Rusty's Blog

I’m currently living in a place where the bike I have probably isn’t the best choice. I’ve posted a bit about riding in the past, but bear with me a bit.

For new readers, I ride a Suzuki Katana 600 from 1993. The photos from the dealer are at http://motorcycleminnesota.com/020108/11/11.htm

I like the bike, but it probably was a bit big for me to buy at the time. I think I would have done just a bit better learning wise with a 250 Ninja, or perhaps a 400 cc or so cruiser, but the price at the time was about what I was looking for, and I had decided that for learning I wanted a sport bike I could later on look back on and tell people that Yes, I used to ride one of those, but now I ride… whatever it is that I have at the time, probably a cruiser.

Working nights means that it’s a bit of a concern to ride the bike to work. Most of the street level parking lots won’t let you park overnight, because they don’t want the liability of a stolen bike. Most of the Ramps don’t want you to park in them because they don’t want the problem of a damaged bike that someone tried to park on. Also some ramps have automated systems for entry/exit that a rider could just drive around, and they don’t want to have to deal with the potential for unscrupules riders taking up parking they are not paying for.

That sort of means leaving the bike in the street. I don’t know about you, but that has never left me feeling comfortable about riding the motorcycle to work. I’ll do it, but still.

Where in the TC area that I Live is also a bit tedius for riding. Minnesota is widely hailed as the land of 10000 lakes. Ok, a few of them might more rightly be called large ponds, but that’s beside the point. No lakes can be entertaining to ride around. Presuming that they have an ‘around’ to ride on of course. But the reason that we are known as the land of 10000 lakes is because we are on the edge of where the glaciers reached to during the last great ice age. In fact a much more interesting part of the state from a riders perspective is where the melt water eroded the ground. Much of the upper Mississippi valley to the south and east of the twin cities is known as bluff country and in some circles as the Greate Unglaciated area. Whether it truely was unglaciated and there was a lot of errosion from the melt water alone, or if it had been glaciate, and was litterally ripped out by melt water under the glaciers really isn’t all that important. What is interesting is the topology.

If you take US 61 from the twin cities and just follow it for a while, you initially don’t see all that much that is very exciting. Ok, if you are using google earth, and have the elevation features turned on, you will see a lot of up and down portions of the road as you leave Hastings and head into Red Wing, but even from there on down to Lake City, it’s pretty much flat and long stretches of straight road. You’ll probably need to hit the rest stop at Lake City, just to get the cobwebs out of your brain. But to tell the truth, that’s also where the road conditions have some serious changes happening. For about 5 to 10 miles south of Lake City, the highway is on the side of the hill between the bluffs and Lake Pepin or the Mississippi. Now a few years ago the Highway Department for the State of MN did a lot of work on that stretch of highway. Widening the road, and taking out a few of the sharper corners, but it’s still a beautiful stretch of highway to drive on, and on a lighter traffic day can be a challenging place to ride.

The ‘bad’ part is that it’s a good hour to an hour and a half of riding just to get there, and it’s a fairly short stretch.

Ok, I hear it “Yeah Rusty, but you’re riding a bullet bike! Go Fast!” Going ‘fast’ doesn’t really hold much attraction for me. Brief bit of calculation here. The ‘redline’ on my bike is 13000 rpm. 55 mph in 6th gear has the moter spinning along at about 5000 rpm. So I have a theoretical max of  150 mph, give or take a bit. Let’s say 140 mph. On highways in Minnesota today I will could theoretically see that speed. Briefly. I’ll disabuse you of the freeways first. I-94 from Minneapolis to Fargo just has too much traffic. Alexandria is about half way between Fargo and Minneapolis. Furgus Falls is a little less than half way between Alexandria and Fargo. Rothsay is a small community on the Fargo side of Furgus Falls. I-94 passes Rothsay to the east of the community. Now pull up the satelite view of the community and pan over to I-94. See those specks on the freeway? Traffic. Any of it will turn a 120 mph 435 lb hunk of metal and attached 200 lb rider into a piece of 65 mph rubble and associated blood spot. I’m 45 years old. I may not be the smartest or best motorcyle rider in the Minneapolis area, but I know that I’m not interested in being that blood spot. My reflexes are not what they were 20 years ago, and even then I probably wouldn’t have considered that to be a fun way to go.

About the only stretch of Interstate that might pose a possibility is I90 between Albert Lee and the South Dakota border. But I’ll let you take a look at the satelite imagery for yourself. I personally think there is too much traffic there. What about I-35? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

So excluding the interstate freeway system, we end up with the US Highway system and State Highways. For the most part both are primarily interested in interconnecting towns and cities. US 169 has some limited access sections. Mostly beteen where it crosses the Minnesota River and where it crosses the Mississippi. Pretty much everywhere else it has at least some traffic entering and exiting for communities along it’s path, and a lot of that traffic actually crosses the highway. Not good for high speed riding. US 10 is much the same. 55 and most of the other US highways are far worse. When a US or State Highway goes through a city, it’s speed limit drops. It is not quite universal that it will drop to 30. Some places it will only drop to 35, a few places only down to 45, but those speeds are strictly enforced. Often more by the physics of collision dynamics than by the police, but the Police do their part as well. And considering the size of these communities, it’s a good idea anyway.

It really doesn’t matter if I have a ‘bullet bike’ or ‘crotch rocket’ the upper limits of it’s speed capabilities are anything but what I’m concerned about riding at.

