RWTC 2020

[400brian]

The 2020 Ride with the Champs is in the books. We made some major changes this year, and there were some unexpected issues, so the weekend was to a fair degree uncharted territory.

For me, the chaos started right after Christmas. I didn't have anything ready to go, so the push was on!

The 74 green machine was torn down in the garage, it was getting new axles and bearings on each end of the track, along with new bogies. When that was completed, the next task was to get the 340/5 that had been rebuilt installed in the sled. It had been sitting on the bench for 2 years because I wasn’t happy with the spark I was seeing. I cleaned the points, installed the engine, and it ran on one cylinder, pretty much as I suspected it would. So I ignored that for the moment and moved on to the X8.

I had decided in Sept that it was time to wrap up the 5 year 73 X8 project. The engine I had taken out of the green machine was the 440/21 that belonged in it, so I went to work installing that, and all the wiring, dash, steering, and all the little things that take forever.

Once the engine was in and test fired, the sled got pushed back and the 74 X8 came in for some attention. I was going to replace the crank seals and rebuild the carb, both of which had been done over ten years and 2000 miles ago.

The carb was off, and I was preparing to pull the clutch, when I casually wriggled the comet. To my surprise it went: CLUNK! The book says the max endplay on the crank is .0035 . I did not need to set up the dial indicator to know this was out of spec!

This was a Friday night, and I was ten days out from leaving. I immediately started pulling the engine out. I had an NOS crank, jugs, and pistons, but I did not have a gasket set. I shot Matt a text that night, and he got one in the mail Saturday morning, and it was in my mailbox on Monday.

Things were cleaned up, the new parts were installed, the ignition was timed, and the carb was rebuilt. The engine was test fired on Thursday night, and it ran great in the shop. I then pushed it back and pulled the engine out of the green machine once again. This was starting to get a bit old, but with the deadline looming, I kept pushing. The Kukosan ignition was pulled out and a Denso was installed, as that is what I had laying around. A external coil was replaced, and I finally had spark.

At one point over that last weekend, Sunday afternoon through Monday night, I went 32 hrs without sleep. Never did that before. I had intended to load the sleds Monday night, but I pretty much crashed and left it until Tuesday morning.

I actually felt better than I thought I would after about 7 hrs sleep. The first thing was to get the green machine in the bed of the pickup. The last time I hauled a sled in the truck was back in 2013, and that year we had a large pile of snow in our yard to use as a loading dock. We had nothing like that this time. The best we had was a berm of snow that had been pushed up in front of the barn, and with a little shoveling, it looked like I could get the skis on top of the tailgate, if they went under it was gonna get ugly real fast! I got the green one fired up, and took it for a quick rip down the road to get turned around and lined up with the truck. I was surprised at how well it ran, and how peppy it seemed.

I plopped the sled into the truck without incident, so after we got it tied down, the next task was to get the trailer on the truck, and the 2 X8s loaded. The 73 fired up, and a very quick rip out into a field showed that it seemed to be running as expected. As soon as it was tied down, I fired up the 74 and repeated the procedure. However, almost immediately I knew I had a problem. The sled would run normally, then bog, then run normally. I got it on the trailer, but I was not happy.

We got our gear loaded up, and I think we were on the road by around 2 pm. Driving conditions were excellent, and we were at our friends house in Manitowish Waters by around 6pm. I unloaded the 74 and got it into their garage, checked some things out, ripped up and down their driveway, but in the end I had not resolved the problem. It was looking like I would be riding the green machine the next day, but I was OK with that.

Wednesday, February 12 Hi of 29, Lo of 1

The mission for Wednesday would be to ride the sleds down to St. Germain. So first we had to drive down and leave a truck there, about a 45 minute trip each way. We were back to the house and suiting up by around 1 pm. We would be pushing things a bit I feared.

As we headed out the driveway, the green machine started sneezing, I mean almost as soon as we started! It had not done this before! I got the cover pulled off, reached in and opened the mixture screw a bit. This made things worse, which I expected. I now screwed it in a couple of bits, and everything settled down and started running smoothly.

