It’s no fun to be a Biker in Wisconsin in the winter
January 1995

As some of you know Wisconsin is not the place to be a biker in January. Sitting around with your buddies, having a barley pop or two, is about the extent of riding in Wisconsin in the winter. Planning next year’s rides, or dreaming about going to Daytona Bike Week in March to get out of the cold are a couple of topics that always come up in conversation. This leads to all sorts of empty boasts of whose bike is faster, or prettier, or louder. And as we all know there is always one guy who seems to be center stage in these discussions. Well, our guy, we’ll call him, ‘Dave’ to protect his image, was talking about this ride he had gone on this summer. “Wow” says Dave “there were a ton of bikes and good looking girls, and it was a lot of fun.” So we asked him to elaborate, (always a mistake with Dave, because he needs no urging) he said it was put on by a competing chapter in our state to raise money for their charity. “They boast about how much good they do” Dave said. “Why doesn’t our chapter ever do anything like that?” Dave complains. “We could do good things…. I don’t think it looks that difficult to do. It’s just a big ride after all…..” And so after a few more barley pops...the group decided to approach the chapter and our president at the next meeting. 

Being a HOG Chapter, and Harley Davidson Motor Company a national corporate sponsor for Jerry’s kids, the MDA Association was chosen as our beneficiary. That done, our fearless group had to come up with a fund raiser and get the approval of our chapter. At our next meeting, “Dave” stood up and asked our President Rudi, “why we don’t ever do a fund raiser for MDA? Now you have to understand about our President, Rudi Kutter, owner of Kutter H-D in Janesville, WI. He was the consummate leader...if you wanted it done, he would let you!!!! So when Dave stood up at the Chapter meeting and explained to Rudi how he and the gang thought it would be fun if the chapter ran an MDA fundraiser. Rudi stroked his beard, and thought about it hard...for about 10 seconds...and said “OK, you are now the chairperson for this event. Go to town, and leave me out of it!” 

That done, our fearless members had to come up with a fund raiser idea. What to do, what to do…...We could do a bike wash, hummm….really cold in Wisconsin most of the year. We could do a bake sale, but would eat the profits up. We could write a book, ah, that won’t work, nobody believes us anymore. Hey, how about a cycle ride!!! Yup, that’s it a cycle ride, roaring through the countryside, motors roaring, flags flying, perfect!!!! We could do that! 

So the first thing to plan was the name for the event. Many interesting titles were thrown out for discussion (none of which were printable). Now you have to understand that during the time it took to actually come up with a catchy title, many more barley pops were opened, checked for quality and discarded. No luck no matter how hard we tried. Hey, our chapter newsletter had a picture of a pig in a bath tub on the cover!!! It was called the HOG Wash. We discovered we already had our mascot. Wow...let’s use that. Ok, what about a name, a tub rally? a tub wash? a pig run? Road Hog Rally? Hey, how about Tub Run???? After all, the tub had feet. And the title for our event was born. 

And so, our event was christened the MDA Tub Run in 1994. And went off in June 1995 for the first time with about 200 riders. We raised $17,000 for MDA. And in 11 years we have topped $790,000 in donations to MDA. This year our plan is to raise our donation to $720,000 with a $145,790 event total.

Since then, we have lost our beloved Rudi as a President of the Chapter, but we have gained a weatherman in heaven. He has sent great weather for the ride every year. Thanks Rudi, this ride is for you.

This year our new Chairman is Dave Alwin. He promises to make the Run #1 in the nation.

Ilena