So why a sport bike? If you’ve seen any motor cycle racing in the past couple of decades, you’ve noticed that unlike auto racing, it’s almost never on an oval track. The challenge in motorcycle racing is not to go ‘fast.’ In fact the real top end of the bike’s speed is almost never achieved, and never sustained for a lap. The driver would be dead. Motorcycle courses are a mass of tight turns and corners. There may be one or two straight aways, but the real challenge is to maintain control of the bike through the bends. The straight aways are the dull spots that take you from the corner you just came out of to the next corner. If you build up too much speed, you can’t slow down in time to take the next corner well.

There are roads a bit like that in MN. Saddly too many of them are gravel. Perhaps my favorite, though I’ve never ridden it on a motorcycle is a stretch of MN 76 between Caledonia and Houston, MN. Starting out in Caledonia, it looks like almost any stretch of paved highway in MN. Long, straight stretches with some rolling hills. Don’t let that decieve you. After a right turn where MN 1 jumps down to Bever Creek State Park, and a left turn about 3 miles north of there, you drop into Badger Creek. for a 4 or 5 mile stretch you are on the part of Highway 76 that truckers of old called 29 corners. The speed limit signs are not just the law. They really are a very good idea of what speed you should be going into most of the corners at.

There are a couple of other stretches like that in the area, including a stretch you could end up on if you turn about 1.7 miles earlier than the turn into Badger Creek. The road to Sheldon MN also contains a lot of tight twists and turns. You could make a 16.7 mile loop of the two roads if you wanted to. However if you are interested in a loop, there are a few longer loops in the area that are nearly as challenging.

It looks like they are trying to take a lot of the corners out of it, but if you start in Caledonia, on Main street, and head east, you will ultimately have a 400 foot elevation drop down to the Mississippi at Brownsville, MN. Bit of history in that town. It was once a very large river city, that had a fire about the same time as the great Chicago fire. Unlike Chicago, it didn’t recover quite the same way. You can still find foundations for buildings in the hills around the existing community. After comming to a stop you will find you’ve come to Highway 26. The Great River Road. Turn South and follwo 26 until about half a mile out of Genoa, or another 3 miles south, and take either 249 or 14 (respectively) and you will end up back in Caledonia on Winebago Avenue. (intersection at the south east corner of town.)

Honestly, there are a lot of really great roads to ride in Houston County, and a few as will in Winona and Filmore Counties. From what I’ve been able to see on the maps, Wabasha and Goodhue counties offer their share of windey roads, and I have no doubt that on the Wisconsin side of the river the same is true.

Those are the fun spots for sports bikes. If all you want to do is go or accellerate fast, the trick is to get a power to weight ratio that is power high, and weight low. Given limitations on production bikes, you are going to have to get down to a very low body weight to reduce the load on the bike for accelleration. If you are a normal American male, you are probably going to be beaten handily by the kid down the street, or the hot babe next door. But if that’s your idea of fun, Ok, that’s your idea of fun.

While I have a personal preference for the roads in South Eastern MN, you can find windy roads pretty much anywhere tributaries are feeding a river or body of water that’s at a lower elevation than the surounding area.

As noted in the begining, at some point I hope to get a different bike. Possibly a cruiser, possibly something like a gold wing. Even a Pacific Coast looks interesting. Something that it is comfortable to ride 200 miles at a stretch on. Or at least 100 with a lunch break at the end. I have a few ‘longer’ routes that I would like to take at some point. 94 up to Fargo, 29 from Fargo to Souix Falls, 90 from there to Albert Lee, or possibly even Tomah, Wi. And from whichever the appropriate interstate (35 or 94) back to the Twin Cities. No matter what, that’s a 3 or 4 day ride. Oh it can probably be driven in a day or at most 2, but I would like to make a few stops along the way. Say hello to people, and who knows, maybe do a bit of fishing, or something. There are a couple of stretches within MN that are pretty much 2 day rides for me today on the Katana. For example, take 169 up to Grand Rapids, then US 2 over to Bemidji. It’s just over 200 miles. Then down 71 to US 10 back to the Twin Cities for the second leg. At an average speed of 45 mph, that’s about 5 hours of riding each way. Especially if you take breaks for gas, food and well the motorcycle pants are really comfy, but I doubt that will be the case so much when soiled.

There are a few other interesting tour ideas I have for 2 day rides. For example US12 from the twin cities to Ortinville, then back along the Minnesota River Valley. Unfortunately there isn’t really a road that follows the Minnesota River, so it would be a hodge podge of 7, 212, 71, 14 and 169. I suspect I would not see nearly as much of the river valley as I would like.

Well, this has rambled on a bit. You’re more than welcome to suggest other routes. Since I live in the TC area, routes that start and end here are of immediate interest to me. A long day route might be 169 to 14, to 52 back to the cities. For the moment I’m riding on a permit. That means no passengers, a helmet on at all times, no riding at night, and stay off the Interstate. I’m not interested in multi-day rides because I have 2 dogs at home, and while they have gone over 12 hours without me, I really don’t like to do that to them.

If you’ve stuck with me to this point, thank you. This is really one of those posts that I get into from time to time. A friend has posted the quote/question ‘What would you do if you knew you could not fail? Robert H. Schuler’ Unfortunately for me the question is too open. Walk to the moon. Make love daily to the most beautiful women ever. A more interesting question in my mind is ‘Knowing that you could fail, what would you make the effort to complete?’

Go, challenge yourself, fix the world, and ride safe.