Monday, February 12, 2018

Finally!

That end of the cold spell that was being predicted for the last couple of weeks seems to finally have arrived. On Saturday night, it was still -18°F so the positive (°F) temperature on Sunday morning is feeling pretty nice.

The Ural made it out of the garage but not to coffee this morning. I rode it around the area enough to get the engine warmed up and do some sliding in the fresh snow. I didn't want to get all geared up since I was waiting for a phone call. The front and pusher tires are still only running about half of the number of studs as usual so there is some slipping just to get out of the driveway. None installed on the sidecar tire. I might try it like this for a while.

13 comments:

  1. Everything is relative Richard! 🙃

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    1. Once it was above 0°F, you could find people walking around in shorts. Yes, everything is relative.

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    2. When the sun comes out you see students sitting out in the sun on lawn chairs.

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  2. Spotted a Ural today, and had to think of you and Dom. No snow on the road though.

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    1. Are sidecar rigs common in Europe? I thought that they would be more common than in the U.S. But then again, with the aging population, it may be getting more common.

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    2. Sidecar rigs are quite common, indeed. And they come in all kinds, I have seen mostly Beemer hacks lately, though.

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  3. The blue on the Ural sure looks nice against the snow.

    I tis nice you are warming up. We had a two night cold spell. Down to 24˚F yesterday and the car was reading 18˚F this morning. Nice and sunny now though. How odd for Oregon in February to have sunshine.

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    1. The blue/white is definitely a nicer color than the much more common olive drab or flat black. With the addition of the top box, it definitely is not the norm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Ural with an aluminum top box. Maybe there’s a good reason for that.

      We heard that it was colder in Corvallis than Alaska. But nice to have some sun!

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  4. Richard - I can't even start to think about riding yet as we've probably still got 6-8 weeks of icy roads ahead of us. Do you buy studded tires for the Ural, or do you do them yourself?

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    1. I have been using studs from a company called GripStuds. If I could find a stud gun then that would be cheaper as the GripStuds are about $1 each versus about 10¢ each for traditional studs.

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  5. Pricy sometimes, the price of traction! Good to see you out on the rig. Are stud guns very pricey?

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    1. I've been looking for a stud gun for a while and I'm thinking it would be around $200 for a pneumatic version. It'll pay for itself in a couple of years.

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