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2005 TEAM STRANGE MINNESOTA 1000 RIDE REPORT

Gather points over a  thousand miles in twenty-four hours... and sleep?  Heck, yeah!
By Carrie Hanson for BMWMOCM newsletter

“What do you mean by there’s ‘oil all over’?” says Ron over the CB.  “I have oil running off my cylinder really bad, wait, I gotta wave Bill into the other lane.  OK, we have to find some where decent to pull over, I don’t want all the other bikes running through my oil.” I say.  “OH, it can’t be that bad, we’ll take a look when we get in the dealership parking lot.”  Says Ron.  A few miles later, we pull into our destination, Donahue Harley Davidson in Sauk Rapids, MN.  My bike, from cylinder to bag, is dripping with oil.

The Team Strange Minnesota 1000 (MN1K) doesn’t start the day of the rally, or at least certainly not for my team.  This is the weekend before the Minnesota 1000 and we were doing an organized nation-wide saddle sore to make sure the bikes (and ourselves) were ready.  I attended a motorcycle school at Road America in Wisconsin two weeks before the big rally.  Riding on the track required a complete strip down of all goodies and some additional taping of what remained.   The following Saturday, I had scheduled us to do the 1000 mile ride.  This ride was a week out from the MN1K, which would allow me to return my bike to its rally setup and work out any bugs.  An important lesson we have learned from all our reading and rally experience, is that success is anticipating failure and planning for it effectively.  This paid off in spades this year.  On the way to the start of the “debug” saddle sore my BMW R1100RT was leaking oil out of the valve cover bolts.  I had re-installed my foot pegs, which mount using those bolts.  As you may know, those gaskets require a certain finesse that I apparently didn’t have that day.  Luckily, it’s nothing a quart of Harley brand oil and a wrench can’t fix.  So, off we went on the saddle sore.  A few other “bugs” were found and fixed.  We’re ready for the MN1K – don’t touch a thing.  As I write this, my BMW still holds that Harley oil.  

The Minnesota 1000 is a 24-hour road rally that requires riders to gather bonuses worth points scattered at unique locations all over the map. Despite the name, the rally isn't necessarily in Minnesota or 1000 miles long.  The Liar’s Banquet takes place Friday night.  All rules are reviewed and general administration subjects are covered before the big day.  This rally is infamous for trying to trump the riders.  The challenge is to be ready for whatever they may throw at us.  For my team, this includes dressing in comfortable riding clothes and packing toiletries the night of the banquet... you never know!  Sure enough, they hand out a set of bonus sheets.  Found right atop the stack was a list of “So Ya Wanna Leave Friday Night” bonuses which include cities in Texas, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania.  To take these bonuses, you had to check out with the rally masters that night and could not collect any additional bonuses until 10AM the next morning (normal rally start time).  A quick scan of the point values and distances revealed that the point values were relatively low and it would be hard to pick up additional points, even with the extra 12 hours given.  Now that we had our rally pack, and made the decision not to leave, we headed home for planning.

Chris Berg is our neighbor, friend, and rally mate.  We’ve been riding together since the early days of “Team Newbie”.  This was our self-imposed title a few years back.  The three of us headed back to the house to decipher this mess the rally masters put before us.  This year, bonus hunter Greg Anderson went a little haywire.  The bonus lists were in three themed groups: God, Love, and Death.  Listings from Death included cemeteries, accident sites, etc. God included some bible verses and such.  Love seemed to be anything from proving you were in Valentine, NE to shooting a photo of yourself in front of Sex World in Minneapolis.  All bonuses could be mixed and matched. 

As we huddle to map the bonus sites, in come Bill Rufenacht and Bob “498” Johnson.  They live out of state, and booked rooms at our house for the rally.  It had not occurred to us previously, but these two are both rally masters themselves.  We run their rallies twice a year.  Wait a minute, now their going to see how we work, I thought.  Our methods and strategies will be all out in the open??  Surely, this will only give them more fuel to thwart us on future rallies.  Oh, the headaches!  Well, we proceed anyway.  Chris, Ron, and I were planning in the family room, while Bill and Bob were planning just over the couch at the kitchen table.  Five people and three routes came out of that house the next morning.  We were psyched and ready to give it all we had.

