Vintage Challenge... Or At Least Preparations....

Well, if you haven't noticed yet, this is my first entry on the now somewhat (in)famous "Lindsey and Eric" blog, so bear with me. I'm really only going to cover the lead up to the main event in this post, but it will be overly long anyway, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Hopefully everyone likes it, or at least feels like they get their money's worth. Above is a picture from the first ever Vintage Challenge in 2009.

As many of you know, the much anticipated "Vintage Challenge" snowmobile ride took place last weekend in St. Germain, WI. For those who don't know, this is a 160 mile or so ride on 25-35 year old snowmobiles between St. Germain and Lake Gogebic in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We attended last year for the first time. Our first group included Travis Peterson, who rode a modern support/tow sled, Nick Stafford, (Uncle) Tom, and myself. Tom and I both failed to finish under our own power, and that was all the motivation we needed for round 2. This second picture was taken moments before my fuel pump infamously quit functioning.

Anyway, if you have spent much time around Tom and me in the last year or so, you may have noticed that we spent much of our free time either working on or talking about old snowmobiles. One might say that we were often sighted with grease under our fingernails and big smiles on our faces. Pictured to the left is one of our projects from last spring. Further proof of this year-round excitement was well documented when Mom captured us on film looking at pictures of rare Arctic Cat prototypes during a Twins game at the dome. (Lay off us, we were about the 7th and 8th sets of eyes ever to see those pictures... ever!). The moral of the story here, however, is that we were heading back to St. Germain, and this year would be different if we had anything to say about it!... well, either that, or we knew how to talk big this time :)

The other big difference about Round 2 would be the new additions to our group. My Dad, first and foremost, decided to hang up the jig sticks for a while and join in on the vintage craziness. He played hard to get when we first broached the topic with him, saying "if you find me an '84 El Tigre, I'll consider it." His motivation was that he bought one brand new back in the day, and always like it it. Well, let's just say that searching for old Cats was one activity that Tom and I were no strangers to... and a few months later we had a friend hauling an '84 Tiger back from New York state of all places! Dad's other request was that he wanted his sled to "look like ours," which, when you're related to Tom Rowland means more or less brand new. Good thing he had the "new old stock" parts "squirrelled away" (as he would say) to do just that, because it needed some pretty serious TLC. After a healthy number of man hours and some darn fun days of work, it was mission accomplished on Dad's El Tigre! I must say, it felt like old times being in the shop with Tom and Dad on a quiet Sunday afternoons. It's not often we're all together working on something like that.

Pictured is Dad on his original '84 El Tigre on a trip to Montana back in the day.

The other new addition to our group was Aaron Scheele. He is known by most for having raced (very successfully, I might add) for Team Arctic for well over a decade, including all of the 1990's. It happened by chance that we got to know him, as he just randomly stopped by Tom's a year or two ago looking for some vintage parts. Little did we know at the time that he's actually as crazy about old Arctic Cats as we are... and more specifically, late '70's El Tigres! I was fortunate enough to hang out with Tom and him for a day or two this fall, and before I knew it, he invited me and my sled to his shop in East Central Minnesota for V.C. preparations.

The experiences I had there will not be soon forgotten. I had heard ahead of time that Aaron really knew his Arctic Cats, and I soon gained a huge appreciation for his mechanical skills as well. He did nothing but methodically solve each and every problem that came along during our preparations. One example would include the way he helped figured out a way to put a modern shock in my rear suspension, beefing it up significantly so that it would carry my 255 lb. frame with no trouble at all. I also need to include in here that during all this work on my snowmobile, he was building what turned out to be the nicest '78 El Tigre I've ever seen. Pictured above as it looked when finished.

I will say that we ended up working a little later into the night than we expected one time, but thankfully, he has a pretty understanding family and my wife was on vacation, so it all worked out in the end. I can say without a doubt that I would not have been ready for any rides without the help of both Aaron and Tom.

This all leads us up to what amounted to my "warm up" 40 mile ride from Prior Lake to the Waconia vintage event. This event is known affectionately as WOBLE, or Waconia Or Bust Leaf-spring Expedition, and it was very well attended (by a bunch of goof balls). Just for the record, I include myself in that category as well. To get a taste of what I'm talking about, listen to this. One participant made an initial call on an old sled for sale the night before the event, picked it up the morning of the ride, rode it the whole day, and then (I believe) turned around and sold it once we reached Waconia! As it turned out though, we had beautiful weather, and both our sleds finished. In fact, 26 out of 28 starters made it under their own power, which is an almost unheard-of success rate. Things were looking up! Pictured below are the finishers on Lake Waconia. I'm pretty happy that Aaron invited me on this... it was another example of a day I won't forget.



In only a few short weeks, and after a few dramatic preparations (Tom's brakes provided more of a challenge than expected), we would be heading out for St. Germain, ready or not. I'm learning that no matter how much work goes into preparing these vintage sleds for long rides, it's nearly impossible to feel totally prepared. Eventually, time runs out, and off we go. Stay tuned to hear the rest... or simply ask me to "please stop the torture" and I'll have Lindsey resume her normal postings. Until then, good night and good luck!