An Early Spring

This is what "breakup" looks like around here. This morning it was slightly below freezing and it's supposed to get up to +48°F this afternoon. Ballaine Lake has some standing water on the surface and there isn't much snow left on the ground. Maybe a couple of inches. But at least it's sunny. The NWS reported that for the first time ever, somewhere in Alaska was over 70°F. I believe that this was in Southeast AK.

The Ural is (still) running nice and smooth though it did die when I pulled up to an intersection. So I cranked up the idle speed when I got back home followed by re-balancing the carbs. My suspicion that the left cylinder was working harder may have been right as today, the left head temperature never went more than ~25°F above the right. This also suggests that the CHT gauge and sensors are working properly. Just to get a second opinion, I ordered a relatively cheap infra red thermometer off of Amazon.

According to Weather Underground, we are up to 13:34 hours of sun above the horizon now and gaining at almost 6 minutes per day. I think that this is one of the warmest winters we've had in a long time. Not a single day of -30°F or colder at least none that I remember. The record low for today was -47°F if that gives you an idea of how weird this is.

Today was just too nice of a day to not ride around. I just need to avoid highway speeds and long grades for a while. I believe the break in time is 1500 km.

BTW, don't miss the phenomenal Alaska moto-video on AlaskaPeek's latest blog post.