Saturday, September 10, 2011

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Ford Parkway Bridge Over Mississippi River in St. Paul, MN

Ural National Rally Day 2011 – September 10, 2011. I was rider #121 out of just over 300. The rules were pretty simple – get out and ride your Ural around and collect points. Points were given for each kilometer ridden in addition to the bonus points!


Ural National Rally Day 2011

Since it was the Ural Rally, I wore my Ural T-shirt. It has the engine detailed on the front. I’ve only ever had one person recognize what it was.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

The bonus points are the real way to get lots of points quickly and easily. Points for pre-ride inspection, historic sites, bridges, interesting vehicles, non-domesticated animals, UDFs, running out of gas, changing a tire, and changing the oil on the side of the road (just to name a few). The full list of bonus and bonus, bonus points are here: http://nationalrallyday.com/?page_id=21

Once I realized bonus points were the way to go, I spent a lot of time on the historic register website and Wikipedia planning the route. There are a LOT of bridges over the Mississippi river. To get the points they have to be over 50 years old. I found 13 of them without riding outside of the Minneapolis or St. Paul city limits! They are 50 points each too!

My first bridge. Merriam Street Bridge built in 1887.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Other bonuses I collected on were historic sites – 25 points each. I found 14. County courthouses, state capitols. easy points!

Mill City Museum. It used to be the biggest flour mill in the world.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

I thought “Gate Guard” would be an easy bonus too. 50 points each for any piece of military hardware. This is what I found at the first site I went to. A blank space. It’s gone. dang.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Stone Arch bridge with St. Anthony Falls in the background. St. Anthony falls is the only natural waterfall on the entire Mississippi River.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Another view of the Stone Arch Bridge. It was built in 1883 as a railroad bridge. It is now a pedestrian bridge across the Mississippi. I had never found this little road before today. It offered some nice views I hadn’t seen before.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

My first animal spotting (25 points) – two wild turkeys.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Another bridge. (Franklin Ave – built in 1923)

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Intercity Bridge aka Ford Parkway Bridge built in 1927.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

One of the lock and dams.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

My second animal encounter. A family of four deer.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Fort Snelling.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

This was the bridge I was trying to photograph from underneath when I saw the deer.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

I figured there HAD to be a tank or something near the Army Reserve area, so I rode over there. I had to be quick to take the photo. They get made when you’re taking photos near the entrance to a military base.

My first “Gate Guard” – 50 points – a Tank. I found two more down the road too!

Ural National Rally Day 2011

A better picture of Fort Snelling over looking the joining of the Minnesota River to the Mississippi River.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

I stumbled upon these two historic sites.

Ural National Rally Day 2011 Ural National Rally Day 2011

Two more bridges in St. Paul.

Ural National Rally Day 2011 Ural National Rally Day 2011

My second county courthouse (25 points) which gives a bonus for finding more than one too.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Assumption Church. I have walked past this building several times on the way to lunch. No idea it was a historic site too.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

St. Paul Cathedral

Ural National Rally Day 2011

State of MN Capitol – 50 more bonus points.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

Como Conservatory is also a historic site. I had no idea. It’s a great place to hide out in during the winter. The plants and flowers bloom year-round inside. I had planned to get a picture of a monkey in the attached zoo. Parking was crazy, so I skipped it.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

My first UDF (Ural Delay Factor) in the parking lot of home depot on my way in to buy more primer. The guy was nice and let me be without too many questions.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

I found a couple gravel roads too. They are triple points (3pts/km vs. 1pt/km)

Ural National Rally Day 2011

A bonus point called “The Basic Pucker” was to set the fuel petcock to on and see how far you get until reserve. I normally make it 150km. Today I did 161.5km to reserve.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

While looking for the Anoka County courthouse, I found an antique car show. They had some neat stuff. I didn’t stick around long. I wasn’t in the mood for crowds.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

I’ve never run my Ural out of gas. It makes it 214.6km. I was on I-35 heading south and it died just as the entrance to a rest stop showed up. I coasted into the parking lot. This was for “the full pucker” – 100 points – run out of gas.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

It would have been extra points if it was empty and I had to walk. I wasn’t in the mood to walk for gas, so I had some with me. You can see the big pail of primer in the background.

Ural National Rally Day 2011

All in all, a good day of riding. I rode about 8 hours and covered 252km (157miles) according to the Ural ODO. GPS says I did 171 miles.

I earned 1,942 points of which I earned 1,482 of them in less than four hours during the first 82km. I was going to quit after that, but I was curious how far I could go before running out of gas. Since I had more than 350 points, I’m qualified for the drawing of a t-shirt. Winners are announced on Monday. Wish me luck!

This was a fun way to do an event. Might do something like this as a contest sometime then everyone can participate!

Full Flickr Set of 56 photos.

Rough Route:


View Larger Map

9 comments:

  1. Awesome stuff... UDFs ... it is one of those bikes that draws the attention... :)

    William

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, what a challenge. I would have difficulty trying to keep track of all of the point opportunities. 160km until reserve, the tank must be smaller than it looks. It sounds like you had a great time and a good reason to be out on the road...

    The t-shirt looks pretty cool.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BTW, how did you get the GPS track to overlay on Google Maps?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good job with the points! Good to see your rig is running well since the FD episode.

    Dom


    Redleg's Rides

    Colorado Motorcycle Travel Examiner

    ReplyDelete
  5. William: one of my least favorite things about the ural are the UDFs. most of the time I don't mind - they can be fun. But sometimes you just want to goto the store to quickly get something and don't want to play twenty questions.

    RichardM: I doubt you'd have trouble. You're pretty clever. :) Nope, the Ural just gets terrible mileage. I think it's a 4.7 gallon. I usually get ~ 30mpg. The shirt is one of my faves.

    I didn't use the GPS track. I plotted out my route ahead of time using the GPS coordinates from wikipedia. put them into a get directions page on google maps then added in the extra stuff. it's 90% accurate of the route.

    Dom: thanks. it was a fun day. I wouldn't say it's running "well" it has a weird wobble and the valves need to be adjusted... but for a ural it's good I guess. haha.

    Now that you have a different sidecar rig, do you still get UDF or SDF (sidecar-df)?? I would imagine less people bug you than did on the ural.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice pictures and what a way to see places.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What an awesome event! You did a great job on planning and research. I would love to participate in something like this in the future! I do wish I owned a URAL..but all in due time! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. George F: Thanks! It was a fun event. I'd like to do more like it.

    Kevin: Indeed. I did better than I expected. I met the guys who placed 1st and 4th too.

    Rania: It was a good time. Thanks! It was mostly thanks to wikipedia and the awesome people that fill it with useful knowledge. If you wanna try one out, you know where to come visit. ;)

    ReplyDelete