Grainbelt
Junior Member
And brought home 9th place!
First time I'd ever done anything like it. It was a ton of fun, great group of people, and very gracious when they learned I took on their auxiliary fuel cell equipped, radar detector having, huge ass land barge sport touring machines with my little FZ6. :rockon: Below is mostly a cut and past from another forum. If any of you get the chance to run an endurance rally, I highly recommend it. These short 8, 9, or 12 hour rallies are perfect for the FZ6 with its 5 gallon tank and comfortable 80mph cruising speed.
The Team Lyle Rally was put on by Team Strange, and was a fundraiser for Eddie's Road, a charity set up in honor of recently passed Eddie James, who was a key part of the long-distance riding community. Start and finish was Bob's Java Hut, a coffee shop not two blocks from my place in south Minneapolis.
I planned to meet some out-of-town friends for breakfast, to get a good base before the rally. Rider meeting was at 8 so we met a touch before seven, not far away. I rode my bike to Bob's at six thirty in no gear, parked in front, and walked the two blocks home. The dude on the metric cruiser staring at maps two hours early was the only one there, and he was visibly confused by my conduct. Then I put all my gear in the car and went to breakfast at the Uptown Diner, since the place across from Bob's (sunnyside up cafe) went out of business a few weeks back.
In case you ever wondered what 'carnitas benedict' looks like, here you go:
It was some pretty serious stuff. shredded pork and black beans on english muffins, with poached eggs and smothered in hollandaise with some pico de gallo. And a bed of hashbrowns. I was all fueled up and ready to go!
We headed over to Bob's and it was pretty full up, with most of the 60-odd participants all there. To give some idea of the variety, the smallest bike I saw was a Super Sherpa, and the largest a Goldwing, tied with that blue Victory Vision. In between were a plague of Wee Stroms, my FZ6, a lot of FJRs and ST1100/ST1300s, a few RTs and a few GSs. Also a sorta clapped out K1000RS and an old Norton most recently used in GLMC's barn bike buildoff.
The format of the rally was 29 locations with points assigned to them, in MN and WI. There was a bonus for getting three of the locations, which were all forest service offices. The rally sheets have a spot to record the time and location you visited a location, and a question to answer to prove you were there (i.e. there is a memorial at the wayside in Bruce WI describing the 'Tubby Forest'. Who was tubby? Answer: a springer spaniel).
A lot of riders put the locations into their laptop as waypoints, made a route, downloaded it to their GPS, and left. I used a highlighter and a map, which was equally effective for a rally of this shortened format. Here's the portion of the available 29 locations that I decided were in play. There were three clustered around Umega, WI, but that is 189 miles away (off the map below) and I figured I wouldn't make it back. The MN locations were kinda scattered and I figured the roads would be more fun in WI.
I saw a bunch of roughly 100-point locations in NW WI and decided to hit Grantsburg, Danbury, and Trego, then evaluate remaining time and try to hit Couderay, Bruce, New Auburn, and then book it home. The Forest Lake bonus was only 17 points, and Sunrise was in an awkward place by the river where there's back tracking. I figured if things looked ****ty at Trego I could at least hit the ones to the south, as well as locations in Bayport and Marine on St. Croix, which I had highlighted on the MN map and are right at the border on hwy 95.
Eventually I decided on a rough route, grabbed my gear from the car, and headed north on 35W.
First time I'd ever done anything like it. It was a ton of fun, great group of people, and very gracious when they learned I took on their auxiliary fuel cell equipped, radar detector having, huge ass land barge sport touring machines with my little FZ6. :rockon: Below is mostly a cut and past from another forum. If any of you get the chance to run an endurance rally, I highly recommend it. These short 8, 9, or 12 hour rallies are perfect for the FZ6 with its 5 gallon tank and comfortable 80mph cruising speed.
The Team Lyle Rally was put on by Team Strange, and was a fundraiser for Eddie's Road, a charity set up in honor of recently passed Eddie James, who was a key part of the long-distance riding community. Start and finish was Bob's Java Hut, a coffee shop not two blocks from my place in south Minneapolis.
I planned to meet some out-of-town friends for breakfast, to get a good base before the rally. Rider meeting was at 8 so we met a touch before seven, not far away. I rode my bike to Bob's at six thirty in no gear, parked in front, and walked the two blocks home. The dude on the metric cruiser staring at maps two hours early was the only one there, and he was visibly confused by my conduct. Then I put all my gear in the car and went to breakfast at the Uptown Diner, since the place across from Bob's (sunnyside up cafe) went out of business a few weeks back.
In case you ever wondered what 'carnitas benedict' looks like, here you go:
It was some pretty serious stuff. shredded pork and black beans on english muffins, with poached eggs and smothered in hollandaise with some pico de gallo. And a bed of hashbrowns. I was all fueled up and ready to go!
We headed over to Bob's and it was pretty full up, with most of the 60-odd participants all there. To give some idea of the variety, the smallest bike I saw was a Super Sherpa, and the largest a Goldwing, tied with that blue Victory Vision. In between were a plague of Wee Stroms, my FZ6, a lot of FJRs and ST1100/ST1300s, a few RTs and a few GSs. Also a sorta clapped out K1000RS and an old Norton most recently used in GLMC's barn bike buildoff.
The format of the rally was 29 locations with points assigned to them, in MN and WI. There was a bonus for getting three of the locations, which were all forest service offices. The rally sheets have a spot to record the time and location you visited a location, and a question to answer to prove you were there (i.e. there is a memorial at the wayside in Bruce WI describing the 'Tubby Forest'. Who was tubby? Answer: a springer spaniel).
A lot of riders put the locations into their laptop as waypoints, made a route, downloaded it to their GPS, and left. I used a highlighter and a map, which was equally effective for a rally of this shortened format. Here's the portion of the available 29 locations that I decided were in play. There were three clustered around Umega, WI, but that is 189 miles away (off the map below) and I figured I wouldn't make it back. The MN locations were kinda scattered and I figured the roads would be more fun in WI.
I saw a bunch of roughly 100-point locations in NW WI and decided to hit Grantsburg, Danbury, and Trego, then evaluate remaining time and try to hit Couderay, Bruce, New Auburn, and then book it home. The Forest Lake bonus was only 17 points, and Sunrise was in an awkward place by the river where there's back tracking. I figured if things looked ****ty at Trego I could at least hit the ones to the south, as well as locations in Bayport and Marine on St. Croix, which I had highlighted on the MN map and are right at the border on hwy 95.
Eventually I decided on a rough route, grabbed my gear from the car, and headed north on 35W.
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