Rally in the Valley Rumbles into Lincoln

After a one-year hiatus, the Lincoln Bike Rally returned to town, bringing the thunder with it.

Under the direction and organization of the Tenacious Dames Riding Club, "The Rally in the Valley," drew an estimated 250-300 bikes to town

"We had a pretty good group come in yesterday and today," Julie Fink, the president of the Tenacious Dames said Saturday afternoon.

The turnout outpaced the first rally in 2015, which drew an estimate 160 bikes. Fink said they would have had more bikes, but since the Dames were organizing the event, many of them weren't able to take part.

Participation didn't seem to be affected by the violent weather that blew into town Saturday.

Thunderstorms moved through the area Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning, ushered in around 3 p.m. with violent wind gusts reaching up to 34 mph. Although the initial storm dropped .14 inches of rain on town Saturday afternoon, it was the wind that took the heaviest toll, mostly on vendors.

Jeremiah Johnson Brewing had to struggle to keep their awning from blowing down Main Street, while State Line Bikers, a Post Falls, Idaho-based embroidery company that was set up in the center of town, saw the wind break part of their display and scatter their patches and sunglasses for several yards. Ray, the owner of State Line Bikers, said he didn't get their names, but he sure appreciated the two women who stopped on their way to work to help him keep his canopies from being carried away as well.

Across the road, Paint Slinger, a pinstriping company, didn't fare so well as the wind plastered their canopy against the side of Citizens Alliance Bank.

Tina Bundtrock, the rally's lead organizer with the Tenacious Dames, said Saturday that aside from the storm, the rally was going great.

While waiting for the final entrants in the Bike Show at Bushwackers to get their bikes cleaned up after the storm, she talked about the Silent Auction they hosted at the Community Hall Saturday to benefit the school's POUNCE program. She said they opted to raise money for POUNCE early in their planning, long before the program lost its grant funding.

"When they explained it to us...we thought this would be the best need for the community," Bundtrock said.

She said they opted to keep their silent auction open later in Saturday, due to the turnout it saw, and that they had received a sizable donation.

"We have a check from Northwest Home Care," she said. "They donated $1500 to the POUNCE program."

Bundtrock hopes the money they raise can help the program carry on in some way.

As Bike Rally events carried on into the night, a second storm rolled through at about 9:30 p.m., bringing with it rain and lighting that lit up the night sky for about an hour. A major thunderstorm hit early Sunday morning, bringing an intense lightning show and more than a quarter inch of rain, but by the time the Sunday morning's bike blessing and biker breakfast ended, the only thunder to be heard came from tailpipes of motorcycles.

Following Sunday's Bike Rodeo, the final event of the rally, bikers and volunteers turned out to help clean up downtown Lincoln.