Friday Liar's Banquet Photo's
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Saturday Rally Time! 

We arrived at Betty’s Bikes and Buns in Minneapolis (rally headquarters) Saturday morning, well rested and happy with our route.  We checked in and headed over for the pre-rally meeting.  “Not another bonus sheet!”  I exclaim.  Really, I knew it must be coming, but was hoping not.  Once they give another sheet, your whole route needs to be re-thought, and possibly thrown out.  The Friday bonus listings did not include a sleep bonus, so that tipped us off that there must be some morning bonuses.   In this rally, riders tend to stretch their limits.  The sleep bonus is usually large enough to counter that urge.  It was effective in making us change our route.  We had a bonus in Valentine, NE worth 1500 that was way off route.  With the sleep points, that bonus was no longer a gain for us.  We made the trade.  Valentine was off the list, and we were ready to go.

Rally Start Pictures 6-25-04
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On the road again..

Arlene Liska is an amazing woman, and if you have had the chance to meet her, you consider yourself lucky to have had the experience.  When we saw here on the bonus list, there was no question we had to go... and she was worth 1400 points!  She was a timed bonus, however.  So, this took some coordinating.  The 10AM horn sounded releasing us from Betty’s.  We wound our way through a group of 5 bonuses on our way down to Arlene, just in time to hit the 6 PM bonus start time which only lasted until 8 PM.

As we approached one of the site of Randy Scott’s accident in South Dakota we noticed another rider.  It’s always so fun to see other riders on the road.  It really gives me that extra charge to keep going.  Wait a minute, I’m thinking... is that... “Ha, it’s Eddie James!” says Ron over the CB.  Wow, it’s our fearless leader in action!  Eddie is one of the founders of the rally.  He had taken a crazy challenge that he couldn’t run the rally on an old Yamaha XS 400 Special.  Eddie was determined to not only run the rally, but rack up a thousand miles on the bike, as well.  Here he was before us.  Further attention showed that he was wrestling with the telephone pole located at the intersection.  It was a windy day and he was apparently trying to use a cargo net to secure his rally flag to the pole located at the intersection.  This site was too funny for words.  Ron approached the cussing and irritated Eddie and offered to take his picture while holding the flag.  The rest of us got our photos and we headed down the road.  Eddie on the 400 could barely keep the speed limit and when we hit the interstate, he faded quickly from our mirrors.  “Wow, it’s going to be a long ride for him.” I say over the CB.  Next stop, Niobrara to see Arlene, and we’re right on schedule.  

We wind our way down the interstate, and west a bit, then finally cross the river into Niobrara.  Boy, we’ve had a good ride so far, and we’re a few minutes early.  We’ll be the first ones to get the Arlene bonus, I’m thinking.  Well, we turned the corner heading down to the Two Rivers Saloon to see a pile of bikes.  Wow!  There must have been about fifteen bikes already there.  I’m pumped.  “Hey, wait a minute, what’s that Yamaha 400 doing here?  That’s Eddie James!”  Well, I’m here to tell you, he lives up to his reputation.  How he beat us from that intersection to Niobrara, we’ll never know.  I guess it’s just a fine example of how method, and not speed, wins a rally.

The Niobrara Fire Department’s siren lets out a howl indicating it was 6 PM and we all lined up to get our picture with Arlene.  After, it was time to head down through Omaha to secure a set of bonuses just north of the Missouri border.  These turned out to be a lot of fun, but very time consuming.  The first was the Church of Climax, which was back down some crazy gravel road.  One thing I’ve noticed is that there are many kinds of gravel used by the different states.  I had not come across this one.  It seemed more like marbles on a counter top.  It really felt like your tires were just going to dance off somewhere and leave you there on the ground.  I recalled from my reading how to deal with this.  They say the key is to grip the tank with your legs, relax the upper body, and go with it.  I employ this and it works!... for about 5 minutes, and then I realize I’ve gone into a death grip on the bars again.  Ok, try again.  We reach the church in Climax and I think it’s around 11 PM.  We are greeted by three dogs from a nearby farm.  They spend their time barking and running around our bikes as we try to ignore them.  Once we started to leave, they proceeded to chase the bikes.  Aaaarrrg.  I can’t dodge dogs on this stuff!  Surprisingly, we make it out upright, and with no wounded dogs.