We ran into town, more or less running parallel to HWY 51. Gary and Renee were leading on the Pantera, the wife behind them, and me bringing up the rear. On the South side of town, we saw a sign for Little Bohemia, so we followed it across the highway, and made a lap through the parking lot.

We were doing 2 things here today, getting the sleds down to St Germain, and I was pre-running the route for the Vintage Challenge on Saturday. We had ran the northern route the year before, today we were running the Southern route, but both routes run through Boulder Junction.

Once we were south of town, I was put on point, and I just followed the signs to Boulder Junction. I rode straight through without stopping, which probably did not make the women happy. The trail was not particularly smooth east of Boulder, but we eventually turned off it onto a trail that would take us to Sayner. This trail was MUCH nicer, and it was a nice run into Sayner, although the trail did degrade as we approached town.

We pulled up at the Sayner Pub. While getting parkled, which the wife always struggles with, she stuck a ski up the rear end of the green machine, which rubbed me the wrong way. Then she started whining that she wanted to keep going because her headlight wasn’t working, then it was her hips hurt, then it was I was a jerk…

I was hungry, we were only 10 miles north of St Germain, we had enough daylight left, so I wasn’t going along with her BS. As soon as we got inside we had guys taking pictures of us in our vintage suits, and chatting us up about the JD sleds.

The burgers were good, promptly served, and we were soon out the door headed for the Museum.

Here is a shot of myself, Katy, and Renee, at the Sayner Pub as we were getting ready to depart. I am wearing the green suit that my father bought in 71 with the 72 400. I wore this as a kid, I must have swam in it. Also, note that Katy has a "X rated" patch sewn on her original wet look suit.

[400brian]

We made the quick run down to the museum, and arrived with just a little daylight left, all was good. We drove back up to Manitowish Waters and Gary and Renee’s house for some supper. I messed with the X8 a little, but it was apparent I was going to have to remove the carb and try adjusting the metering lever, and I wasn’t up for it. It was much colder Wednesday night, and I was coughing. At the time I thought I was having a bit of an asthma reaction to the cold air, but it never really got better.

This is where the weekend really went off the rails. With 20/20 hindsight, here is what happened: On Monday night, one of the guys that was going to do chores for us while we were gone, stopped by to see what he needed to do. The whole time he was there, he was coughing his head off. We were outside, and I kept some distance from him, but I guess what I should have done is told him to get back in his car, and I would talk to him by phone. I had no idea at the time, just how virulent this crud was, but we were about to find out.

Thursday February 13, Hi of 6 Lo of -21

Thursday’s mission was to ride down to Lake Tomahawk, pre-riding the route for the Bogie Bash on Friday. We got the 74 on the trailer, stopped at the store in Manitowish Waters on the way out and picked up a couple bottles of cold meds. Then we got a can of fuel at the Shell station next to the Whitetail. Wade and Mindy were right in front of us as we pulled into the Museum parking lot, and David Clark and Jason Perterson were already there.

I got the sleds fueled, showed the guys the map with the intended route, and with Gary and Renee arriving, we were ready to go. The last time I was in Lake Tomahawk was on the 2008 RWTC, and we had gotten there via Minoquca, so this was going to be all new for everyone.

We headed west along HWY 70, and at the first opportunity turned south into the woods. It was a nice run, the sun was brightly shining, and the temps here at around noon were very tolerable.

I followed the signs at the intersections we came to. At one point we stopped and pondered our options, but some guys that were sitting at the intersection we were at advised us to just keep going the way we were headed. Wade was riding the 75 400 that he had rode as a kid. I believe it was the first time he had successfully rode the sled up here, he had hauled it up here several times, but one issue or another had kept it on the trailer. Today it was running, but at the intersection we stopped at, he had the hood up looking to reconnect the speedo cable. The nut had vibrated off, letting the cable fall off the speedo, and while I was standing there, he had not got his hands on it yet.

