Team Strange trickery at work already? There we met 4 nice gals from Ladies of Harley that were going to do the rally. Impressive. Final stop is St. Paul Harley Davidson. As we are pulling up I can see something is going on. Hundreds of Harleys all over. When 2 people in Roadcrafters on a Goldwing and BMW pull into the midst of that much leather it gets noticed. Time stopped. V-rod demos ceased. I ran inside with my tail between my legs for some quick receipts. Inside I was surprised to find a store that would make Saks Fifth Avenue jealous. Right there, the "Harley Tough Guy" image in my naive little head was changed forever.

June 13th, 2003: Friday the 13th, what a great day to start a rally. Time for the odometer check and Liar's banquet, where the tales have more miles than the bikes that rode in them or so I'm told. We had all taken the day off to prepare and stock up on sleep. I spent part of the day marking a Minnesota state map with all the construction info from the DOT website. I thought this was pretty clever and might save some time getting stuck in a bad detour. The rest of the day is spent packing and making sure the bikes were ready to go. I had just about everything I needed to solve any on the road problems besides a major malfunction. Air compressor, tire plugs, jump cables, spark plugs, oil, you name it. 

Moon Motors was the start of the odometer check. What a zoo. We pull in early at 4:30pm and there are already a bunch of bikes. We zip into line immediately, get the route and off we go. A little trek north and back down to River City Lanes for the banquet. We find it easy enough and they record our mileage. Carrie was the last one through. Just as she was taking off, she stalled it. Kerry in Rally Master mode walks up and says "doing well already I see".  Apparently the mileage recorder was trying to identify her sticker less motorcycle and Carrie wanted to stop and tell them

We found a spot in the parking lot that had been roped off. Amazing to see so many different motorcycles in one spot. Old bikes, new bikes, crazy bikes (Yamaha SR500 single, and a Vespa scooter sporting a side car!) Almost everyone was customized in some way. Fuel cells, GPS, coolers, weird screens, , and stickers up the wazoo!. About 2/3rds of the bikes had Iron butt plate frames which I eyed greedily. It was fun meeting so many people and everyone was friendly to boot. We meet up with our Ladies of Harley friends and gabbed for a while. They were trying to convert Carrie to the dark side. We were outside for hours but it seemed like minutes.  We finally went inside and grabbed some beer. There was a registration table we didn't really know about. We signed some forms I didn't read. They probably own all my worldly possessions or at least my soul now.

Finally we were called in for dinner. After some chow, the time had come. Eddie James stood up and started the speech. I don't remember to much about it except his big declaration that he was passing torch to some new rally masters. Ken, Greg, and Kerry. Kerry is now the enemy. Well, you now what they say, keep your friend's close and your enemies closer. We're sure to pay more attention to his suggested riding destinations as we tour the country in the future. Adam gave a little speech about how bad he wants to through everyone out of the rally and stressed the single most important part to being successful in this rally was reading comprehension. That was expected.

Next came the moment we were all waiting for. Rally Packs. We were hoping to get the long list of bonus locations that night so we could plan afterwards. Planning is really my only outstanding ability I could bring to an event like this. No dice. The destinations in the rally packs were all high milers with no points meant for the people going after there long term mileage awards. But there was one other item on that list. A suggested bonus. Bowl a game or three. Team Strange traces there roots back to bowling so it made sense. After that, it was a mad dash to the lanes. We hung back and watched the craziness as everyone started throwing balls for what seemed like a goldmine of easy bonus points. It looked like a warped league night. Have you ever seen someone bowl in a motorcycle helmet? I did. A lane finally opened up and we grabbed our shoes. They had put someone else in our lane. Some guy wearing a clown hat, but he looked familiar. It didn't take long for me to remember his face since I had stared at it a million times in his signature at the Motorcycle Tourers Forum. It was Alan Leduc, former Great Lakes Challenge record holder. We gabbed the entire time. He didn't really know what all the clown references were about on the Team Strange Discussion Board but knew many people were afraid they would get eaten by them. Cunningly, Alan had played a little psychological warfare on some of the other participants which most likely limited the amount of sleep they had that night.

So the night was over. We had nothing to plan and nothing to calm the anxiety. We headed for Team Newbie Central for some sleep.