We head for a couple more bonuses in the area.  One of which leads us onto those marbles again.  Well, it turns out we should not have complained.  This bonus took us off that and onto a minimum maintenance road that really hadn’t been maintained in a few years.  It seemed to have ruts the size of Poudre Canyon leading to lakes of sand at the bottom.  This was quite challenging for me as I have no off road experience (except for where those evil rally masters send me.)  I get into the sand and recall some lessons from mountain biking.  I have no idea if they apply, but it’s all I got.  So, I relaxed my grip and think weight off the front wheel, then gave it a small amount of gas.  I felt I was going down for sure, but mysteriously made it through.  We found the bonus marker hidden off in the woods and recorded the necessary information.  We had come into this bonus from the west and headed out toward the east.  Hmmm, the road out to the east was a nice road.  It turns out the instructions had said to go in that way, but since we were coming from the west we chose the shortcut.  Hmmm, put that in the “he who is wise, might follow directions” bucket.

By the time we completed that set of bonuses, we realized were running out of time.  We began to discuss bailout points.  One of the important lessons we have learned in picking a route is to make sure it is dynamic and can support last minute changes.  This year’s route was great.  From where we were, it was a stream of bonuses heading back up I-35 that we could choose to pick up or drop depending on time.  We only kept two of the six we planned, and took our sleep bonus in Ames.

Saturday pictures 
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Sunday - The home stretch

Upon return to the big city, we headed to the Lakewood Cemetery and to Sex World to wrap up some additional points.  We always save the local stuff for last.  That is another safety factor we work into the route to make sure we don’t end up with a DNF listing by our name.  Heading back to Betty’s, we still had fifteen minutes, so we head down one block from the check-in to get a picture of 3^rd street for the “John 3:16” bonus combo.  I’m thinking to myself, is this just greedy?  If my bike doesn’t start, can I push it back to Betty’s in fifteen minutes?  If, in fact I can, does the bike have to be running when I cross the line?  No problem, we document our photos and roll to the finish line.

I really can’t recall a feeling so intense as crossing the finish line.  Reading off that odometer, it hits you that you actually finished!  Nothing but pure elation follows.  1100 miles, safe and fun.  Next task, park the bike without falling over.  Check.  At this point I was so pumped I ran off to find all the riders I know making sure everyone got back safe, and try not to get caught up exchanging stories just yet.  There’s still scoring to do.

The scoring table is a nerve-racking place with evil volunteers.  One would guess they have been served lime juice all day, or something.  To run this rally you know, it is not over until you are scored.  Many hard earned points get lost right at the scoring table.  I usually need to wait a while to let the buzz die down before I do my paperwork so I don’t make a mistake.  Crossing that finish line gets me pretty worked up.  Finally, I filled out my sheet, do my totals, cross check everything, and head to the table.  I noticed I was shaking the entire time.  I tried to cover it up.  To my amazement, I left the table with all my points!  Now, it was time to frolic and tell stories.

First stop, breakfast by the folks from Diamonds coffee shop and a big fabulous mocha from the Betty’s crew.  Fantastic.  Real food tastes extra good after more than 24 hours living on granola.  After eating, it was time for the announcements and door prizes.  The sponsors had all kinds of goodies for us this year.  Names were drawn at random and the riders claimed their gifts.  I was drawn for a $100 gift certificate from Road, Track, and Trail! 

Sunday pictures
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The Awards 

Finally, the awards came in.  Last year, we had a very good score.  By the rules, we were kicked into the expert class.  There is some stiff competition there.   We figured, dropping so many bonuses, our point total wasn’t very high, but we did our best ride just the same.  To our surprise, we were awarded a 3^rd place finish in our class.  Triple Yahoo!!  After catching up on all the stories, we headed home for a very, very sound sleep.

Awards photos
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Route Map

Team Notso Newbie GPS Rally Stats  - GPS file
Miles:11139 Points:9690 Moving Avg:63mph  Overall Average 52mph Moving Time: 17:22 

2005 Minnesota 1000 Results