Coop's Corner: I-Cycle Derby

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

I-Cycle Derby - 2019

First Post 2019 and yes it's January but why wouldn't this Post include motorcycle subject matter??

But first, in the predawn coffee contemplation/listening hours, I tuned in to WPR's Morning Show and heard authors Curt Meine and Keefe Keeley discussing their book Driftless Reader. As soon as the program was over, my copy was ordered and on the way.

From the Amazon description....

"Ancient glaciers passed by the Driftless Area and waterways vein its interior, forming an enchanting, enigmatic landscape of sharp ridgetops and deep valleys. Across time, this rugged topography has been home to an astonishing variety of people: Sauk, Dakota, and Ho-Chunk villagers, Norwegian farmers and Mexican mercado owners, Dominican nuns and Buddhist monks, river raftsmen and Shakespearean actors, Cornish miners and African American barn builders, organic entrepreneurs and Hmong truck gardeners."

Later this morning, after the sun was up, I was in the van and headed up to Diamond's for a Special Event, namely the 71st running of the I-Cycle Derby on New Year's Day.

The temperature outside when I climbed in the van....

The hint of a freshening breeze.....

The Red Wing contingent arrived early appearing well prepared. Doug's Honda and Rob's brand new WR250.

Diamond's is on the corner of a large building complex, once all manufacturing, now a mix of businesses. X marks the spot where the timed ride began today.

Eventually 16 bikes entered, more than one two-up couple. A timed ride in the morning, back to Diamond's for lunch and to warm up, then an afternoon loop, again timed....not too fast, not too slow.

He kicked....he kicked....he kicked and then he kicked some more. While inside for the Rider's Meeting, she (orange hat) was trying and got it started. Very well done Wisconsinites!!

A complete Paul and most of Mike's best half.

Lookie here....a Himalayan!!

We had a friend with one of these 120cc Suzuki Trailcat's and thought it was pretty cool.

The Himmi an almost non-starter. There was some bump starting this way and that....then she finally caught and seemed ready to go. Studs in front and rear! He kept it going at least for the first leg of the ride; I met him before noon while on Broadway as I was going home.

The Press (Brad) was there to get the story.... someone from the Minneapolis StarTribune was there as well.

Getting ready to start staging for the first rider to depart at 10:30 sharp.

The Grom was first off the line.....

6 comments:

redlegsridesJanuary 1, 2019 at 9:18 PM
Looks like a hardy bunch of riders....Happy New Year Doug!
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TrobairitzJanuary 2, 2019 at 9:15 PM
Damn that is cold. And here our group didn't want to ride a New Years Polar Bear ride at 29˚F. I guess we are wussy.
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SonjaMJanuary 6, 2019 at 11:28 AM
Happy New Year, Doug. What a brave bunch of riders. And quite a few pretty little bikes. Love the Suzi Trailcat 120.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)