Fall Colors on Guanella Pass

Today I rode Brigitta, my '87 R80 Beemer, up on US285 and to the summit of Guanella Pass. The objective was to try and capture the changing of the aspen trees colors with the advent of Fall.

I rode out of the Denver Metro area using US285 and was in the vicinity of Grant, CO by around 10:00AM. Temperatures were in the high 50s to low 60s so not bad at all and it was quite sunny as well.

As I started riding the Guanella Pass Road, I passed several aspen trees which were looking a "might peaked" already. I was starting to worry that I'd missed that short window when the colors are just right and before the leaves fall off the trees!  Note, the first couple to three miles of the road are washboarded dirt surface, not really bad, but I was not going much faster than 15 mph.

As I gained altitude though, the trees started to look a bit healthier and I found that finding good spots with the trees illuminated by the sun were plentiful. The trick you see, is to have the sun behind the turning leaves, not in front of the leaves.

Near Grant, CO after two-three dirt miles

I made it to the summit of Guanella Pass near 11:00 AM and there were many cars parked along the side of the road as the main parking lot at the summit was blocked off by construction vehicles.  The light was all wrong in terms of the nearby mountains that I like to photograph, so I kept going towards Georgetown.

The road is closed near the Clear Lake Campground but its a nicely paved, though unmarked, two lane road with many enjoyable twists and turns.  The mountainsides seemed aflame at times with the bright yellow aspen leaves being brilliantly lit by the overhead sun.

The mountainsides with their aspen in full color change, quite dramatic don't  you think?

It was black asphalt, bright yellow and deep greens all the way down to the Clear Lake Camping Ground  By the way, the camping grounds are already closed for the season.  The snow is coming......

 Near the Clear Lake Camping Grounds

At the entrance to the Clear Lake Camping Sites.

As the road is blocked to Georgetown, I turned Brigitta around and slowly made my way back up to the summit of Guanella Pass.  Twisting and turning on the nearly empty road, enjoying the sunshine which had warmed things up nicely by now.  I stopped at the apex of the hairpin turn just before the summit for a quick snack and to wait for the light to be right:

As I sat there for about half an hour or so, I enjoyed the utter quiet and tranquility of the spot I parked at.  The only sounds were the occasional breeze and the infrequent passing car heading down towards Clear Lake.  I shed my jacket liner, sat on the guard rail and soaked in the sun.

Soon enough though, it was time to get moving.  I geared up and rode up to the next hair pin turn just before the summit and got this shot of the eye-catching mountains nearby:

The summit area remained full of vehicles and I carefully made my way past the mob and to the Guanella Pass sign for the requisite pass picture of one's motorcycle.

Yep, Brigitta's out of focus, was concentrating on the mountains in the background

and forgot to adjust the focal length accordingly.

I cruised on back down towards Grant and stopped just once more time to take a picture of another hillside seemingly on fire with the colorful yellows of the turning aspen leaves:

The rest of the ride down to Grant was uneventful, with just a bit of a traffic jam near the end of the road as fellow motorcycle riders gathered at the bar in Grant.  Lots of car drivers out today as well but they remained well spread out on the Guanella Pass Road, I am happy to report.

I cruised on back to the Denver Metro area on US285 to E470 to the I-25 Northbound Slab.  I was home by 2:30 PM, after roughly 200 miles of riding.  I hope you like the fall colors I saw today, they're not going to be around much longer I'm afraid.

Servicing Natasha's Front Shocks

Recently, I'd noted both my front shocks on Natasha, my Ural Sportsman Sidecar Rig, had leaked oil out of the shock absorbers.  I figure the final straw was my taking Natasha on an attempt to reach Argentine Pass, after all, they're supposed to be serviced every 10K Km I believe.

Natasha is now over 25K Km and she was way overdue the servicing of her front shocks.  I consulted the goldmine of Ural information at Bill Glaser's myural.com site and assembled my tools.  You have to compress the shock absorbers in order to remove the retaining rings that hold everything together under pressure.

The above link shows you the procedure step by step, I shall just write about some of the "highlights" I encountered during my servicing of the front shocks on Natasha.

