Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
It started snowing pretty hard last night, to the point that there was two and a half inches of snow on my deck. I went to bed certain I would work from home today, which I did. Sort of. I discovered half-way through the day that the one critical app I needed to use simply wouldn't work from home, over a slow VPN line.
So, I saddled up the sidecar rig, and headed out. The roads were effectively clear when I left today, and I felt a bit silly driving my big moto-behemoth down the clear roads. I should have ridden a bicycle! Oh well.
I had an errand downtown this evening, and got back out to the sidecar at about 7. Suddenly, having the big, stable sidecar rig was looking pretty good. Snow was heaving down out of the sky at quite a pace. Even downtown, it was starting to stick, which meant that 100 blocks to the north (where I live), it would certainly be sticking, probably on the road in a fairly unsafe manner.
I got myself rolling, snow flitting past me like confetti. No problems so far. I rolled out of downtown and onto Aurora, a major street, somewhere between a four-lane suburban road and a freeway. Still no problems... but, what's that? The engine stumbled a bit, and I rolled on the throttle to clear it. Phew. No, it's stumbling again.
Oh, right, carb ice. That is, conditions were right such that ice was probably accumulating around the intake of the engine, slowly choking off the flow of air and fuel, gradually reducing power. In airplanes, there's an easy way to fix that -- you pull the lever marked "carb heat" and wait until the scary stumbling stops. On a motorcycle, there is no such thing, so I did the next best thing, and resolutely pressed forward.
Fortunately, my intended route (Kristin had reported that going up hills around my house was a total mess as people slid out on the ice) took me off the major street a few hundred yards before a solid-looking wall of traffic started. I traversed my carefully-plotted, hill-free route. Still not bad, and the engine had stopped stumbling. Hooray for small favors.
At 80th, I suddenly found a Taco Del Mar burrito incredibly enticing, so I peered up the hill, and decided it was worth it. I turned up 80th, and up probably the steepest hill in that area. No problem.
Burrito successfully in hand, I turned into another wall of traffic on Greenwood Ave, and dropped down into residential streets again. I wasn't moving fast (there was slush on the road, and I couldn't tell if it was really slush, or rapidly freezing into ice), but I probably got home way faster than if I'd stuck to main roads.
On the way, around 90-somethingth, I looked to the right, down a very slight hill, and spied a presumably-4WD truck nose-first into a ditch. I found myself chuckling inside my helmet. I despise those drivers who seem to think that four wheel drive somehow equates with perfect traction on snow or ice. Really, really not the case. I wasn't happy at the truck driver's bad luck, but I hoped he (for it was almost certainly a man) learned a little lesson. Those drivers are incredibly dangerous for everyone else, since they also seem to think that 4WD equals perfect traction for braking, too.
A few minutes later, and I was home. No problem. One wheel drive, three-wheeled sidecar-thing vehicle beats 4WD truck! I didn't ever slip, unless I was intending to (I really had to restrain myself from trying out a 360° bat-turn on the slippery road). I did one brake test to determine how much braking traction I had (not much) and a couple of throttle-goosings to see how much acceleration traction I had (about the same, maybe less). So I stuck with about 15 MPH (25 MPH speed limit normally on this residential street) as a maximum speed, and slowed for intersections.
If only everyone else would be so careful.
Posted at 20:13 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater