Hey, I'm famous...

Winter is still here with beautiful, clear skies which generally bring cooler temperatures. I had decided to not try and commute with the BMW until the temperatures warm up a bit. It was hard to start and there were some flaky electrical issues yesterday while riding around at -38°F. I figured that since today was colder, I wouldn't tempt fate. The electrical problems were things like a blown tail light fuse but couldn't identify why, the headlight not turning on when I headed home yesterday, and it would take numerous attempts to get the bike to turn on with the key. I'll chalk all that up to the cold and a 33 year old bike.

At least in this little world called Fairbanks, I made the front page (below the fold). On Monday afternoon while test riding the BMW/Cozy sidecar rig, a local newpaper photographer caught up with me while I was hauling trash. He asked me a few questions and took a photo after I had emptied the trash barrel. He had a hard time believing that I was out riding just to haul trash.

Here is the link to the pdf of the front page of that issue of the local paper. I'm not sure how long they keep these online.

And here is the PBC video that I had taken during the same ride. Of course, the camera battery had long since died as well as the remote by the time I got to the photographer. Something else that wasn't designed for our climate. I'm not sure how they can market it as an adventure camera. Maybe it needs to be behind a windshield. The GoPro is mounted to the sidecar windshield frame (no windshield) and you can tell that the sidecar bounces a lot compared to the Ural. This video has a lot of snow and frost covered trees and snowy roads ala Doctor Zhivago. I should have looked for some royalty free Rachmaninoff...