2023 Ride with the Champs!

[400brian]

Tuesday February 14. Hi temp 45, Low 29

This year’s Ride with the Champs would represent the 17th consecutive February I would attend the event. Katy and I had made plans to depart Tuesday Feb.14, and get the party started. We were on the road by 11:00 am, and were pulling into the Whitetail Lodge around 2:30 pm.

We had snow on the ground at home, but less than 10 miles north it pretty much changed to bare ground, and remained that way until we got north of Wausau. As we came into Minocqua we were seeing the most snow of anywhere so far, but at the same time a notice came over the phone alerting us to the fact that Vilas County had just closed the trails until temps dropped below freezing, as they wanted the trails to freeze in a smooth state.

We got our stuff moved into our room at the motel and got the trailer parked in spot number one, the parking lot was pretty much deserted. We had a reservation for super in Manitowish Waters at 7:00 pm, so we had a bit of time to kill before we collected Wade and Mindy Bennett on the north side of the lake at Fibber’s Resort where they had a cabin for the week.

We were at the Aberdeen Restaurant just west of Manitowish Waters by 6:30 pm, which gave as time to whet our whistle while waiting for our friends the Whirry’s who have a house north east of town. The supper club seemed to be doing a good Valentine’s Day business, and we enjoyed the meal.

Coming out of the restaurant around 9:00, the mist and drizzle of the late afternoon had changed to rain. This had been predicted, but that didn’t make the reality of it suck any less.There also had been predictions of it changing to snow later on Wednesday, but that never happened.

Joe Rainville had been in the Twin Cities to pick up Cari and Richard when they landed at 5:00 pm, and they later arrived at the motel around 2:00 am. By all predictions the weather on Wednesday was going to be lousy, so Wade and I laid some preliminary plans to work on his 440 Cyclone that next afternoon in the motel garage. Wade had sent us the photo of the piston so we knew what we were getting into.

[400brian]

February 15. Hi temp 40, low 21

There wasn’t a whole lot of reason to get up early on Wednesday, but I eventually got dressed and pondered the possibilities. It occurred to me that 7 year old Richard Rainville had probably slept in the truck and would be up early. I suggested to Katy that we get Richard and take him into town for pancakes while his parents got some sleep, but it seemed she was regretting the third Old Fashioned she had imbibed the evening before, and was in no mood for any breakfast.

I went out to the lobby to find Richard and Cari hanging out there. We chatted a bit, Richard had a lot of stuff he needed to share with me. Eventually Joe staggered out and we hammered out a plan for the day. I called Wade and invited him to trailer over and get the Cyclone into the garage.

Wade and Mindy had been riding with a group of friends in the Lake Gogebic area of the UP the week before. On one particular day the group was feeling a bit frisky, and decided to race down the lake a ways. Gogebic is a 13,000 acre lake, a bit over 14 miles in length. Wade tells that he had the Cyclone throttle pinned to the bar for several miles, seeing around 75 mph and staying right with several newer sleds in the group, when things went south in the engine. Initially the engine was stuck, but after pouring some oil down the plug hole of the pto side and allowing it to cool off, the engine did turn over and start, but it was mortally wounded.

Wade had later pulled the cylinder off to inspect the damage, and sent a number of us pictures of the damage. A number of the guys who were coming up for the event offered to bring along some parts to see if we could get him going again.

Wade arrived shortly before noon, and we quickly got busy. Joe had brought a new cylinder and piston, I had brought a pair of used cylinders and pistons, along with a piston pin tool and an oil can.

Joe also drove his Sprintfire in to replace some ski insulators I had brought along. While all this was going on I was sitting in a lawn chair in a supervisory role. Things had no more than got going well when Chris Ketch walked in, soon after followed by his father Henry, and then a few minutes later Tod ( Stymie ) Meyers and Keith Schafer.. It seemed we now had a quorum! We have known these guys going back years, it had been a few, and it was good to see them again!

