Seeking snow at Berthoud Pass

As I finally had Natasha back in my possession after an extended repair sojourn, today she and I rode out of the Denver Metro area to look for some snowy mountain peaks.

It's been a pretty mild winter so far for us here in this part of Colorado so I had to head out all the way to the town of Empire, located at the junction of I-70 and US40, before I started seeing snow accumulations on the side of the road.

The sun was out most of the morning and so it was quite the pleasant ride along the frontage road paralleling the crazy traffic pattern that is I-70 westbound during a Sunday.  Only one mechanical mishap and not related to the recent repairs.

I'd stopped for gas next to a "park and ride" lot where a Conoco gas station was located.  I'd forgotten to check the tire air pressures on Natasha before heading out and wanted to make sure all was well there.  As luck would have it, the dang valve stem installed on the inner tube for the sidecar wheel failed!  Yep, it would not seal anymore.  Luckily, I had a spare, and after fueling up was soon on my way.  Do you carry spare air valves for your inner tubed motorcycle?

 The valve removal tool, built into the air stem cap, handy to have

Example picture of the air valve that failed, goes inside the inner tube's air stem

I reached Empire without further incident and cruised through the small town with no issues and no snow in evidence yet.  As I went past the small group of houses that comprises Berthoud Falls though, it looked more promising.  Still, anyone on two wheels could have ridden all the way to the parking lot of Berthoud Pass with no issues.  The parking lot however, was snow-packed, a bit dicey when on two wheels....not so much on three wheels. 

At the entrance to the parking lot at Berthoud Pass

The requisite shot of the pass sign

 A view of the twisty roads heading from the pass to Winter Park to the North

This is as close as I bothered to park Natasha to the pass sign

I retraced my route back towards Empire, as I didn't have enough time to cruise down the mountain towards Winter Park today.  I could see an incoming front of clouds and wanted to make sure I was on the right side of the Continental Divide if it was bringing snow along with the dark clouds.  The next four pictures are views of the nearby mountain peaks that one can see while riding down towards Berthoud Falls.

Just before Berthoud Falls, I took the turnoff exit for the Jones Pass Trailhead.  I wanted to see how much snow had accumulated on the narrow road leading from the trailhead's parking lot.  As on a previous ride, the road was snow-packed and my "city" tire was not getting traction.

So I turned around and headed back towards Berthoud Falls but not before stopping for this shot of the road leading towards Jones Pass:

Returning from the Jones Pass Trailhead

I elected to use frontage roads instead of I-70 eastbound to make my way back towards Idaho Springs.  From Idaho Springs, I could see that traffic was thick and heavy on eastbound I-70 (typical for a Sunday afternoon).  So I jumped onto CO103, the road which leads one to Echo Lake and the Mount Evans road instead.

Although Mount Evans Road is closed, CO103 remains one of my favorite twisty mountain roads to ride.  One thing though, its now the time of year when large stretches of the road are snow-packed and not recommended for two wheeled motorcycles.  

I made it up to Echo Lake with no issues, traversing several stretches of thinly snow-packed pavement on the way but with very little traffic to worry about.

Echo Lake, yeah the lighting was bad....sorry

I continued on CO103 and soon was past the passes at Juniper Pass and Squaw Pass.  Then it was time to turn onto Witter Gulch road and head down the mountain towards the town of Evergreen.  The road was clear of snow, just loose dirt and gravel and steeper than I remembered it.  I could feel Natasha's brakes sometimes causing sliding motion as the tires almost locked up at the hairpin turns.

Still, I got down to the valley just fine and only seeing one deer off in the woods and no threat to me on the road.  I turned right on Upper Bear Creek Road to pose Natasha at the usual spot where one can see mountain peaks.  Today though, the incoming front I mentioned before blocked the view of everything but the closest rock formations:

West of Evergreen, next to Upper Bear Creek Road

I then took the quite twisty Upper Bear Creek road into Evergreen.  It's a narrow two lane road with very little room at the shoulders due to the fences bordering the road.  Caution is usually a recommended thing on this road as deer tend to frequent it as well.  Again, I only saw one buck, munching on something while standing in someone's driveway.