As we approached town, we got on a very nice straight, smooth trail along a road, and we got a chance to air things out a bit. Being as the green machine had a new engine in it, I wasn’t comfortable with holding it to the bar, but I buzzed her up pretty good. We were having a great time!

Lake Tomahawk isn’t very big, when we got into town, we were right across the street from one of the 2 cafes in town, so we parked in the back lot, and walked into the Town Cafe and Pub. Brunch was great, and we made plans for a different return route. I had a general idea of how I wanted to return, I wanted to ride towards the east then north, coming out not too far from the SHOF. I had planned to do a little lake running, but we never found the access onto the lake, and we never saw any tracks out on the lake, so we stayed on ground trails. We wound up coming into St Germain from the south running under a power line. If you have ever been out to Pitliks Resort, you know what I am referring to.

We concluded the pre-ride back at the Museum. Katy and I got checked into the Whitetail, then we got the sleds moved down to the motel as well. I had time for a quick nap before a group of us headed over to the Golden Pines Supper Club. At supper things were really going downhill for me, I was feeling lousy. I ordered prime rib, but I didn’t eat much of it. I think I dozed off at the table for a while. Everything was put in a doggy bag, and we headed back to the room to try to sleep this off.

Rainville called me later, he was out in the garage after the board meeting. I declined to participate, as I just wasn’t up to it. The garage policy changed at the Whitetail this year. The word was that the John Deere guys are not to be screwed with, and we have garage access 24/ 7. Also the manager of the place changed the week we were there.

[400brian]

Friday February 14, Hi of 14 Lo of -24

Friday’s mission was the Bogie Bash to Lake Tomahawk. The problem was that I never even considered getting out of bed. Things are kind of a blur. I can’t remember if I sent out a text, or if I spoke to anyone, I just don’t remember. I remember telling someone that Dave had the route on his phone. Whirry’s called and said they were both sick and wouldn’t be showing up. I was beginning to see how this was going to go.

Sometime in the afternoon I got up and ate my prime rib from the night before. I was feeling a bit better now, eventually showering and getting ready to go to the Meet and Greet. We did go, I tried to stay away from people, and nothing tasted good, But the presentation by Team Frustration was interesting, and held our attention.

Sounds like the guys who had run the Bogie Bash had a good time, and I believe they ran into a guy I went to High School with. He knew we were up there, and when he saw all the vintage Deeres, he knew it was our group, so he talked with Jason I think.

I hit the rack, determined to do the Vintage Challenge the next day.

[JoeRainville]

As Brian noted, thing never go to plan during the RWC weekend...

I arrived in St. Germain from the I-500 around 6:30 Sunday evening, fully expecting to have time to ride and do at least some of the trail checks for the new Vintage Challenge to Little Bohemia, but I didn't think I was going to be to make it to Lake Tomahawk. Sure enough, between spending a few hours shoveling snow at the HoF, goofing off with Adam, final sled preparations, buying RJ a new helmet, picking up Cari, Richard and my 17 year old nephew Quincy at the Rhinelander airport, teaching Richard to ride his Kitty Cat and then the HoF board meeting, I had very little seat time once again.

Come Friday morning, Brian is down with the crud, but luckily Wade, Pilot Dave and Jason had all been to Tomahawk already. Shouldn't be a big issue, as its only about 20 miles each way. Glen Wasmuth of Enduro Team Canada joined us on his I-500 finishing 340/s from 1975. We had 3 bogie sleds with my old 72 JD400 with Dave and Jason each on 800's. Dustin Ericson joined us on a green Spitfire, Wade pulled out his JDX-4 while Mindy and my nephew were on late model Cats.

We gave guiding privileges to Jason who got to experience the "fun" of leading a small pack of folks through the Northwoods. Trail conditions were good, only bumpy in a few spots. Visability was clear and the sleds got a lot of waves and smiles. We had to double back a few times, I blew a few corners (need to really adjust that band brake a lot better), but we all made it down to Lake Tomahawk without a major incident...

