First snow for the season, still no Natasha....but I did ride.

Yesterday's rain/snow mix resulted in about an inch of snow accumulation on the grassy areas of the neighborhood and not much of anything that I could see from my garage door.  That is, a nice icy cover of frozen snow on my driveway.

Normally, I would have laughed it off and fired up Natasha, my Ural Sidecar rig and ridden off to work at the normal time.

Sadly, she's still in the shop, waiting for some part.  I am told it's inbound (again) and maybe they'll even send the right part.  I am not so confident anymore and refuse to have my hopes dashed once again.

So, I decided to work from home, doing a bit of telecommuting.  But before the day started for me, a little bit of shovel work, along with a special tool for chipping away at ice and finally a bit of snow melt salt, and I had me a path out to the dry cul-de-sac:

As expected, the roads in the neighborhood and the main roads were dry though there was the occassional wet looking spot in the shade that made one wonder.  These I managed to avoid, for the most part, or made sure to just cross while making no turning maneuvers.  It was a short ride as the sun had barely been up an hour and had not done its magic.

As I worked the rest of the morning, dutifully I might add, I could hear the snow melting off the roof and making noises as it fell off the roof edges.

Lunch time came about and I headed out once more to truly dry roads and bright sunshine.  It was a balmy 29°F as I rode to the Beemer dealer to have my battery checked out.  You see, as I went to start the R80 Beemer I call Brigitta yesterday afternoon, she balked.  Mind you, it was hailing lightly and the clouds were fearsomely dark and the wind was waiting to snatch me up into the sky.  No pressure.

Oscar, my co-worker friend came to the rescue with jumper cables, I got Brigitta going and got home only mildly wet and slight chilled.  I thought my battery was just too old.

So there I am at the dealer and they graciously broke out the tester and hooked it up to Brigitta, the battery was pronouced "good".   Hmmmm.  They did suggest that I change out the oil as I was still running the 20W50 oil for the summer.  I had been planning to do this in about 1000 miles but elected to do it this afternoon.

It's good that I did!  I found the rubber donut seal had been slightly damaged by the metal o-ring type disk and hence the slight oil leakage I'd been trying to figure out lately.

The oil has now been changed, the battery is all charged up.  So of course we're expected to wake up to 1-2 inches of snow tomorrow, Thursday, Veteran's Day.  Sigh, I really miss Natasha.

Changing weather at the Georgetown Loop Railroad Park

Oh the things I find myself doing to make Mr Jack Riepe happy.  He'd strongly requested a blog posting about the Georgetown Loop Rail Road, which I'd briefly mentioned in this post:  LINK

So today I left the Denver Metro area shortly before 10:00 AM under sunny skies and temperatures in the high 50s with a steady wind.  I was near Georgetown about an hour later and parked Brigitta in the Georgetown Loop Railroad's Devil's Gate train station.  I had arrived just in time in seems, as the 10:30 train had been delayed by a boulder on the tracks.

One's first view of the train carrying passengers on the loop, 

a few minutes after it departs the station at Devil's Gate.

There's the train, chugging slowly across the elevated track that

makes it so famous a tourist attraction

I then saddled up and got on the westbound slab of I-70, heading mistakenly towards the Bakersville exit because I thought there was a view of a different portion of the elevated track used by the trains back in the day of gold and silver mines.

The winds really picked up in speed as I neared Bakersville and all I could see was a dark, solid gray cloud coming my way.  The winds were hitting Brigitta and I head on and making life "interesting", then it started to rain which quickly turned to snow.  I started having flashbacks to the time back in June of 2008 when right about the same spot on I-70, I went down due to ice.  Not good.

Frequently wiping the ice building up on my helmet visor, I made it to the Bakersville exit and crossed over I-70 on the overpass.  It was snowing quite steadily now though it was not sticking to the road so far.  I rode past a State Trooper in an unmarked unit and he did a double-take when he saw me, can't say I blame him for that.

Thought about using the frontage road to make my way back to Georgetown but I soon found it covered in a light layer of snow, again, not good.

Made my way slowly back to the eastbound slab of I-70 and basically rode the shoulder of the road at about 30 MPH while traffic passed me on the highway going much faster.  I guess they didn't have to worry about ice buildup or didn't know better.