Wade got the new piston on, then slid the new jug into place. Things were looking good as the head was going on. The inside of the exhaust manifold looked like it had been spray welded with aluminum, so a different one was put in its place.

Probably the biggest hassle of the whole repair was getting the air shroud back on the engine. Wade has electric start on the sled, and the starter motor does complicate the process, especially with the engine bolted into the chassis. Stymie lent another set of hands and after some struggle they got it done. With everything buttoned up Wade turned the key and the engine lit off immediately and idled nicely.

Victory was declared, and the next item on the agenda was lunch. Some searching was done on-line, and we settled on the Timbers, which is on the south east end of town. We had to get this done quickly because the plan was to go to Blink Bonnie’s for Supper!

We found the Timbers, the kitchen was open, but there was no wait staff. So Cari grabbed some menus from the bartender, wrote down what everyone wanted, and sent it back. I thought my burger and fries were good, and I didn’t hear any complaints other than about the self-serve feature.

When we returned we loaded up the tools and boxes of stuff we had hauled in, Wade fired up the sled and I shot a quick video of him riding it out of the garage under its own power.

The whole group, plus Katy and Mindy, re-assembled at Blink Bonnie’s later in the evening for supper. A good time was had by all, and it capped off a really good first day in the Northwoods. The goal had been to get Wade’s Cyclone running again, and that had been achieved, so I went to bed feeling good.

[400brian]

A couple more photos. One of Wade and Stymie getting the engine buttoned up, and Don and Patti Amber and Tom Otte at Blink Bonnie's.

[400brian]

Thursday February 16. High 21, Lo 12

So with the rain on Tuesday into Wednesday, and the now below freezing temps, things were looking up a bit. They were predicting light snow on Thursday, but it never amounted to anything. Wade, Mindy, and I decided to drive over to Eagle River to watch the Legend Laps event. We arrived around 9:30 or so, and we sat in one of the heated boxes. Free coffee and donuts were served in the morning, and brats, dogs, and chips were sold at lunch.

The running around the track portion of the event wrapped up shortly after lunch, and we decided to head back. The light snow that fell during the morning had left the parking lot extremely treacherous. I was two steps from snow ( and traction ) heading to the truck, when I slid downhill ultimately landing flat on my back. I gathered up my hat, glasses, and pliers, and joined Mindy and Wade literally crawling on our hands and knees to get to the truck. I was not completely unscathed, but was still mobile and unbroken.

Arriving back at the motel we met the Rainville’s coming out of the driveway. They were heading down to Sister’s Saloon for lunch, so we followed them there to plan our next moves. Joe had taken his late model Cat out that morning, heading towards the north, and had ridden across Big St Germain Lake. He reported that the lake was as scary as anything he had been on lately. Slick as glass ice, followed by sections of slush. Things were not looking good at all. He was going to ride to the south a bit later and try that, I declined to participate.
Mindy had an Indiana basketball game she wanted to watch that evening, so we decided we would gather the crew at Fibber’s for supper at 7:00 that night.

When we arrived at Fibbers, Mike and Brandyn Horn had already joined the Bennetts. Henry Ketch called me and said they would be there as soon as Stymie and Joe returned, so we got a table, ordered some refreshments, and had a good visit. Mindy got disappointed as Indiana lost, and eventually the rest of the crew arrived, I think we had a group of 13 in the end. While we were waiting I received some photos that Joe had taken on the trail south of the motel. The trail conditions looked decent, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up.

A lot of sled talk was had during supper, reminiscing about some of our favorite memories of years past, thrills of victory and agony of defeats! It was a great time.

After supper the topic turned to what we were going to do the next day. Joe and Stymie’s reconnoiter had them believing we could make a run down to Lake Tomahawk without issue. There are no lake crossings on that run, and it was forecast to get well below freezing overnight. We agreed that it was no doubt as good as it was going to get, so we made plans to assemble in the parking lot in the morning.

Another good day in the Northwoods!

[400brian]

Friday February 17. High 24, lo 8.

The Shamrock, our lunch destination in Lake Tomahawk doesn’t open until 11:00 am, and it should only take us an hour to run down there, so there was not a huge rush to get outside. I went out to the lobby and chatted with the assembled sled heads. I spoke with Tom Otte for a few minutes and learned he’d had a similar experience at the track the day before, only he had hit his head on the ice.

Eventually Katy and I suited up and headed outside. We were 3 days into a snowmobiling trip and were only now getting the sleds out of the trailer. Katy’s Cyclone would be the first out. I gave it a few pulls, then turned the key. I cranked on it for a bit, and got absolutely nothing. I remembered that this was a Mikuni sled and that I had shut the fuel off, so I turned it on and resumed cranking, nothing.

I opened the hood and pulled a plug…it was slightly wet, but not dripping. I decided to make sure it was flooded and shot some premix down the plug hole. With the plug back in and the choke lever fully up I cranked it again and it rumbled to life! I moderated the choke lever a few seconds and it settled down and idled. Once out of the trailer I made a couple of laps around the parking lot. Everything seemed good, so I returned to get the 73 X8 unloaded.

I turned the key on the X8 and it sputtered to life in its familiar way, life is good!
Once the X8 was warmed up I grabbed a fuel can and started topping off the tanks, as I never haul them fully fueled. Stymie grabbed my squeeze bottle of premix, as Rainville was trying to get the 400 started.

We had a pretty nice group forming up, I believe we had 15 sleds total ready to go. Photos were taken, I mingled in the mix a bit talking to the guys, Rainville described what the trail conditions were and where we were going, and then it was time to light them up!

The first ¼ mile was pretty much the worst, as the trail right along HWY 70 was largely bare ground. Once we crossed 70 and headed south into the woods things looked fairly normal. It was somewhat deceptive in that in places it was ice rather than snow. I was feeling good about the fact that the Cyclone I had Katy on had new carbides on the plastic skis, and some Woody’s picks in the track. The rubber bogie track on the X8 was getting a little loose in the curves, and going up hills, even starting to slide going downhill if I let off on the power too much.

We hadn’t got much more than started when one of the guys at the rear came up to tell us we had lost a couple sleds. It seemed a Mercury rider had his track lock up for some reason. Really not much we could do, and we were not far from the motel, so we continued on.

We pulled into the lot across the street from the Shamrock just a few minutes after 11:00. Katy was complaining her hands were hot. Just before we left I had turned the bar warmers on low, I’d never had the opportunity to test them before this morning, and it was good to learn they were working!

[400brian]

Lunch was great! There were a few other riders patronizing the Shamrock, but we pretty much had the dining room to ourselves. Back out in the parking lot, we decided to park all the Deeres in the sunlight for a glamor shot. A couple of the riders wanted to take a splash of fuel, so we made a quick stop just up the street before we headed out.

Katy is getting more comfortable with the Cyclone, in fact she is telling me that going up the hills she is gaining on me. I suggested it might have something to do with the picks I put in the track on the Cyclone, but at any rate I was happy to hear this, I want her to have confidence that the Cyclone will go where she points it, and will stop when she wants it to. From the little bit that I have ridden it, it appears to do exactly that.

The plan was to ride to the Museum next, and we did, but the trail conditions between the motel and the SHOF were terrible. We lost a vintage cat between the motel and the museum. My understanding was that he lost spark, but by the time they got to it with the trailer it started and drove on. We had the official Friday night fish fry starting at 5:00, so we headed back to the motel to get ready.

The fish fry was excellent! The Whitetail Restaurant is under new ownership, but I would say they have done a good job in not messing with success. As in the past, things were set as a buffet, with fried fish and barbecued chicken as the entrees’. Both were excellent and I ate too much. This started out in 2008 as a dozen of us having supper together, on this night the restaurant appears pretty much full.

So as the evening was winding down, the subject of what we were going to do on Saturday needed to be discussed. Bob Anderson, ( our trail boss ) had a plan for a short ride to a location west of Minocqua, but had decided we needed to trailer to the west side of town to launch, and even then the first mile would suck.

There was no need for everyone to trailer over, so plans were made on how to get all the logistics in place. There was plenty of parking space at the motel, So it was decided that Wade and Mindy would come down to the motel. I would drive us over for sign-in and breakfast, then we would return, put my X8 in Wade’s trailer and we would head over to Minocqua.

Sounds simple enough, but it took a couple of hours to get this all ironed out.
Another great day in the Northwoods, and on this one we actually did some riding.

[400brian]

Saturday February 18. High 36, Lo 19

Saturday turned out sunny and warmer. Many of the years we have done this I have struggled to get going in the mornings, but I have been uncharacteristically waking up early every day we have been here. The crash would come after I got home, but this morning I was out in the lobby chatting with one of Keith Byline’s crew from South Dakota, while I waited for the Bennett’s to arrive.

As soon as they were there we got my sled on Wade’s trailer and had the rig parked ready to go. I then drove us over to the Whitetail Inn. When we arrived Bob Anderson grabbed me and explained the situation. Our destination wanted to limit us to 100 guys. Our ride had a sign up of around 10, Bob’s ride had 3, but the Arctic Cat Ride had like 70. I was wondering what the big deal was, when it struck me that inductee Tucker Hibbert was riding with them!

As soon as we had eaten, we drove back to the motel. Katy wanted the truck to go do a little shopping and cross country skiing, so she wanted the keys. I got suited up to ride and headed back out to Wade’s rig to head for Minocqua.

The launching spot was a construction company's parking lot, and it was filling up fast when we arrived. The plan was for us to leave first, but looking around I said to myself “no way is that going to work”. It is not all that pleasant to have a large group of late model sleds run through you, and this one would be huge. Also with all the confusion in the parking lot, our guys hadn’t even found each other yet. Rainville shared this view, so we just waited for things to clear out.

[400brian]

Bob had warned us that for the first mile we would wonder what we were doing here, but once we got into the woods the trail was actually pretty decent. It had been cold overnight, so the icy trail was slick. Much of the time we had to keep the speed down to a max of around 30 mph to navigate the turns. But it was a beautiful day to be out riding with friends, and it was a great day to be riding a fan cooled bogie sled, we had few worries!

We hadn’t ridden long when we caught up to the Arctic Cat group sitting on the trail. It seemed that the modern liquid cooled sleds that lacked scratchers, picks, or a radiator were not cooling on this icy trail.

[400brian]

We would wait for them to get going again, then follow. This happened at least twice before a vintage Cat running with us lost his ignition at an intersection. They messed with it for a while, but it was too weak to restart, let alone run. Bob called for the trailer which was just a short distance away.

[400brian]

We got underway, meeting the support trailer almost immediately on the road. We dove back into the woods heading for our destination. We had a turn to make onto another trail, then another at some barrels marked do not enter. We then wound around in a swampy area eventually popping into a parking lot at a commercial looking building.

Until fairly recently this had been a Yamaha R & D center, it is now in private hands, I am not really sure how it is being used now. They had catered in lunch for us, and it was good. Pulled pork sandwiches, mac n cheese, baked beans.

[400brian]

At one point they ran a video of Tucker’s 100th snowcross win, with comments and questions from the crowd.

As a side note, I had an attractive young woman shake my hand as we entered the building. She liked the vintage suit I was wearing. She said that they’d had Spitfires growing up, and appreciated seeing it.

As things wound up, we headed outside. Several of us took a splash of gas out of the truck, and prepared to leave.

In the photo you can see we are parked on a banked oval track. As we BS'd prior to leaving, we had a drone buzzing over our heads. I have already seen some of that footage in a video the SHOF has posted to FB.