[JoeRainville]

We stopped at the same place in Lake Tomahawk as the crew did the day before, the "Village Café and Pub" were it turns out they do not accept credit or debit cards. Despite that oddity, the food and the conversation were both pretty good. It was a pleasure to have Glen join us, and my nephew hasn't been on a machine in 2 years, so he was enjoying the ride also.

We filled up across the street, although it really wasn't necessary with only going 20 miles. The 400 used a whopping gallon. The 2009 Cat pigged down over 4 gallons though, requiring a quick adjustment of its new choke cable Saturday morning. With everyone's stomachs and sleds full, we took a slightly different route back to St. Germain, coming in on the east side of town, and wound our way over to the HoF to visit the open house.

It was nice to be back early for once. The short ride seemed to have fit the bill for a nice, easy Friday 'warm up' ride before the Fish Fry later that evening.

-JDJR

[400brian]

Saturday, February 15 Hi of 25 lo of 8


I woke up Saturday morning feeling functional, if not good. I got suited up and headed outside. I had decided I would ride the freshly restored 73 X8. It had been cold overnight, but the sled had a brand new battery in it, and it fired the engine right up. Normally I would have a full fuel can to put in the support trailer, but last night when we came back from the restaurant, I was shivering uncontrollably, and had not bothered to fill it. When I got up this morning, Katy was telling me she was now sick, so she was not going to drive the truck over. Long story short, after a couple of laps around the parking lot to warm the sled up, I grabbed an empty gas can out of the trailer, and just took it with me over to the Whitetail Inn where I threw it in Rainville’s trailer.

Pretty much everyone had eaten by the time I went through the line, and while I wasn’t really feeling it, I forced myself to have some biscuits and gravy, eggs, and bacon. I had not seen the route that Bob Anderson had decided to run over to Little Bohemia and back. I had the route that I had run over the past two years in my head, so I had no qualms about getting lost, we would just ride til we got there! I picked up a map, and chatted with Bob a bit about the route. His route west was pretty close to what I had run, but his route back seemed really out of the way.

Another thing that was sucking the fun out of the day was that I had gotten texts and / or calls that morning from Wade and Mindy, David Clark, and Jason Peterson, all letting us know they were sick, and were down for the day. So that was 4 less riders for the Vintage Challenge, and obviously at this point, this news did not come as a shock. But it did bumm me out.

So, it was going to be a small group. Myself on the X8, Rainville on the Sprintfire, Glen on his 340/S, and Joe’s nephew Quincy on Joe’s ‘09 Cat. We thought we had a couple more, but as everyone pulled out of the parking lot, it appeared it was just us, so we departed. Rainville insisted I lead, at this point it didn’t matter much, but once we got north of Sayner, I would be the only one who had ever run any of this before.

So we took off. Slowly at first, but as I got a feeling for the trail and snow conditions, I started dialing it up. Just before we got to Sayner, I paused at a road intersection to gather everyone up, and discovered Quincy was AWOL. This didn’t seem good, so just as Joe was going to ride back and find him, he appeared with 2 more sleds! We now added Scott on his Blizzard, and Brian on a ‘71 Puma. All was good, so we continued on to Sayner.

Our support trailer was in Sayner ahead of us, all the riders were good, so we continued on north. Bob had advised us to turn west at an intersection between Plum and Star lakes. We had been through there many times, and it had never occured to me to question where that trail went. Bob told me that it headed west towards Boulder Junction, but that it seemed to get light use, so it would be a good ride. I made the turn and headed west, but it wasn’t long and we were pulling up to Stillwaters Resort on the north side of Star Lake.

OK, I must have missed a fork in the trail somewhere, but no sweat, I just continued north up trail 7 with the plan to turn west on Trail 8. Here was the problem I fought all day; I just wasn’t at the top of my game! I was operating in a bit of a fog, AND we were riding faster that we had on Wednesday, and I just wasn’t seeing stuff. This is where a wingman really helps, because it is really easy to look smart from a row or two back.

