Uraling in the Snow

As I hinted in my last post, we finally have winter in Minnesota. It snowed several inches and is now in the single digits. When it was time to leave for work, I emailed my boss to let him know I would be late. I needed some playtime in the snow. I took the long way through the neighborhoods, in parks, and around lakes (they aren’t frozen enough yet to ride on). The Ural is very fun in the snow.

The snow let me test out my new Duro HF307 tires. I am disappointed with them compared to the Heidenau K37 Snowtex. I will buy the K37 snowtex next time. The rear slid a bit more than I would like with the Duro, and it had much less traction on ice and hard packed snow. It made me wish I could put studs on, but MN law prohibits studs on the road. Luckily, I have 2WD. I understand now why the HF307 is a third of the price of the K37 snowtex. I had really hoped they would be better though. This is my fifth winter tire, and I would put it in the middle of the pack.

On the upside, the Duros are quite fun for donuts and other sideways sliding shenanigans.

Below, is a behind the scenes photo my GoPro captured while I was taking the above photo. I had it set to take phone photo every few minutes, and the timing worked out to capture me taking a photo. Funny.

Visitors from Alaska

This past weekend, we were fortunate to have Richard Machida and his wife Bridget visiting from Fairbanks. They had come down to Minnesota to spend thanksgiving with Bridget’s son.

The photo above is Richard taking a photo of the partially frozen Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis. The photo below is the Ford Parkway Bridge connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul over the Mississippi River which is partially frozen.

They stayed the weekend at our place. I had a fun time showing them around Minneapolis. We did most of the touring in their rental car. It would have been a bit cold for Bridget on the Ural. It wasn’t quite cold enough to take them out on a frozen lake yet either. Another couple weeks and we should be good.

It was nice to catch up from our visit last summer. Richard, you’re both welcome to come back any time.

You can read about Richard’s experience in the Twin Cites on his blog here. He took some nice photos including one of me on the Ural: http://blog.machida.us/2013/12/minnehaha-and-st-anthony-falls.html

 

PS: It’s been snowing since Richard left MN. It’s also predicted to get down to –15F in the next day or so. It seems he left a little AK behind. :-)