An Easy Day And A Break
We eight RMMRC riders left Red Wing the morning of Day 5 of this Great River Road ride and turned away from the river, headed for a house on a lake that was owned and rented out by Dave’s sister and her husband, in South Haven. I think it was at about this time that I decided to completely bag the idea I had started out with of doing a story for Rider magazine about this ride. For the kind of story they want you need to stop at interesting places, shoot a lot of pictures, and generally do more than just ride through without stopping. Which was not the way this group was traveling. Plus, now we were leaving the river entirely for the next 80 miles of its route. Nope, not going to happen.
The river goes right through Minneapolis/St. Paul and our route was south and west of the cities and then north to South Haven. Only about a 140-mile day. But first there was the question of Dave’s bike. Did buying a new battery make everything better? Or was the problem deeper? He had a full charge when we started out but it didn’t take long for him to see that the problem was not solved. We got southwest of Minneapolis and stopped, he looked to see where the nearest BMW dealer was, and we turned in that direction.
You can see how the driveway starts rising almost immediately, on the right.
We headed on out to the lake with the only thing eventful about that being the driveway down to this house. Dave had warned us that it was extremely steep. My parents lived their retirement years on a lake like this in South Carolina and while their driveway was not excessive, there were plenty in the area where you might have a 150-foot driveway that drops 50 feet. Like this one. The difference being that my parents were in South Carolina where it rarely snows and this was in Minnesota. It snows in Minnesota. Frequently. A lot.
“How do you get to this place in winter?”
“We don’t.”
So we got there and one by one rode down, making sure each bike was out of the way of the others yet to come. This was uneventful until Charley dropped his bike at the bottom, the second time in two days he had dumped it. Unlike the day before, however, this was more of an event. I winced as I saw and heard his helmet crack sharply on the asphalt. Not good. But he was up quickly and later had no recollection that he had hit the ground like that. That’s why you wear a helmet. He also got his shin bloodied a bit by his highway peg. But basically not hurt.
While the rest of us relaxed and settled in for two nights Dave was on the phone and trying to figure out what to do. Should he try to ride home, counting on keeping the battery charged? Should he take the bike to a shop in the Twin Cities and wait for it to be fixed? Or leave it with them and fly home? And then fly back to get it and ride home or drive out with his wife in his truck with the trailer and trailer it home? Or maybe just trade it for a new bike right here. Decisions.
After four hard days of riding we were ready to be off the bikes. We went out on the lake in the boat, made a grocery run and got a lot of stuff for some good eating, and took it easy.
One issue lurked on our minds, though. Getting back up that hill. I was on my V-Strom, which has a ton of low-down torque, so I knew I’d be fine. I wasn’t so sure about Tom’s Vulcan in particular, and all of them considering there was no room to get a run at it. This would be start rolling and hit the hill in about five feet, then climb. The next day we moved the bikes around to get them all set up to just go at the hill.
Meanwhile, relax.
Biker Quote for Today
Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?
Tags: Great River Road ride