The first thing I did north of Stillwaters was turn right at a fork in the trail, which had us looping south back to Sayner. Been through this intersection many many times, don’t know what I was thinking. I stopped at the first road intersection and got everyone turned around. Rainville was giving me crap for missing two turns, I told him to shut up, because he was going to like trail 8.

We got things straightened out, and soon came to trail 8. We took off to the west, and my prediction soon came true. I do not know what trail 8 is, if it is an old RR grade, or a road of some type or what, but it is quite straight, flat, and smooth! I opened the 440/21 up a bit, and we made good time to Boulder Junction.

So I have been through Boulder twice before, but each time heading east. I am not sure exactly doing it the other direction. I was preoccupied with the navigation, and wasn’t really thinking about anything else. Our trailer was there, but I never saw it. From the Whitetail to Little Bohemia is around 50 miles. Right from the planning stages, I made the assumption that everyone could make that without refueling. Well you probably know what the old saying is about making assumptions!

The next thing was that Scott and Brian had joined us enroute, so we had never really talked with them at this point. What I didn’t know was that the Puma Brian was riding had a 3 ½ gallon gas tank. It was the normal Puma tank, just a really thin version of one. The 72 or 73 Puma Brian had rode with us a couple of years ago was giving him around 20 miles per gallon, which led him to believe he had no problems. However, this 71 was only getting more like 15 mpg, and that was going to be more problematic.

A splash of gas at Boulder would have been advised, but everyone was fat and happy at this point. We took trail 2 west out of Boulder, and this would take us straight to Manitowish Waters.
I am cruising along, everything seemed good, when Rainville ran me down. We had lost Scott and Brian.

After a bit, they came down the trail, but the Puma was not running up to spec. It seemed he was getting a lot of air in his fuel line. While they were messing with the Puma, the Late Model group caught up with us. There was some discussion about the road intersection ahead being a good place to get the support trailer into.

The Puma restarted and we resumed our journey. A couple of road intersections later, I stopped to gather everyone up, only to discover that the headlights behind me were not from our group. I reversed course, and rode all the way back to where we had originally stopped. It seemed the Puma was out of gas, and Joe had called for the truck.

The guys driving our support truck, ( to whom we are grateful for their service ), were having a little trouble finding us. I am guessing that from start to finish we burned an hour here. Again, a splash of gas in Boulder would have avoided all this, I should have stopped and made sure everyone was good when we were there.

Once we had the fuel issue resolved, we continued on. Trail 2 is not as nice as 8, but it is not bad. We arrive in Manitowish Waters. I had just ran this part on Wednesday, so I am quite comfortable here. This is a slow run as we work our way south. Now, I know that south of town we will come to a sign pointing in the direction of Little Bohemia, we turned there on Wednesday, so I am watching for it. I am getting a bad feeling, so I stop at a road crossing and chat with the guys. I tell them that I am looking for a sign right in this area, and someone says: we just passed it.

So we turned around, and maybe 100 yards back was the sign. It was an arrow higher up in the air than I remembered, nailed to the top of another sign. We made the turn, ran across HWY 51, and we were there!

Little Bohemia’s claim to fame is of course that this is where the FBI tried to capture or kill the Dillenger gang in April of 1934. Scenes for the 2009 movie ‘“Public Enemies” were filmed here as well. As we were running a little late, we didn’t have much time to look around, but I did see that they had newspapers displayed on the walls, as well as movie posters.

[JoeRainville]

For the record, Brian and I giving each other lip while guiding, or mis-guiding had been a time honored tradition since we assumed guiding duties for the Vintage Challenge. If I don't miss a turn or two, he does, and it's the other guides job to talk smack about it. Since he had done the run from Mantowish Waters down to St. Germain several times, I assumed he could run it the other direction..."I assumed". Since he was also just returned from the dead, I should cut him some slack, but that would be no fun.