The rest of the ride was the usual twists and turns through Evergreen, Kittredge, Idledale along CO 74 which is also known as Bear Creek Canyon Road.  Had to endure having a tail gating A-hole along the last stretch of this fun road as I decided not to pull over and let the idiot pass.  I was maintaining the speed limit and figured she could as well!

Not much else to report, used US285 to cross the Denver Metro area once again and was home before 4:00PM.  Natasha did great throughout the ride of roughly 150 miles or so, about six hours in the saddle.

Now, for some snow closer to home perhaps.....

36 days later, Natasha is back home!

A happy day for me today, as repairs on Natasha, my Ural Sidecar Rig were finally complete.

My loving wife drove me to Golden, CO where Linden Engineering is located and dropped me off.

Natasha was waiting for me to take her out for a test ride, which I did after a lengthy conversation with both Dennis and Linda, the husband and wife team who run Linden Engineering.  There is no such thing as a short conversation with either one as they are quite gregarious and yet very pleasant to converse with.

Took Natasha out for a test ride after Dennis fired up the engine to show how smooth she was "ticking over".  First thing I noticed was the whine of the alternator which is now repaired and providing power once more to the rig.  Yes, I've gone back to the Russian Hand Grenade alternator, we'll see how long this one lasts.  I've had many conversations with Ural mechanics and they've persuaded me to try it again.  The key apparently is aligning the alternator's gear correctly with the timing gear.  Not too tight (and quiet) and not too loose (and noisy).

The test ride went great, no issues and the rear brakes really work well now that Dennis replaced the shoes for the rear drum brakes and adjusted them.  Her idle is at a low 700 rpm but Dennis assured me she was fine at that and to ride her for a bit that way.

More conversations later with Linda while she made out the invoice, another talk with Dennis about keeping an eye out on the swingarm which he thinks is a bit out of true and placing some stress on the final drive and rear wheel assembly.  He'd been unable to pinpoint it and my eagerness to get her back precluded more time in his hands.

Yes, it had been a long time without my Ural but it all seemed worth it as she pulled strongly through the gears as I headed away from Linden Engineering, through Golden and up the road to Lookout Mountain to give her a little workout and shakedown.

 Here's Natasha on the way up Lookout Mountain with Golden CO

and points south in the background

A panoramic view of the same location, to give you a better view of the curvy road up the mountain

She did fine running all the way up to the top of Lookout Mountain and back down again towards US40.  I took US40 east back towards town and ended up taking the side road down to the town of Morrison.  I was trying to get used to the additional engine noise caused by the alternator, she's definitely a bit noisier now but I  can live with the noise now that battery range is not an issue.

As you can see from the pictures, we had ourselves a beautifully sunny day with temperatures in the 50s.  This brought out many other motorcycle riders as they too enjoyed the weather.

I took city streets back home from Morrison, Natasha still performing great and me getting used to riding on three wheels again.  It felt quite good to "lean out" on the sharper right hand turns while going at speed, I'd missed that.

I got her home, cleaned her up from all the oil that had spewed out when she broke last month, put the leg guards back on to cut down the updraft when going faster than 50 mph, removed the second deep cycle battery (thereby regaining valuable trunk space in the sidecar), and generally got her settled into the garage.

The girls are back together

So, how would I rate Linden Engineering?  I'll put it this way.  They've always given me the impression of being a one man shop with all the pluses and minuses that go with that.  So, why did it take so long to get Natasha fixed up?

Lack of repair parts for one, apparently the rocker arms have been redesigned for the newer models and are not backwards compatible.  After the initial orders had resulted in the wrong parts being sent out from Ural, Dennis found that the factory had recalled the ones I needed but failed to supply replacements to the dealer network.  Dennis basically had to hunt them down by calling the suppliers/dealers he knew, finding one rocker arm in Florida and the other in Tennessee!  The Ural parts and supply network is apparently pathetic, though apparently some guy has been hired by Ural to fix that, I wish him luck.