This is a shot from Bill Glaser's site showing the homemade shock compression tool he made and which I copied:

image source: Bill Glaser

I started with the right front shock, here's a view of Natasha's front wheel sans the shock

From Bill Glaser's website: Top view of shock showing the two chrome keepers 

which hold the shock inside the bell cover and spring.

Here's a shot of my shock compression tool, after I'd compressed it and removed the shock assembly

from the above spring housing

Here's the shock's housing, wiped down clean and secured to a vise so I can remove the cap

holding the shock components within the black shock housing.

Here's the Ural shock tool needed to loosen and spin off the threaded metal cap that secures the shock components inside the oil reservoir which itself is inside the black metal tube

Note: the cap tells me I have the 12mm seal model of the shocks.  This is good as its the one in stock at Ural dealers, the 14mm seal is apparently unobtanium here in the west.

While Bill Glaser's site goes into detail on how to further disassemble the shock further if components are damaged, I only had to replace the old oil with new 20W50 Engine Oil.  A bit messy until I got the hang of it but really it was just cleaning and replacing of the shock absorbing fluid.

You can see, not much of the old oil was left in the reservoir (light brown tube)

The lower item is the shock itself which fits inside the brown tube.

from Bill Glaser's website: a better view of the shock's piston body free of the oil reservoir

Here's Natasha's left side front shock, after having removed it from the spring cap assembly

note the dirt and grease on it which I would clean off.

The left front shock had some damage to the metal cap on the piston, I'll be ordering a replacement soon I think.  Also the shock tensioner appeared to have been damaged before and re-welded, another thing to order for my peace of mind.  It did however, have much more old oil remaining in its reservoir than the right side shock!

The first shock took about an hour, the second one took less than 20 minutes as I had the hang of things now.  Re-assembly of the shocks was a bit messy as I got used to the new oil spilling out a bit when introducing the shock into the reservoir tube.

Once capped into place, I slid the clean shock housing into the cap and spring assembly, worked the nuts loose on my compression tool and voila, a serviced shock ready for installation onto Natasha.

The original plan had been to only do the front shocks as I was bidding on a pair of barely used shocks on Ebay.  I then changed my mind and removed the left rear shock and started working on it!  Alas, the motorcycling gods decided I'd push my luck enough for one day.  I could not, after much effort, remove the metal cap off that third shock!  I stopped before I buggered the cap up and made things worse.  It seems to be working fine as is, though not as "strong" as the newly service front shocks.

I put the un-serviced left rear shock back in place, got cleaned up and put away my tools.  After lunch, it was a short test ride to make sure nothing fell off Natasha.  I have to tell you, the front end suspension is much smoother now when hitting bumps, no more feeling like she's bottoming out and no fighting the handlebars when hitting a bump on a turn!  All good stuff.

My continued thanks to Bill Glaser and the wealth of maintenance/servicing information he's compiled and posted freely for the benefit of the Uralisti community.

So, except for the difficulty in removing the cap to the shock, it was a pretty easy maintenance operation.  I am going to figure out a way to put a "cheater bar" on the end of the Ural shock wrench to enable me to service the remaining three shock absorbers on Natasha.  For now though, we're ready for the rocky trails once again!

Firstgear's Customer Service

My first riding jacket was a Firstgear Kilimanjaro Air. I loved its fit, it's striking visibility pattern and how it kept me cool enough in hot weather and warm enough in cold weather riding.  I bought it the same day I bought my first motorcycle, a 2006 Honda Shadow 750 Aero, which I named: Gretl.

Four winters and five summers later, that Firstgear Jacket is still ready for the next ride, though it has been relegated to my backup riding jacket since I purchased the Motoport Kevlar Air Mesh riding jacket and pants.

However, a part of that Firstgear Jacket has always rode with me or on me during the cold riding months here in Colorado.  For you see, it came with a waterproof/insulated Tex-Mesh liner, which transfered easily for use under the Motorport jacket.  That liner was a key part of my warm layers which allowed me to ride in temperatures as low as -17°F this past winter.

I'd recently managed to lose that great jacket liner, probably worked its way out of the covered sidecar on one of my recent rides on Natasha, my Ural Sportsman sidecar rig.  I was quite bummed about it and had contacted Firstgear about purchasing a replacement as cold weather riding approaches again here in Colorado.

Through phone calls and emails exchanged (quite timely in terms of their response time by the way), they let me know that they no longer made or stocked the liner that came with my Kilimanjaro Air Riding Jacket.

But, all was not lost, they said they had available (from returned for repairs jackets) a size Large jacket liner that went with their new top of the line riding jacket: The Technical Performance Gear (TPG) Rainier Jacket!  They just offered it to me, no charge!  Now that's standing behind your product!

I sent them my address and today I took receipt of the above gorgeous looking jacket liner.  It's got a smooth tactile feel to the waterproof outside layer, is insulated, fits like a glove and feels great under my riding jackets!

I was so impressed with Firstgear's customer service, willingness to stand behind a product that was not even made anymore and concious effort to keep a past customer happy that I wrote this posting to let others know!  NOTE:  They didn't ask me to write this in exchange for the liner, I write this as a happy customer of Firstgear!

The Rainier Riding Jacket itself  looks to be quite an achievement in terms of rider comfort and protection also, check out it's specs here on the firstgear-usa website:  LINK   I believe it would give my existing Motoport Kevlar Jacket a run for the money in terms of key areas such as comfort and protection for a rider.  It's not inexpensive but then again, you really want to skimp on protecting yourself during a crash?

One Year Anniversary with Natasha

A year ago today, I took receipt of Natasha: my '96 Ural Sportsman Sidecar motorcycle from Phil B, in exchange for my giving him Maria, my 2004 BMW R1150RT motorcycle.  I think both of us got a good deal in this swap, and hopefully Maria is getting ridden far and often by her new owner.

Phil B. and I, one year ago, with my new to me Natasha

In this last year of Ural ownership, there have been quite a few bumps in the road but in the end it's made me a better wrench turner.  The Ural design is clean and simple if a bit rough around the edges, seams, welds and performance!  : )

I got Natasha with 5125 Kilometers on her odometer, today she reads 25,602 Kilometers.  Not bad considering some of the issues that had to be overcome along the way to making her a reliable companion on the road:

The Russian Hand Grenade Episode, the sheared apart propeller shaft for the sidecar, assorted minor electrical gotchas, broken brackets, going Total Loss on the electricals due to the failed alternator, learning about loose spokes the hard way, the importance of a spare tire, re-learning how to tune/troubleshoot and live with carburetor technology aka dark magic, dealing with recalcitrant ignition systems/coils on hot and/or rainy days and just the day and night difference when riding on three wheels vice two.

On the other hand, Natasha allows me to ride in Winter weather with no major issues.  Snow is a welcome sight and not a soul-crushing event to me now.  It's really amusing the looks I get when riding by on snow-covered streets.

Natasha's "batwing" fairing enable me to ride in temperatures below zero with only the electric grips being needed; though it does get a bit "nippy" at times.  Windy days?  No problem and no heart-stopping moments leaning into 20-30 mph gusts when on two wheels and the wind stops.  Rain?  Bring it on, last time it rained so hard that intersections in my neighborhood were flooding, I had a great time doing "river crossings" on Natasha.

Sure, her max speed is 65 mph, on a good day, going downhill, with a following wind, so not the speediest vehicle on the slabs.  Off-road though, there's very few trails now that will stop me, and if in the company of fellow Uralisti, I'd be willing to try the tough "trails" as well!  Speaking of the Uralisti, their support and companionship on rides and wrenching is another of the benefits of owning Natasha.

I've learned a lot while riding/wrenching on Natasha, the main thing I've learned is that I like the simpler designs and motorcycles of yesteryear.  Both my motorcycles are from designs predating their manufacture dates, in the case of Natasha, by several decades!  It allows me to work on them with my ham-fisted skills and they damn near always bring me home.  What more could I ask?

Natasha and I, during a recent ride through the Rocky Mountain National Park