Quincy and I had pre-run part of the trail up to Bolder on the Cat's before Thursday's board meeting, but Bob Anderson suggested a different path from the way we took. Lindner invented his own way yet. And even though we had pretty decent maps with us, they were of little use to Brian who plainly stated "why am I looking at this, I can't read it!" since he didn't bring his glasses with him. Hours of entertainment folks.

But our small group of battle worn VC warriors rode on, and enjoyed the mild weather, sunny day and overall pretty darn nice trails along with Brian's scenic route to...somewhere. Once we finally got pointed north and pulled into Bolder Junction, "someone" suggested that we stop for fuel since we had not exactly taken the short way there. I knew the Sprintfire was OK, but the 2009 Cat can be a fuel pig, especially with a throttle happy teenager on it. And I had no idea how good or bad the 340 Blizzard or the 71 Cat would be on fuel. But with a freshly installed 6.5 gallon plastic tank replacing his old 5.5 gallon steel one, Brian said "I am fine, lets go!"...so off we went...into running out of fuel and waiting the support truck to find us. It was hilarious to find out that Brian was "guiding" the wrong group for about a 20+ minutes before he turned around to come find us. I grabbed the '09 Cat and couldn't run him down, he was a man on a mission, LOL!

[JoeRainville]

Once Mark Resch and his navigator found us with the support truck, thing got better fast. We all topped up and got back on the trail quickly. If we stopped for fuel in Bolder, I think we would have made Little Behemia about the same time as Bob Anderson's modern riders. They had to wait 20 minutes for a rider that missed a turn themselves. One day we will beat them to lunch...one day, LOL!

Glen Wasmuth was patiently waiting for us a little farther along on the wooded trail. Once again it was an honor to have him join us on his 340/s. We rode into Matowish Waters, then down to Little Bohemia, where Brian missed the sign for the restaurant cut off. That one really wasn't his fault, as it was nearly buried in the snow, and I just barley caught it as tail gunner for the group. So I had to put the little Sprintfire in hyperdrive to catch him and turn the crew around, again.

We finally pulled into Little Bohemia around 1:15 or so, just after the late model guys had already left. Minus the time we spent waiting for fuel and two filter changes, plus taking the scenic way, we easily could have been there by 11:30 to 12:00. Lunch was hot and quite tasty, a combination of broiled chicken and rolled roast beef of some sort. We lamented missing several of our regular riders due to so many of the JD guys getting taken out by illness. We look forward to having them rejoin us.

After a quick lunch, we were back on our sleds looking for the next trailside fuel stop...

[400brian]

The group of tourists on modern sleds I wound up guiding, seemed really happy to have the privilege! They were all waving and smiling when they passed.

I saw the spot in the trail where Joe turned around after trying to run me down, it was a short distance back, he didn't try very hard.

Remember, Joe had been up there since Sunday, and hadn't gotten around to pre-riding the route!

Bob Anderson was riding this with his phone clamped to his handlebars showing the way, what a cheater! And from what I heard, he had lost some of his group, and had to run them down and get them pointed in the right direction again. We see more of the Northwoods our way, and I find you learn the area by missing turns and figuring things out, then you tend to remember it.

We were having fun here. If we had been running 150 miles like the ride up to Fishtales, we would not have had enough time to wait for the truck. The shorter distance gave us some cushion time wise, to make this fun, rather than a mission. The pre-riding I had done didn't give me a knowledge of the route like the back of my hand, but in each case, I knew pretty quickly that we were not where we wanted to be. We did some back tracking, but it did not add a lot of miles.

[400brian]

Our waitress was a bit of a pistol, and she got us sitting down and got things going without delay. We were served chicken, roast beef, and mashed potatoes. We had the option of beef or chicken gravy. A dessert tray was brought around as well. If anyone was dissatisfied, I didn’t hear anything about it.

