The Flood Run has become one of the most popular motorcycle riding events, spanning the Minnesota and Wisconsin border as far north as Hudson and south as Winona. The route has been renowned for its scenery, but there is also some fascinating history behind it.

In 1965, on an 80-degree day, the weather seemed perfect from an outside perspective. However, due to the rapid increase in temperature, ice jams that were holding back water in the Mississippi and other rivers were bringing massive flood threats. The jams can be blasted with dynamite to break them up. Lock and Dam No. 4 in Alma along the Mississippi was one scheduled to be blasted in 1965, causing concern for cities to the south as the jam held more water than the dams could handle. To prevent flooding, the City of Winona put out a call for volunteers to help sandbag.

Given the warm weather, a group of about a dozen motorcycle riders from the area made the trip down to Winona to assist. The flood still hit Winona hard, as it did many other stops along the river, but the sandbaggers did help make a difference. About a year later, the city of Winona invited the volunteers back to town, offering beer, burgers and hot dogs for their assistance. The riders hopped on their motorcycles and made the trip, marking the first annual Flood Run.

“These are things a lot of people don’t know about, but I do because I was here,” Brad Smith of the Flood Run and the Harbor Bar said.

Smith said the riders stopped at the Harbor Bar during the first Flood Run, so the ride means a lot to him personally.

In 2005, Brian Denny trademarked the run and turned it into a charity ride for Gillette Children’s Hospital. While it was not as organized of an event prior to the trademark, 15-30,000 riders took part in the run anyway. Indian Motorcycles purchased the trademark and gifted it to Smith in 2018.

Now, the Flood Run is seeing changes with hopes of returning the ridership to the numbers it was prior to the trademark. The spring Flood Run is April 25-27 this year, where it previously was a one-day run.

This change was for a variety of reasons. The run has seen bad weather in the past, so making it a three-day run allows riders to take it on whenever the weather is best.

“For many of the years, the ride, we’ve never had an alternative date. The weather’s been real nice Friday and Sunday but not Saturday,” Smith said. “All of the businesses, they prepare food, they hire extra staff, they do all kinds of stuff, and then if it rains, nothing happens.”

It was also moved a week to avoid conflicting with Easter. Smith hopes these changes make the journey more of a rider vacation destination. As one of the top scenic routes, riders are willing to come from all over the area to join in, so the three-day change could make a long trip feel more worth it.

“People can come from further and they can come and stay for three days,” Smith said. “They can come and ride these beautiful roads that we have in this area which are some of the top scenic routes in America.”

In addition to both of those reasons, some people work on Saturdays, allowing them to make the run on Friday or Sunday, and Smith also does not want people to speed through it to get done in one day dangerously.

The run has previously had a start point in Lakeland, with an official Flood Run booth in Diamond Bluff. While the booth was not the endpoint, riders were treating it like it was. To combat this, the start point has been removed entirely, allowing riders to start and end the run at the closest stop to their homes. This also prevents one large fleet stampeding down the road, creating a safer journey.

Wristbands are virtual this year and can be purchased at floodrunrally.com for $10 with proceeds going toward Gillette Children’s Hospital. A brand-new motorcycle will be raffled off to someone who gets their sheet stamped by a sponsor business in each of the designated districts of the run. For the first time in years, bars will be allowed to sell merchandise with the run’s branding on it, something Smith said people loved to do back in the day.

“Why not pair this event up with a tourist opportunity for the riders and for the businesses along the route,” Smith said.

Smith hopes all these changes help reach one common goal of many people enjoying the route and making it all the way through. After all, he said it is the people who make the event special.

“The people, the riders, the businesses,” Smith said. “It’s a combination of all of them, but the number one thing that was what got it started was the beautiful scenery on the route. Everyone is always anxious to get their bikes out in the spring, and to have a ride like this, it grew to be one of the biggest runs in the country without even any organization.”