[400brian]

We were standing around ready to go, Bob’s group departed, so we decided to take off. As we got to the spot to where we had entered through the barrels, Joe stopped to re-group. I applied the brake and found I had none. A moment earlier I had caught a whiff of gas, and I quickly drew the line between the two things. I got off and opened the hood and confirmed I had neglected to put the gas cap / fuel gauge back on. I had lost a quart or two, and I don’t know how I forgot to put it on, but I replaced it and we took off.

The temps were now much warmer than when we had started out this morning, around 35 degrees. The trail had softened, and traction was improved. I cautiously started spooling things up a bit. Railville was driving the 400 in his typical drunken lemur mode, and Rick Mielke from Fond du Lac ( who is 70 ) had his Trail Twister on his tail.

We stopped briefly because Tommy Zeller had a wire jiggle off and lost his ignition, but we had no more than stopped when he rejoined us.

We were closing in on Minocqua when it became obvious that Rainville was having issues with the 400. His speed was fast then slow, at one point he was pushing the sled up a hill, it was comical. From my position several sleds back, it looked to me like he was having a fuel related issue, and vapor lock or restricted fuel filter came to mind.

Eventually he pulled to the side and stopped. I rode up in front of him and walked back to see what was going on. He said he had been running with the choke pulled out, and that it was getting worse. He was wondering if his impulse line had cracked? I suggested we take a look at his plugs just for fun, his reply was “do you have a wrench”? I got the ratchet and socket out of my sled and the smoking hot plugs were removed. They looked fine, good color. I asked; “was it surging like it was running out of gas”? His reply was; “kinda”. I suggested he change his fuel filter. His reply was; “have you got one”? Again, I went back to the X8 and got a new filter and handed it to him ( you can’t make this stuff up ).

Stymie took it out of his hands, and swapped it out barehanded, all while having a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. ( this was epic, we really should have gotten a pic of this ! ) A few pulls of the rope and the sled fired back up, and he resumed drunken lemur riding mode. End of problem.

In just a few minutes we were back in Minocqua and the late model guys were still behind us ( JR’s goal ). We got loaded up and headed back. It was only about 2:00. Mindy had the ride on her phone via the Polaris Trail Command app, and she reported that it had been 21 miles each way, and that we had shaved 20 minutes off the time on the return. Honestly, the trip in had seemed like it took forever, and it had in fact taken close to 2 hours.

[400brian]

We had time to kill before the banquet, so I called Katy to see what she was doing. She was doing laundry at the motel, but when I told her Wade, Mindy, and I were headed to Fibbers for a victory celebration, she agreed she would participate. Wade dropped me off at the door of the motel, I got the riding clothes off, and by the time I got back outside he had the X8 off the trailer. I ran it on mine, and we were ready to go.

Katy drove up with the truck a few minutes later, and we enjoyed an hour unwinding before the banquet.

[nick80lf]

You had me laughing with the "drunken lemur" comment. Glad you guys were able to make the best out of the less than desirable conditions.

[jep_800]

Another great write-up Brian! Just a quick note on David, Andrew, and I’s experience throughout the week. My brother (Randy) and I arrived at Solon Springs, WI on Tuesday intending to get some ice fishing accomplished. However, the rain that Brian was discussing lasted all Tuesday afternoon, night and Wednesday morning, finally giving way to snow which didn’t amount to much. Fishing was not in the cards for us.

Once we settled in at David’s in Trego, we found the trails were rideable, and some were actually in great condition. So, we made the executive decision to stay in Trego and ride trails for the next three days. Here are some shots of what we found riding. One lunch stop we did on Thursday was at Wolf’s Point, on Gull Lake.

David and I stayed on our 800’s the whole time, and clocked nearly 100 miles. Even after our field surgery to repair his hood with aluminum strips and pop rivets, the hood was solid, and all the sleds ran great.

David, Andrew and I made the trip over and stayed at Fath’s on Big Saint Lake on Friday and Saturday, so we were able to attend the Fish Fry, breakfast, and the banquet. We had a fantastic time, enjoyed talking with our friends, and can’t wait for next year.