We had no time to waste, we had arrived at 1:00, the Late Model group had already come and gone, so we needed to get refueled and make tracks. Most of the guys refueled out of the trailer, but Rainville and I needed to get to a pump. My excuse for throwing an empty can into the trailer was that I was sick, I don’t know what Joe’s was. There was a gas station just south of us, so we asked the support crew to meet us there.

We took off heading south along the highway. We ran for some distance without coming to the gas station, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember anything about where it was or what it looked like. I knew that we would very shortly turn east and go deep into indian country. I stopped at a road, and explained the situation. Joe jumped onto the 600 Cat to do a bit of quick recon. From where we were sitting, we could still see HWY 51 perhaps a quarter mile to our west. A few minutes later, Joe returns on the trail in front of us and says: you are good, just keep going!

We head out, and sure enough, had I just kept going, I would have looked like I knew where I was going. We must have gone right through here on Wednesday, but I guess the station was not particularly memorable.

There are 2 businesses, Hogan’s General Store, with 2 pumps, and Townline Sports, which is more or less a bait shop. Our support trailer was nowhere to be seen, never did hear what happened to them. So...Rainville and I had to mix in our tanks, which I prefer not to do.

The gauge on the plastic ‘75 tank I have in the X8 was showing mostly empty, so I dumped in most of half a quart of oil, enough for almost 6 gallons. However, JR only managed to get a bit less than 4 gallons in the 6 ½ gallon tank. So it appears the gauge gives me a significant reserve. I also would be running quite a bit more oil than the 50:1 mix I traditionally run.

Once Joe had the 600 topped off, we were good to go. We were running trail 8 east to Boulder Junction, and it was an uneventful run. The trail was decent, and we just zipped it out. Just before we get to Boulder, 8 and 2 merge, so we are coming into Boulder in the same place we left it from. Our trailer was sitting across the street from the gas station, so all was good. I went in and used the facilities and bought myself a $3 Mt. Dew! While I was doing that, Scott and Brian were liberating a fuel filter I had offered them earlier out of my tool box.

We didn’t linger. We headed east out of town the same way we had come in that morning. Trail 8 and 15 run together for a bit, we would be running 15 south and east to Sayner.

Trail 15 was the roughest ride we had. It had been rough on Wednesday, and it was rough today! I knew things were going to improve, so I just sucked it up and pounded it out. There were a couple of turns we had to make, and I hadn’t had any issues figuring it out on Wednesday, so I was charging as hard as I could stand.

Well, the next thing I knew, we were somewhere I hadn’t been before! We were sitting at the base of a long hill, and there was a billboard for Pope’s Gresham Lodge. Pope’s is north of Arbor Vitae, and not where we wanted to go. As Rainville and I argued over the map, Scott and Brian tore into the Puma again. I was quite sure I had missed the turn just a short distance back, but no one had seen it. Everybody had seen a sign a long way back that indicated it was 9 miles to Sayner though.

As soon as the Puma was running, we were retracing our path. A mile or so back we came to the intersection, and from that direction you couldn’t miss it. Coming from the north, you have to make a hairpin turn to the east, where 15 and trail 11 run together for a bit, before 15 splits to the south again. Coming from the south, it is just an easy fork in the trail.

Besides the arrow pointing towards Sayner, I also knew this was the correct trail because of the sign that informed you that you were now entering the Sayner Barnstormers Trail system, and that I remembered from Wednesday. I also remembered the trail to be fast and smooth, and it was today as well! As soon as everyone made the turn, I aired the X8 out. There were few bad corners or anything like that, just a winding trail through the woods. Just watch out for traffic, and haul it!

2 other trails merge in as we approach Sayner, so the conditions do deteriorate a bit as we near town. Soon the shrink wrapped boat yard appears to our right, and we are pulling into the Sayner Mobile Express ( that is what they call it ).

The trailer is there, Brian puts a splash of gas to the Puma, and we are heading south, only 10 miles to go. It is getting dusky as we depart, so Rainville takes the point, as the headlight on the X8 has died an early death to an apparent over voltage condition.