June 14th: The big day had arrived. We slept as much as possible but it wasn't a good sleep. We went back to the bowling alley for the start and waited for the route sheets. The time keeper spoke aloud so we could synchronize our watches. The time came. Rally sheets. When the word was given to open them, you could hear 1 synchronized rip. Then silence, then a page turn. I think someone could've stolen every motorcycle in that lot and no one would've noticed. Studying the locations, a theme started to emerge. We were going fishing. Everything was related to fishing in some way. Fish statues, fishing for beer, damn, lakes, bobbers and Spam.?. Angle Inlet was the big point spot. I assumed most people would hit that. There was a great lakes of Minnesota tour also, interesting. Everyone was free to leave at 10am. Some people took off immediately, while most stuck around to at least formulate the first half of a plan. We started marking all the bonus locations on a map with point values and available times. There emerged 2 real options. A northern route and a southern route. We weren't out to win this rally since it was our first time. Our primary goal was to finish with 1000miles and at least make a respectable showing. The southern route looked the safer of the two options knowing how thick the deer are and how thin the roads are up north. There was good freeways to pile on the miles when we needed them and good bonus points down south also. We only took the time to plan a route to Le Crescent to visit the dam and we'd plan the rest later.

Off we went. Most of the other bikes were heading north. I had an internal debate about the going south after seeing this, but we plowed on. Our first stop was very close. Warrior boat factory in Maple Plain. Easy enough. We were behind a Triumph Trophy from Alaska all the way down. I knew he probably didn't know the roads down there so I tried to signal my turns early enough for him to catch them. He got a little too far in front after an intersection and got stuck in the wrong lane for the turn to the factory but figured it out soon enough. Of course we drove right by the driveway the first time and we lead him on a unnecessary detour. So much for being helpful I guess. We snap the picture of our bikes and we've finally completed our first Minnesota 1000 points. A big load was lifted after securing our first points.

I plugged the next waypoint into the GPS. We thought about going to Cold Spring for a bonus but there were time constraints on some of the others down south, so we determined to try and hit it Saturday. Instead we went Fishing for Beer at the Schell Brewery. We'd been to the brewery a couple of years ago and I had a waypoint in the GPS up until the day before the rally. I had cleared all my waypoints to make it less cluttered for the rally. Grrrrr.  I knew the general location well enough to get us there. The GPS did pick a weird detour right before getting in to New Ulm. I was so concerned about that I didn't realize it had routed us through Hutchinson until we were stuck in heavy 50mph traffic 5 miles outside of town. Grrrrr .  Amazingly we drove right up to the brewery. There were 2 other rally bikes there just leaving. Not many I thought as I questioned my route further. Then a crazzzzy Goldwing with everything on it including the kitchen sink pulled in and my spirits rose. It was the clown, Alan Leduc again. "He you guys, fancy seeing you again" as he strolled into the wrong building for a receipt. After he found his way to the gift shop he was in and out like lightening. Buying a dual purpose 3ft beef stick as a bonus receipt and a healthy lunch. After a few more words he was off in a flash with beef stick in tow dragging across the pavement.

We left a few minutes later and headed west to Hope, MN and a chainsaw northern. Driving to Mankato was uneventful. Driving east after Mankato on 14 was different. There was no 14. Those 2 hours I had spent marking up road construction on the map was for not. I missed the fact that the road was being replaced and there was a zigzag detour across the county. And for good measure, we got stuck behind a big, slow Kool-Aid semi with no hope to pass. It's not fun having a big Kool-Aid man, painted on the back of a trailer, staring down on you with a big sh*# eating grin on his face when you're in a hurry. Grrrr. We finally made it to the freeway and found our chainsaw northern. The owner was peeking through the windows as we were taking our picture. They must think it odd with all these motorcyclists having a sudden interest in chainsaw art. She yelled out "you can pull up closer if you need a better picture!". "No thanks ma'am, this will do fine. Thank you". Neighbors were starting to pull up lawn chairs since it was obvious a pattern was developing and Hope, MN hadn't seen so much activity since the freeway went through. Carrie did a handstand for her photo hoping to soften up the judges at the scoring table in case we did something wrong.

Next waypoint, Austin MN and the Spam museum. GPS, ready, set, go. It felt good to get on the freeway. It was getting well into the afternoon and we had less than 200 miles on the odometer. The GL1800 was sucking the gas down fast now and we'd need to fill in Austin also. None of us had been to the Spam museum, but I had my trusty street pilot to guide us. Wait, how come it says it's running on battery power? It's hooked up to the bike's power. Darn thing blew its inline fuse somehow. The street pilot eats batteries in no time and I knew It would run out before we got there. Grrrrr. Luckily there was good signage. And there goes Alan Leduc as we pull in. We went in to get our Spam. I grabbed what looked good. Hmm, BBQ Spam! Right before she rang me up I stopped.  Everything was simple to this point. Too simple. We had heard that reading comprehension is the big gotcha Team Strange likes to pull. Read the directions, following the directions. The instructions said Spam. Not BBQ Spam. I swap it for a regular. Wow that was close. After avoiding what seemed to be an obvious team strange trap we gassed up for the first time. I went in to look for some fuses but they didn’t have any on display. Fortunately the proprietor had some back in the garage and gave me a couple. Thank you sir.