Second, Dennis lost the use of his "motorcycle guy" at about the same time that all required parts finally arrived at the shop.  This was about two weeks after I'd left Natasha at the shop; and this left him a man short and the workload is such apparently that Natasha was untouched for over a week.

Third, Dennis had to try and cover for the missing tech and shortly after that the temporary loss of another of his mechanics which added to his own workload.  At this point, he was two mechanics down, so really it was only the last couple of days (not counting Thanksgiving Day) when Dennis himself had time to work on my Ural.

Dennis is definitely a top rate mechanic with many years experience.  If you take your Ural to him, be prepared for it to take a while if parts have to be ordered.  If he's short staffed, it'll take longer obviously.  If its something minor, and he's got the parts, it really shouldn't take very long at all if he's got the time.  Heck, you might get fixed that same day.  

There is no dedicated parts department, that would be Dennis.  The parts delays due to availability is nothing he can control, I see that now.  Time to start looking on ebay for parts I guess, to hold in stock.  Sad reflection on Ural but I guess I've been spoiled by how BMW always stocks parts even for the vintage era motorcycles!  This is not the case with the Ural, I guess its part and parcel of Ural ownership.  I was lucky he had a cylinder head assembly on hand, otherwise Natasha would probably still be waiting for parts.

One last thing, if you're used to or want daily feedback and reports, they're too busy for that at times.  Linda did her best but she's not technically conversant and every time Dennis has to stop to render status for a customer is time he's not working on a vehicle.  I think I found this the most frustrating.

I would say, once Dennis gets his staffing issues sorted out, that I will return to him for repair work when I need it on the Ural.  Patience is definitely something you need for small shops like his, so make sure you have a spare motorcycle and a good long period of good weather ahead if your spare doesn't have three wheels!

On the plus side however, its small shops like this that give your vehicle that personal touch.  Dennis "sorted out" some other things on Natasha as he found them.  It added to the cost but if it improves things, why not.

Thanks Dennis and Linda for getting Natasha fixed up!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Update: 12DEC2010:  Well, the repaired alternator didn't last very long.  I spotted smoke coming out of it today while riding, I took it off when I got home and fear I may have overtaxed it by hanging Christmas lighting on the rig.  So I started the process of removing the alternator in order to remove the adapter gear that mates to the engine's timing gears, this to take the alternator out of the equation until I could get it fixed.

example picture from Bill Glaser's myural.com website

The gear you see in the above picture is the adapter gear which mates to the timing gears.  As I unbent the cotter pin to start its removal, the piece I was unbending broke off!  You wouldn't think that after only two weeks of daily usage, the pin would break that easily, would you?

I got the cotter pin off and it was showing signs of wear/damage at several points.  I'd read about situations where this cotter pin goes "missing", the castle nut comes off, the adapter gear gets loose and causes damage to the timing gears.  Kind of similar to what happened to me when I first got Natasha, except in that case the gear seized somehow and sheared off instead.

I got the adapter gear off and thanked my lucky stars I'd overtaxed the alternator with the Christmas lights.  You see, the silver lining to my overtaxing the electrical system was finding a failing cotter pin.  I believe it would have been just a matter of time before the rest of the cotter pin failed, and eventually the whole gear would come loose, ruining my timing gears again!

Natasha is back to using a total loss electrical system, she's much quieter now too with the alternator out of play.  I'd not realized how noisy the damn thing was until I fired her up after putting her back together.  

Panos anyone?

I was looking over all the panoramic shots I've shot from last year and this year, looking to replace the header picture on this blog, for variety's sake if nothing else.

As I searched and found these panoramic shots, I revisited those rides in my mind and thought you might enjoy seeing them again as well.  Here you go, in no particular order. (click on the picture's caption for a link to the ride when the picture was taken, except for first picture).