We zip down county C to 70, and everyone goes their separate ways. I make the traditional victory lap around the motel parking lot, and it is over, 5:30 ish as I recall.

I head into the motel to shower and change, Katy is still in bed and feeling lousy. I drove over to the Whitetail for the Banquet. Jason and David are sitting at a table in the bar, so I hung out with them as they already had the crud.

The program was run with military precision, and was concluded fairly early.

[400brian]

Some final thoughts:

Taking the Bogie Bash to Lake Tomahawk seemed to work out well! It is around an hour each way, which is about all Katy wants. She gets cranky after the 2 hour ride down from Manitowish Waters. We started fairly late in the morning, for one reason that it was pretty cold early Thursday morning. With an earlier start, we could ride east to Pitlik’s or a number of other pit stops without adding a lot of miles. The consensus among the group was that it was a good ride, so we may continue with that.

The Vintage Challenge to Little Bohemia was all new. It will take a while to get the route sorted out, as unlike the run up to Fishtales, there are a number of routes that will get us over there and back. The route we ran this year had us running through Boulder Junction each way, but other than that, there was no backtracking. The only lake we ran across was Plum, just north of Sayner, and BTW, the lakes were rough this year, staying off them was not a bad plan.

I had not eaten at Little Bohemia previously, and I thought what they served us, and how they served us was great. We are looking to get fed and get going, and they facilitated that. So, unless there is an issue I am unaware of, my guess is that we will keep doing this for a while. There has been the suggestion that we could run up to Fishtales on major anniversaries of the RWTC, so we may not have seen the last of that ride.

It is always great to catch up with old friends, and make new ones. We are an inclusive bunch, I invite anyone and everyone to come ride with us and share the adventure! The whole getting sick and passing the crud around thing put a damper on this year’s activities. We will regroup and do better next year.

[JoeRainville]

Since I hadn't run the trail in the direction from Bolder Junction to Sayner, I wasn't aware we missed a turn until Lindner stopped at the large billboard. We had to pull out the map, and found that we were about half way to Arbor Vitae. One main reason we decided against continuing south was that we had no idea were the next gas station was, but knew quite well how to get to the Sayner Mobile.

This chat-chat gave Scott and Brain time to swap another fuel filter on the 71 Puma. That sled was either going to earn the 'oldest sled to complete the VC' or the 'First Out' award, but it wasn't clear which one. Like Lindner said, once we got pointed into the right direction, it was a pretty smooth ride to Sayner where I strongly encouraged Brian to fill his Puma to ensure we made it back to the Whitetail without further incident.

It was a fun little adventure overall, and a nice change of pace from running up to Fishtails since 2009. For next year, Brian and I plan to pre-ride the trail together for once. Brian's 73 JDX-8 looked great, and it was cool seeing him do the challenge on a bogie sled too. It was also nice to get back before the end of the autograph session and way before dinner started. I think we ended up doing around 120 miles, looking forward to doing it again...

-Joe Rainville

[400brian]

I didn't take a lot of pics over the week for some reason. Here was the last shot I took, of the sled sitting in front of the motel after we had returned on Saturday. Put 200 miles on this sled over the week, with zero issues, so I was happy about that. Put 100 miles on the green machine with the freshly rebuilt engine, no issues, again pretty happy about that. Both of those sleds had been seriously torn down and rebuilt, finishing just in time to head north.

[HoosierDeereMan]

Sounds like the only thing missing on this adventure was the Mayhem guy from the insurance commercial! That really stinks that half the Deere group had the crud and couldn't ride. I can only imagine the disappointment. Hope everyone has recovered. Sounds like the trail conditions were decent and made for a brisk pace. The X8 looks great. As a avid Deere lover I will comment that the Blizzard in your group is pretty sharp looking too. Congrats on surviving another year. Very nice write up.

[bambam00]

Brian: Fantastic read as always !!!!!! I love your color commentary !!!!! Thank You to all for being at the 2020 Ride with the Champs,, Craig Marchbank SHOF Pres.