After a quick stop in Preston, the next destination was our main reason for choosing this route. Lock and Dam Number 7 in Le Crescent. We hit I-90 and headed east. Coming down into the river valley was very nice. Right before we hit Highyway 61 we see Alan Leduc heading west.  I thought the dam would be easy to get to. The instructions seemed pretty clear. As we hit 61 I saw a lock and Dam sign out of the corner of my eye but saw no way to get to it. I started thinking maybe that wasn’t number 7, maybe it was number 6. Of course there’s no way they would have them so close together. By the time it clicked we had driven through Le Crescent and had to back track a few miles.  We needed to answer a question for this bonus. Who was the lockmaster. D.J. Moser is now a celebrity thanks to Team Strange. We took a little break in the parking lot to discuss our route since we hadn’t planned anything beyond this point.  We wanted to head back north and hit the Rush City bonus since that would allow us to pile on some miles for our Saddlesore.  The Mille Lacs Lake loop looked easy to hit afterward but we’d get there about the time we planned on taking our sleep bonus.  We weren’t hitting it that hard so an nap in a parking lot didn’t sound fun, but a nap at home did and we live on the north side of the Twin Cities anyway.  So we planned on going up to Rush City, head home for the sleep bonus, and maybe hit the Cold Spring bonus before heading back to the finish. The mileage of this route probably wouldn’t take us over 1000 but we’d figure that out later.   

We headed west into the sun. We thought we might make Albert Lea for gas but the needle started sinking pretty fast. Carrie jumped on the CB after a bit and asked “what about that Round Lake bonus in southwestern Minnesota, is it 24hrs”. We the marked up map was in Chris’s tank bag. He didn’t have a CB. Grrrrr. This would be a good stop if it was. It padded our total miles. It would keep us on the freeways at deer-thirty. And we could hit our sleep bonus on the way to Rush City.  Carrie get’s on the CB again “Chris is having some sort of problem and is slowing down, looks like he’s out of gas”.  Impossible I thought, he’s got a huge tank on that Concours and  we’ve only hit 200miles on this tank. I wasn’t sure if he had a reserve but he must be getting better mileage than me. I was expecting the something worse. “Looks like he found reserve and he’s going again”. Chris pulls up along side frantically pointing at his tank. I signal 8 for 8 miles till gas. He seems to get it and gets back in line. After riding with other CB equipped riders for so long, not being able to communicate with him felt like we were back in the Stone Age.   

We filled up again in Austin and discussed our plan for Round Lake. It was a 24hr stop and was worth a few more points than Mille Lacs so we decided to hit that instead. We get home around 2am for our sleep bonus and it would leave plenty of time to hit Rush City in the Morning.  Off we went straight into the sun.

By the time we hit the Round Lake exit the sun had set and it was getting dark. We pulled into round lake know to look for a big ugly mural. For some reason I was worried about finding it, but it was hard to miss. Big painting of a guy holding 3 fish, painted in 1994. We studied the painting longer than necessary. I was sure there was a 4^th fish hiding in there somewhere and this was a trick question. Guess not, 3 it is.  I wanted some smokes at this point. There was only a bar across the street. The Hatrick. The town was a little scary at night. A stray drunk was stumbling around outside. We saw some younger kids get kicked out before we went in. I told Chris he better stay and watch the bikes.  I strolled in and grabbed a pack of Marlboro’s while Carrie hit the restroom. There were about 6 people in the bar that we’re all trying to figure out what a guy was doing wearing a snowmobile suit in June.  I explained it was a motorcycle suit and we were riding in a Rally. The bartender asks, “What the heck you doing out here on a rally at 10pm?” .  “Well, I needed to come and count the fish on your mural out front” I answered. Everyone looked at each other with blank stares. “Mural?” he says. “Yes, you have a painting on that building of a guy holding some fish, there are 3 of them” I replied. “Wow, I never knew that”. Everyone was starting to get pretty excited at this point.  The questions started flying from everyone in the room now. “Where did you start from”? “ Monticello”. “Wow! That’s a ways”! “Yes, but we’ve already been to La Crescent”.  “Holy cow”!  ”Where are you going next”?  “Rush City”. “No way”!  “Are you on ESPN2”? “No”. “How many points are we worth”? “Almost 1000”.  Even though they had no frame of reference, everyone’s eyes just about popped out of their heads. “Did you hear that! We’re worth a 1000points! Woohooo!”.  Round Lake turned into a bigger dot on the map for them that night. While they were celebrating I took the opportunity to leave. I had to drag Carrie out by the collar. She was having so much fun, she wanted to sit and have a beer with them.  Chris was anxiously waiting outside for his turn to go in and use the restroom. He asked “What took you so long”. “ Don’t ask, and don’t talk to anyone in there, get in and out in a hurry”! We pulled off in a hurry with the sound of cheering still coming through the walls of the Hat Trick.
 