 On Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park

 Overlooking Silverton on the San Juan Skyway

 Descending into the valley at the Rocky Mountain National Park

 Riding the "Oh My God" Road

 Guanella Pass

Colorado Highway 103

 Coal Creek Canyon Road

The Hairpin Turns of Lookout Mountain 

 Sunshine Mountain and Wilson Peak

 Molas Pass along the San Juan Skyway

The Uncompagre Mountains 

Pikes Peak

 Flattop Mountain on the San Juan Skyway

 Mount Princeton at the Collegiate Peaks

Sunset near the foothills 

Twilight Peak along the San Juan Skyway

Airhead Bean Cans and Fog Banks

Recently, I'd bought a used Bosch Ignition Trigger Unit from a guy on advrider.com who was parting out a 1983 BMW R80RT motorcycle.  His motorcycle had only 30K miles on it when he decided to part it out and so the ignition trigger unit or "bean can" as it is nicknamed was less "used" than Brigitta's own bean can.

You see, once you put enough miles of use on a Beemer Airhead's bean can (over 90K on Brigitta), you have to take them apart and lubricate some linkages inside.  Otherwise, you sometimes get some surging type behavior while riding at speed, very annoying.  Last year, the indie mechanic I take Brigitta to had done this and recent behavior on the part of Brigitta had led me to purchase a working spare.

The job of the bean can, is to trigger the coil's generation of electricity to the spark plugs I believe, there's a mechanism inside, which spins in conjuction with the engine's crank shaft and as it moves, another mechanism senses its travel and "triggers" a signal to the coil to do its thing.  Not sure if this entirely correct but you get the idea.

Why not a new one you ask?  Well, BMW or Bosch are really proud of this unit, and it costs well north of $500!  The cost of a used unit was $100.

This morning, I followed the manual's procedures in removing the front engine cover on Brigitta and exposing her bean can and alternator:

The bean can is the smaller can shaped object, the thing with all the wires is the alternator

 Rear view of the old bean can

Front view of the old bean can

Removal and installation are pretty straightforward, the hardest part being to disconnect the old unit from the ignition system.  It's only hard because its located in an ackward location.  Just take it slow and careful so you don't break off the locking tabs.  Make damn sure you disconnect, as it says in the manual, the battery's ground cable when removing/installing the front cover...you don't want an accidental electrical short frying your ignition system module.

The new(old) unit in place, I fired Brigitta up and checked the timing mark.  It was not right, so a slight rotation of the new bean can and I could see the timing S mark centered.  I ran the revs up to 3200 rpm and saw the Z timing mark as expected.  Cool!.  I tightened things down, buttoned her up and of course took her out for a ride.

I went to the nearby prairies which are north of the Aurora Water Reservoir and Park.  Brigitta was running a bit smoother than yesterday and running nicely by the way.  I wandered about the dirt trails and posed Brigitta as usual atop on of the small hills:

Sunny skies and Colorado Prairie

 Distant fog bank

Notice that fog bank in the picture above, I went to see if  I could get closer to it.  It was a thick fog bank rising from the water reservoir, caused by the temperatures in the low to mid 30s we were enjoying here in the east side of the Denver Metro area.

A little bit more dirt riding, along trails which occasionally showed deeply rutted channels where trucks and such had probably gotten stuck when it was muddy.  The end of the trail was a fenceline barring further progress to the reservoir itself.

I turned around, topped another small hill and posed Brigitta while we were in the fog bank itself:

Inside the fog bank

The fog bank moves on 

As you can see, the slight wind I was feeling was moving the fog right along and soon I was under sunny skies once again.  I rode back towards pavement and noted while doing so that my Brigitta's idle was a bit lower than usual.  The tachometer only registered in the 800 rpm range and while not causing issues, I knew it was suppossed to be closer to 1100 rpm.

Rode home, turned the idle stop screws 1/4 turn inward, now she idled closer to 1000 rpm.  A quick followup ride and she was just fine and dandy.  It'll take more riding to see if swapping out beancans will eliminate the surging I'd experienced.  The behavior is very random you see, some days you get it, some you don't.

Now I can see if I can do the linkage lubrication myself or have it completely rebuilt for about $150, still much cheaper than a new unit.

Hope you got some riding in today.....