On Patrol with Uncle Blasto

Christmas Holidays, 2000

Just before Christmas Raceway Motors delivered Uncle Blasto's new Ural Patrol. Raceway's owner, Jim Petitti, trailered it from Salem to his door, driving up the Gorge in a snowstorm. Talk about service!

Uncle (Ed) Blasto could hardly contain himself...

He called me at work. Come lunch time, I met him at the parking lot of St.Mary's to play in the snow.

You can hardly complain about UDF (Ural Delay Factor) when you are just going in circles anyway. We hadn't been there 5 minutes before Uncle Blasto had a cute Catholic Girl ensconced in his sidecar!

When the weekend came we took the Patrol into the mountains to see what 2 wheel-drive could do in the snow. Ed kindly let me take a turn behind the handlebars.

I quickly switched back to monkey to let Ed play with his new toy.

We headed up Neal Creek Canyon, above my house. It looked like just one truck had been up there, probably a couple of days before...

The snow got deeper as we climbed along the tributaries that feed into Neal Creek.

It had been snowing off and on all week, with freezing rain mixed in. We rode in the jeep ruts, the snow over the foot pegs and topped with an icy crust.

The driven sidecar wheel was proving it's worth, but the handling was "quirky" at best. The rig would sway, compressing first the sidecar suspension, causing the sidecar wheel to bite and shoot the rig to the left. Then we would wallow over and compress the bikes suspension, unloading the sidecar wheel and letting the bike's rear wheel to dig in, pushing us to the right. We found ourselves swerving erratically up the hill. It was a little unnerving, on such a slick surface and with a drop off at the the road's edge...

The passenger could compensate somewhat by shifting their weight . Eventually we decided that it handled best with me on the back seat of the bike. This settled the suspension down so it didn't wallow so much and gave the rear tire more traction. The down side was it made the rig less stable. Normally you want the passenger in the sidecar to keep it down in right turns and so bumps don't pop it up in the air. We were going slow enough cornering wasn't much of an issue but I still needed to remain alert and shift my weight over the sidecar when we hit a bump or the road was off camber. When we bounced out of the jeep tracks, the icy crust atop the snow would sweep our feet off the pegs and try to cut us off at the ankles. It added an certain element to the experience...

You can see the look of concentration on Uncle Blasto's face!

Near the top of the ridge we stopped for a smoke and a snack. We'd packed some jerky, cheese and crackers and a thermos of hot cocoa. It had been snowing most of the way up. Let me tell you, wrapping my fingers around that cup of hot chocolate sure felt good!

Check out that two wheel drive unit! That is one robust hunk of metal!

After a short break, we headed up over the top of the ridge...

...back down through the clouds into Pinemont Canyon

If you look closely you can see the ravens flying escort for us down the canyon...

Back at the the barn Uncle Blasto discovered the rubber cush drive had come adrift.

A little discouraging on a new bike, but we zip-tied the metal ring away from the driveshaft and he was able to ride it home without problem.

Using a bunch of silicone spray and some swearing we were able to force the rubber center back into the metal ring so he had a spare. The Ural has a truly wonderful warranty and Ed had a new drive donut within a week.

All in all, it was a fun ride and a graphic demonstration of just how well these vehicles can handle adverse conditions!

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