We hit the pumps in Fairmont and started talking about how to get the sleep bonus. We had been so worried about the “reading comprehension”  portion of this rally that the logistics of correctly getting the sleep bonus was causing us much anguish. First, it said “Park your bikes”, “then get a receipt”. So we assumed no driving was allowed between the start and the end of the sleep bonus.  Ok, no problem. There is a gas station within walking distance of our house. But they would be closed at 2am so we’d have to buy fuel.  None of us were sure if the pay the pumps were on after closing. A quick call to the station confirmed they would be on. Ok, now if we bought gas, that would need to go in our fuel log.  We didn’t know if receipts could be used in more than one bonus.  But maybe we could just get a car wash from the pump without any gas. We didn’t know. Grrrrr . Now I think it turns out we were reading way to much into the rules but we had never done this before so we had no idea. It was getting later and later while we tortured ourselves. We decided to take the gamble and go for it. We headed east on I90 and then up I35. I was so busy hating Eddie James (note, he probably didn’t have anything to do with it, but it’s very popular for every rider to hate him at some point in the Rally. I felt it was my turn after the sleep bonus fiasco) I failed to changed into warmer clothes under my Roadcrafter. I had been wearing biker shorts and a vented biker shirt all day. I looked at the thermometer. 58F. Geewhiz It’s getting cold. I didn’t want to stop and just sucked it up. Keeping an eye on the ditches for deer kept me from noticing it much anyways. Somewhere north of Owatonna at 1:30am Carrie moved into the left lane to let a car merge onto the freeway. Only problem was, there was no car. Chris did the same for what he thought was a semi. Turned out to be an S-10. Fatigue was starting to set in.  Things changed once we hit the river bridge in Burnsville. We caught a second wind seeing familiar sights.

We pulled into the pumps at our local gas station around 2:30am. I tried to buy a car wash. No Dice. Now what? We’ll maybe if we just put 1cent of gas in they would let us get around the fuel log entry. I pumped in 1cent worth of gas and put the nozzle back.  The machine reset and didn’t charge anything. Now what? Lets try 25cents. It worked. Time in 2:41am.  We headed home, had a beer and a smoke and hit the sack for 90minutes. Back to the pumps and filled another 25cent load of gas for the end receipt. 5:42am was the time printed. That was close.  So we filled our tanks while we were there. Suddenly. The pumps weren’t taking our original credit cards so we had to switch cards. Good thing that didn’t happen during the sleep bonus receipt.  

We made it to Rush City in no time. We might have had time to do the Mille Lacs Loop for another 900 odd points but we didn’t want to risk being late and time barred. We still had some more miles to put on to hit 1000 so we took the long way to St. Cloud. Down 35E to 694 and up to Clearwater.  We’re on the off ramp about 8:30am, way early. I ask Carrie and Chris if they want to hit the Cold Spring Bonus. Na. We’ve done what we set out to do, its not like we’re competing for a plaque.  

We arrived at Donahue Harley-Davidson parking lot at 8:55am. 1078miles. We polish up our scoring sheets and talk with a few other riders. Heading to the scoring table, Carrie just about forgets her Spam.  It turned out we worried for nothing on many things. I saw all the SPAM flavors getting counted for points. Our splash of gas for the sleep bonus wasn’t even questioned. JTTB added up our score and said “10,451, respectable first time score” We all breathed a sigh of relief. It was great hearing everyone’s stories. We spoke at length to Alan again and heard where he went. He road pretty hard and had some good stories to tell. Mark Foster kept telling me how he’ll have a GL1800 next year. Some riders where really worn out and tired, but most everyone hung around for the awards. 5th place in Standard class started with Deb and her 3600 or so points. Carrie and Chris’s class was Sport Touring. 5th started around 10,700 points.  Touring class was similar. We were closer than we thought. Overall winner had close to 16,000 points and there was a bunch of them up that high. We stayed until just about every bike was gone, soaking up every last drop of our first Minnesota 1000. We’ve learned a lot on this little adventure and the world looks a little different to us.  We’ll be back, IBA license plate frames included.

Thanks Team Strange, Donahue Harley and all the other sponsors. And to Mark Foster, it's all your fault.

UPDATE 7/21/03
Due to a strange twist of events and a 3-way tie for 3rd place. I managed to grab 5th place in Touring Class and am the proud owner of WOOD!  Final Audited Results are HERE

Team Newbie Rally Stats
Miles:1043 Points:10451 Moving Avg:66mph  Overall Average 53.9mph Moving Time: 16:20 Stop Time: 3:40

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Copyright ©1998-2003, Ron Hanson. All rights reserved
Last edited 05/19/2006