Sorry for you guys in the snow!

[Larrym]

Next to the Can/Us border here it was like this last week:



Now I'd need a snorkel extension on my bike's airbox and a wetsuit cause it hasn't stopped raining.

TC, the glaciers aren't gone. They've just changed form and are now dropping on my head everytime I go outside....

[CatatonicBug]

TC, the glaciers aren't gone. They've just changed form and are now dropping on my head everytime I go outside....

I was gonna say, they should change the name of the place to Puddle National Park.

[Jerry]

Group ride

You guys/gals are missing out. Having fun in the winter is not that hard. Here is a photo taken yesterday (Jan 18, 2009) of our snowmobile group riding on the Flattops near Rifle, Colorado. My RX-1 is on the near end.

Elevation of the ridge behind us - Blair Mountain - is 10,740 feet.
It was a great day to be out. FWIW, the day before (Saturday, Jan 17) temps at my place were in the '40s (deg F) so I took the XJ out for a 60 mile spin. "Course, elevation there is only about 4,850 feet...

[Toolmaker Tim]

Tooo Cooold!

Last week it was -19 with a wind chill of - 42. Couldn't even warm up the man cave enough to work out there on my daughters Wrangler. The Indiana Troll Road was ALL black ice, as was the local bypass. Salt wasn't working, and neither were the brains of the local drivers. My sister got caught by 2 trucks playing wrinkle fender. Her little Grand Prix was between a salt truck and a 4x4 pickup. Some guy barrel rolled his Blazer about a mile further on. The cops left it on the other side of the ditch in plain sight as an example. I mentioned it to SWMBO after she came down the same road and her reply was "What red Blazer?" Guess it's not working

[thewiz]

Amen to the ATGATT, XSPastor ..

Like Tusler, I'm tempted myself sometimes by an unknown spirit who urges me to ride during the near perfect riding weather we have been enjoying for the last 10 days without all the gear, but I don't listen. No need to recount my own untimely encounters with the pavement previously chronicled here .

Planedick ... Hemet's a great town and a fun ride down R-3, the corner near my old house out in Aguanga. Go there ... PLUS ... they have a Harbor Freight and a good casino too

Jerry, If I were still out there, I want one of THOSE .... never been on one but it looks like a kick .... that one looks fast!!

[Jerry]

The secret to life is enjoying the passage of time.

I enjoy the summer by riding my XJ or 4-wheeling with my Scout II. In winter I enjoy the outdoors by snowmobiling. I like living in a place that gives me different options.

I've had the RX-1 up to about 75 mph, whith throttle left, suspect the top end is over 100 but will have to find a long, flat frozen lake to see for sure. Most of the riding is not about speed, it is hill climbing, side-hilling (cutting across the face of a hill) and generally playing in the snow. In the group pictured above there are 2 ladies, so the sport is not just for guys.

I rarely have problems with the roads. In fact I had more problems in the Portland (Oregon) area with black ice than with my commute here in Colorado. Not that there are not bad times - I-70 West was closed a couple times two weeks ago due to conditions - but I've always made it to and from work (56 miles each way) even if I was a little late some times.

So you guys keep going on about your year-round riding and temps that never drop below 45 deg F, in the meantime I'll be out busting snowdrifts and having fun with a group of fellow snowmobilers up on some mountain meadow in Colorado.

[ScottsXS]

dont be sorry i have a sled so that i can still get my ridin in

[DJinNH]

Won't be riding the bike anytime soon here in New England.





Don (NH)

[rpgoerlich]

Loved the snow and ice growing up in MI, had plenty of toys!
Working in it was a different story...
Here's recap of MI winter temps :

65°

Floridians turn on the heat.
People in Michigan plant gardens.

60°

Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Michigan sunbathe.

50°

Italian & English cars won't start.
People in Michigan drive with the windows down..

40°

Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.
People in Michigan throw on a flannel shirt.

35°

New York landlords finally turn up the heat.
People in Michigan have the last cookout before it gets cold.

20°

People in Miami all die.
Michiganders close the windows.

0°

Californians fly away to Mexico .
People in Michigan get out their winter coats.

–10°

Hollywood disintegrates.
The Girl Scouts in Michigan are selling cookies door to door.

–20°

Washington DC runs out of hot air.
People in Michigan let the dogs sleep indoors.

–30°

Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Michiganders get upset because they can't start the Snow-mobile.

–40°

ALL atomic motion stops .
People in Michigan start saying...'Cold enough fer ya?'

–50°

Hell freezes over.
Michigan public schools will open 2 hours late.

[Ken Talbot]

Ah yes, time for the obligatory winter shots of my driveway:





We haven't had any new snow in the last 2 weeks, but we did get a short mild spell with a bit of rain to beat the depth down quite a bit. The city crews finally got down our street with the big blower to carve back the banks so they are now more or less back to the edge of the paved surface.

[DenyP]

I sure can't top the previous posts. It is -4 here in Staples, Minnesota. I drove 30 miles in my cage to Brainerd (the nearest town with stuff) to buy some carb cleaner spray and a can of carb soak so I can go through the carbs on my XS850 - "The winter project" It really sucks to live where it gets so cold./ My only counter is that this is some awsom contry to ride in in the other seasons! I keep telling myself this.........

Deny

[TopCatGr58]

Not to hijack this thread, but just wanted to make sure that DenyP knows that you don't want to soak the ENTIRE carb bodies in cleaner, lest you will damage the butterfly shaft seals! Soak any metal parts you remove from the carbs, but not the entire carb up to or beyond the shaft seals!

I now return you to your previously "cool" thread!
T.C.

[Phill the strat]

Ah yes, time for the obligatory winter shots of my driveway:

<snip>.

G'day Ken, long time no hear......
I remember you posting a pix (only probably 12 years ago maybe) of a frozen waterfall, great pix BTW...dunno if you actually climbed the waterfall (think there was some talk of that)...but brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr it sure reminds me why I traveled to the colonies from pommyland wayyy back in '72.

Played tennis last Saturday (as normal, but we all petered away from the courts at 16:00 cos it was a bit on the warm side). Beryl Beemer (yeppp still have Beryl Beemer (K1200LT), who will be 10 years old this September, and has 175,000kms on the clock)....anyway Beryl has an ambient temp gauge on the on-board computer...started Beryl up and the temp reading was 48.5 DEG C.........

(Still have "The Tardis" ....sat there upstairs on the 3rd floor....as a piece of "furniture"/conversation topic. Had Tardis on the road for 21 years ('78-'99) and clocked up 194,000kms, Beryl is gonna surpass The Tardis in probably 18 months, aged 11 and 1/2 years).

Did I say it was a bit warm???

ok, travel down the road a couple hundred metres and get some air across the sensor, and it stabilized at 44 deg C

did I say it was a bit warm??, I meant to say it was friggin hot....no wonder I had to keep taking my tennis shoes off, my feet were cooking on the court...

Do I envy you your snow, cold, wet, cold, slippery, cold white stuff, ...let me take a nanosec to think about it..Nah!

The Oz tennis Open is on this week/last week, have no idea how those guys/gals can play in such heat....but there again they are 30-40 years younger, and one Oz being only 16. ahhhhhhhhh such is life.

cheers

Phill

[DenyP]

Thanks TC! I had wondered why the processes posted used spray cans when I went through the carbs on the TimeMachine! Now I know!

Deny

[Ken Talbot]

Hey, Phill, good to hear from you again. Though you might have dropped off the edge of the earth down there.

Took me a bit of looking, but I found a few photos in the archives at our old Yahoo site:





I'm sure there's lots of folks here have never seen these, let alone remember the Yahoo incarnation!