Soon I'd lost enough elevation that it quit snowing and it was just raining.  The thermometer on Brigitta was reading 34°F though so things were still a bit too "interesting" for me.  I got off at the Georgetown exit and used frontage roads all the way to the US40/Empire exit. I stopped there to don my wet weather pants and for this shot of the "soup" I had left behind me:

That was some thick soupy weather back there!

I kept riding and soon found myself east of Idaho Springs and in bright sunshine!  I looked back towards the west and damn if I didn't see clear blue skies!  I was reminded of a saying here in Colorado:  "If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes, it'll change".  Today, was one of those days that proved that saying.

So I said the heck with it and turned back towards Bakersville to try  and capture the shot I'd seen while riding by on the highway.  It was a bit brisk up there but the roads were drying up nicely as I motored towards Bakersville.  The strong winds were still in evidence though.

I went past the Bakersville exit, thinking the view of the Railroad Loop was west of the Bakersville exit.  I used exit 218 which exists apparently to provide a turnaround point for traffic on I-70 as there's nothing else there.  A little bit of snow under the overpass crossed and then I stopped for these mountain views before once again heading eastbound on I-70:

 Brigitta on the frontage road that is part of exit 218 along the I-70 slab

Here she's pointed east.

A view to the west on the frontage road accessible via exit 218

Turned out that it was not at the Bakersville exit on eastbound I-70 that one sees the Georgetown Loop Railroad's elevated track but at the scenic overlook just before Georgetown!  Disappointingly, it turned out to be a view of the track that I'd shot earlier this morning!  Oh well.

 The view of the elevated track from the scenic overlook west of Georgetown

From the overlook, you can see the train crossing the creek  which I-70 borders

I was a bit tired at this point from the tense riding conditions earlier so decided to bag it for the day.  I got on the eastbound I-70 slab and with just one stop in Bergen Park for gas, rode straight for home.  I covered around 250 miles or so today, in weather that covered all seasons: Sunny, Rainy, Windy, Snowy.  Only in Colorado!

Note to Jack: I'll keep working on getting some good shots of the Georgetown Loop Railroad, today they weren't using the old locomotive as you see.

No Natasha yet and a ride in the DTC

Rotten news today from Linden Engineering where Natasha has languished since Oct 23, waiting for parts.  The Ural factory itself didn't have the part needed in stock (mind you, this is the factory for crying out loud!), so Linden had ordered it from a dealer.  They managed to send the wrong part (the part in question, part of the rocker arm assembly, is "handed").  In fact, I've my doubts at this point the part is available, though Linden continues to try.

I had work to do in the Denver Tech Center or DTC, its part time work that I do on the side to support my motorcycling "habit".  My loving wife gets a bit weird when I even think about spending money from the kid's college funds for motorcycle stuff.  : )

The work involved backups and there was a brief 30 minute interval where I could leave things running and get some photos of the mountains, from the perspective of the DTC.  I hope you like them.

Here's Brigitta facing the entrance to a park in the DTC

A closeup of the Arch, with the Rocky Mountains in the background

A view of the front range mountains from a parking lot in the DTC

When I got back to the job site, there was still 20 minutes of backups to go so I timed things just right.  After a total of three hours on the job, it was time to put things away and ride home.  Not much riding today, had to work on financing the habit you know.  I hope to get a longer ride in tomorrow, depends on how much snow is reported in the mountains.

Coldest ride yet and no heated grips.....

Yesterday's commute in to work was in the coldest temperatures so far this Fall riding season.

The thermometer on Brigitta, my '87 R80 Beemer read 25.7 °F and at the fastest portion of my commute, Colfax Avenue, I am usually going about 65-70 MPH.

The windchill calculator I use, tells me I was at 2.84 °F during this time, and I must admit it felt pretty cold on my hands.

You see, even though I had my deerskin, thinsulate lined, gauntlet gloves on....I had discovered my heated grips weren't working that morning.  (Turned out to be a loose connection at the switch).

Easy fix and I am glad the ride to work is only 12 miles or so.

And yet, it beats driving a cage, oh and the ride in today was in the low 40s but those heated grips felt really nice.  : )