- Joined
- May 28, 2022
- Messages
- 403
Winter is here. It started snowing last Friday. It's now Tuesday. The plow guy came yesterday morning and we'll need him again before the day is out. The 2-wheel-drive car is going nowhere soon. I broke the snow shovel yesterday. Fortunately I have two backups in the shed.
I really wasn't done riding for the season. This year much of it was doing errands, what with nearly $6 gas much of the summer. At least that's what I told myself, and my wife. She agreed it was fine. Now, though, gas is still well north of $4/gal, and the 4x4 Suburban rarely breaks out of the single digits gas mileage-wise.
I remember reading Brian Slark's accounts of road testing new machines around London whatever the weather. I commuted in slushy snow about seven miles each way and staying upright and out of harm's way while competing with the cages. But, still I wonder about those London road-testers out in it several times a day on new machines. What tires were they fitted with? How did those blokes stay upright? If you scratched one did you keep your job?
I have a couple of machines that might do OK in snow. The Matchless scrambler already has suitable tires. The BMW has a charging system that can power my electric vest and a fairing and a lap apron and I have pogies to put on it but the road tires are outdated. Maybe I'm nuts to ride country roads in winter but there's the challenge of it. And then cold snow isn't really that slick now is it.
You Canadians ride in winter right? Put your hands down you Vancouverites you don't count. That's just Seattle with less daylight and good government (so they claim). How bout our Nordic, Swiss and German friends? Helge Pedersen (Ten Years on Two Wheels) recounts being threatened with arrest by endangering the public for riding his BMW in a snowstorm near Denali in Alaska. He continued on south to Anchorage anyway. Weather had turned him back from his attempt to reach Prudhoe Bay in late October. He's the guy who canoed his BMW GS across the Darian gap and wanted a record for the entire hiway route from Patagonia to the North Slope of Alaska. Then there was the London bicycle courier who rode her fat-tire push bike from Anchorage to Seattle, leaving Anchorage Jan 2. I met her when she reached Port Townsend, Washington in March. Both she and Helge camped along the way. She is way tougher than I was even at her age. Cold was her problem. The Alcan highway truckers kept tabs on her by CB radio and brought her hot coffee if they saw a light in the tent. She snapped an aluminum seat post at Telegraph B.C. or was it Hyder. I forget which is on the American side. Tough. Likewise Helge Pedersen. At least the two guys who scouted the Alcan Highway in the late thirties on BSA singles had the good sense to leave Anchorage in early spring. Not that they didn't run into snow but moose were the bigger problem, not to mention raft building. Then Elspeth Beard nearly froze, she wrote, in '83 on her trip across the Alps on return from a two-plus year epic journey when she had been dressed for Iran and Turkey (you can only carry so much stuff). Her goal was to make London in time for Christmas. No TGV in those days.
But I just propose to go to the grocery store a few miles away. Admittedly the half mile down to the mailboxes could be a challenge. Rear brake only! Well, maybe a wee dab at the front from time to time. But what tires would be suitable, I have some spare K-70s lying around but no 21 inchers, which I'd need for the Matchless. It has a block-tread dual sport Contenental on front and some K-70 like Avenger on rear. I'm favoring the Matchless despite no provision for electric vest. If Beard can negotiate the Alps dressed for Iran I can get to the grocery with my Paris Dakar coat and snowmobile gloves. But then, she wasn't in her 70s. Still isn't.
The forecast is for bitter overnight cold. I'd better go plug in the Suburban's block heater.
I really wasn't done riding for the season. This year much of it was doing errands, what with nearly $6 gas much of the summer. At least that's what I told myself, and my wife. She agreed it was fine. Now, though, gas is still well north of $4/gal, and the 4x4 Suburban rarely breaks out of the single digits gas mileage-wise.
I remember reading Brian Slark's accounts of road testing new machines around London whatever the weather. I commuted in slushy snow about seven miles each way and staying upright and out of harm's way while competing with the cages. But, still I wonder about those London road-testers out in it several times a day on new machines. What tires were they fitted with? How did those blokes stay upright? If you scratched one did you keep your job?
I have a couple of machines that might do OK in snow. The Matchless scrambler already has suitable tires. The BMW has a charging system that can power my electric vest and a fairing and a lap apron and I have pogies to put on it but the road tires are outdated. Maybe I'm nuts to ride country roads in winter but there's the challenge of it. And then cold snow isn't really that slick now is it.
You Canadians ride in winter right? Put your hands down you Vancouverites you don't count. That's just Seattle with less daylight and good government (so they claim). How bout our Nordic, Swiss and German friends? Helge Pedersen (Ten Years on Two Wheels) recounts being threatened with arrest by endangering the public for riding his BMW in a snowstorm near Denali in Alaska. He continued on south to Anchorage anyway. Weather had turned him back from his attempt to reach Prudhoe Bay in late October. He's the guy who canoed his BMW GS across the Darian gap and wanted a record for the entire hiway route from Patagonia to the North Slope of Alaska. Then there was the London bicycle courier who rode her fat-tire push bike from Anchorage to Seattle, leaving Anchorage Jan 2. I met her when she reached Port Townsend, Washington in March. Both she and Helge camped along the way. She is way tougher than I was even at her age. Cold was her problem. The Alcan highway truckers kept tabs on her by CB radio and brought her hot coffee if they saw a light in the tent. She snapped an aluminum seat post at Telegraph B.C. or was it Hyder. I forget which is on the American side. Tough. Likewise Helge Pedersen. At least the two guys who scouted the Alcan Highway in the late thirties on BSA singles had the good sense to leave Anchorage in early spring. Not that they didn't run into snow but moose were the bigger problem, not to mention raft building. Then Elspeth Beard nearly froze, she wrote, in '83 on her trip across the Alps on return from a two-plus year epic journey when she had been dressed for Iran and Turkey (you can only carry so much stuff). Her goal was to make London in time for Christmas. No TGV in those days.
But I just propose to go to the grocery store a few miles away. Admittedly the half mile down to the mailboxes could be a challenge. Rear brake only! Well, maybe a wee dab at the front from time to time. But what tires would be suitable, I have some spare K-70s lying around but no 21 inchers, which I'd need for the Matchless. It has a block-tread dual sport Contenental on front and some K-70 like Avenger on rear. I'm favoring the Matchless despite no provision for electric vest. If Beard can negotiate the Alps dressed for Iran I can get to the grocery with my Paris Dakar coat and snowmobile gloves. But then, she wasn't in her 70s. Still isn't.
The forecast is for bitter overnight cold. I'd better go plug in the Suburban's block heater.
