Thanksgiving Day Ride 2010

I took the Ural out for a short ride on Thanksgiving day before all the eating was scheduled to take place. It was a beautiful day for a ride with the temps reaching a balmy 12F from the overnight 6F.

The Ural’s fairing is working well this year. Without the sidecar’s windshield, I am much warmer. It was behind the main fairing and blew wind on me from the side.  I haven’t needed my heated coat yet this year on the Ural. I’m also just getting by with my heated grips on low. Very nice.

I didn’t have much of a plan when I started. I just wanted to find some snow to ride around in to get some more time testing the new K335s. I eventually found some and had fun sliding around. With my drifting fix set for a few minutes, I set about checking on some lakes to see if they were freezing yet.

The park in long lake was virtually deserted with just this CAT and caboose keeping watch. 

 

I parked in the motorcycle parking and walked around for a bit.

My riding gear and helmet do a great job keeping me warm on the bike. They also work great off. I’m sure I looked like an alien walking around with everything on, but I was toasty warm. I had to keep cracking the visor open to take the photos and the wind was quite vicious stinging against my face.

 

As you can see, Long Lake isn’t quiet frozen yet. The wind was making small white caped waves too.

 

I found a couple small ponds frozen over.

 

Lake Johanna wasn’t frozen over yet either.

 

I rode on Lake Johanna last year and made this short video.

Lake Josephine has finally frozen over and has a bit of snow on top too. A few days ago, it wasn’t frozen at all.

I passed this snowman while I was riding around and made a quick u-turn to grab a photo. The kids who made it did a great job. It’s nearly six feet tall and has rakes for arms.

The snow stuck in the knobbies and made a neat pattern as I pulled into the garage.

 

I was reading through some old posts today and realized that last year on this day, November 28, 2009, I bought my Ural! Here’s the post I wrote then.

It’s been a fun year with the Ural. Here’s to the next twelve months of three-wheeled fun!

Winter Commuting – November 22

I’ve been riding the Ural to work for the past week or so instead of the R1150GS because of the snow and ice. It’s been hovering in the mid teens with a hot streak of 27F this morning.

Last week, it snowed nearly six inches and was a lots of fun to ride in.  It’s nearly all melted now because of the freezing rain over the weekend.

Today, it’s been trying to snow, but unfortunately still more of the freeing slush mix. The weather-guessers think we’ll get an inch of accumulation by the time I leave work. I hope they’re right. It would make the ride home much more fun to have some snow! *fingers crossed*

The Ural’s fairing kept me warm and dry on the commute in this morning. Still no electrics yet other than the heated grips. The fairing is doing a great job deflecting the cold wind.

I stopped at Lake Josephine this morning to take a couple photos.

I’ve been there a few other times.

I can’t wait until I can do this again: (probably another month)

The sign is right! Very thin ice that doesn’t even cover the whole lake.

I think these geese are helping to keep the ice at bay.

While I was stopped to take photos, the snow started to collect on the sidecar cover:

The K335s are working great:

A fun ride into work. I was a bit sad I didn’t leave earlier. I could have used a bit longer ride.

Howto Fix a Separated Zipper on Riding Pants

I have two pairs of Tourmaster Venture riding pants. They are really great in the cold of winter. Within the same week, both pairs had the front zipper come apart. Bad luck!

I’m sure it didn’t have anything to do with me wearing a thick sweater tucked into my riding pants stressing out the zipper… ;)

I made a couple calls and had quotes from $20-$40 per zipper to repair/replace. Too expensive. I figured I could fix it myself somehow.

The first pair took me 20 minutes (including taking the photos) to fix and the second was a bit more stubborn and took 30 minutes. I only spent $6 on the supplies to do it too!

The first step was to remove the little metal stop at the bottom of the zipper.

 

This gives a bit of wiggle room to move the slide to the bottom and re-align the zipper teeth.

 

The first pair was easy. I just pulled the zipper up about 1/4” on one side which gave me enough fabric to twist it into the slide.

With the zipper fixed and the slide working as expected, I needed to replace the metal stop.

I tried to get it back on with a needle nose pliers, but couldn’t get it.

I bought a cheap sewing kit

and carefully sewed the end of the zipper together to make a new stop.

It works good as new and looks pretty clean to me.

I had a hard time putting the second pair’s zipper back on, so expanded the exposed edge of the slide and forced it on that way. I lost about 1/4” of the bottom of the zipper, and just sewed it up like the first pair.

A fun little project for tonight and a good excuse to use my cheap macro lens on the T2i! :)

 

UPDATE: My first repair is still going strong. The second one didn’t hold, so I’m going to have it fixed under the warranty.

First Snow Ride of the Season

The weathers guessers had predicted snow this weekend which forced me to change my plans for one last long four day weekend ride. Instead, I spent time working on the bikes with the main goal of getting the last bits done on the Ural.

The last thing I needed to do was to install the new snow tires I had purchased: Kenda K335s. I bought three because I found an amazing deal on a Ural forum.

The first step was to get the bike on the center stand and remove the rear wheel.

I had a flat tire last year because the rim strip moved and allowed the spoke nipples to puncture the tube. Since then, I have been using duct tape to hold it in place.

Here is the new rear tire mounted and back on the bike:

 

I used a floor jack and a piece of wood to get the front wheel off the ground.

and then put a jack stand on the frame to hold it:

The front tire came off nicely once I realized the axle was opposite threaded (lefty tighty, righty loosey) (Thanks Kevin!).

 

With the wheel off, I found this o-ring was damaged.

I found a replacement at the hardware store for $0.85 that seems to work. I was so excited to find it, I forgot to write the size down.

Front wheel finished:

Sidecar wheel was last on my list. Again, I used the floor jack and a piece of wood to get the wheel up.

 

Here is the new K335 (left) vs the stock Uralshina (right)

 

New sidecar tire back on:

Cotter pins are cheap. Make sure to use new ones each time, especially if they look like this:

I’ve found the 1/8 x 1 1/4 pins work the best on the Ural.

 

There was lots of snow outside and it snowed all day. It was a thick wet snow and the temps were hovering in the high 30sF.

The new tires worked great! I had a blast riding around in the snow. The K335s are significantly better in the snow than the stock tires. The K335s are actually made for winter, so I think that helps! I had to practice some winter maneuvers in the parking lot to get reacquainted with riding in the snow. ;)

I was riding through snow deep enough that the engine jugs were plowing a path in front and the exhaust melting it as I went. It was neat to feel the snow flying up on my shins!

Then it was off to enjoy the scenery. This is a short video of some roads I rode today from last winter since I forgot my camera at home.

When I got home, the front wheel’s spokes were caked in snow.

While riding, I saw the clumps of snow coming off the wheel and flying up at the fairing through the headlight beam. Very cool looking.

I sat with the Ural in the garage with a massive grin listening to the engine hiss and spit as clumps of snow fell off the bike and melted. A very cool noise.

The Kendas are a bit louder than the stockers, but that is expected as knobby tires are just loud. The grip in the snow was impressive; it will be interesting to see what they are like once all the roads are plowed.

What a fun ride!!

 

Related Posts:

• Preparing for Winter Riding – Part 1
• Preparing for Winter Riding – Part 2