The Ochocos: Just Getting Warmed Up!

The Ural was loaded and ready by 6:00.  The hope was to make it through Portland before morning traffic got too bad.  This would be its first overnight journey.  More significantly, it would be my first attempt at piloting the new three-wheeler all day, for multiple days!  The issue is that it takes considerably more effort to muscle around corners than a two-wheeler.  Upper arm strength has never been my forte, so a large part of the purpose of this trip was to determine if my plan for a two-week trip to the Arctic was at all feasible.

No, it's not red.  But for some unknown reason, it normally appears more red than orange in photos.  Either way, it looks rather fetching, I think.

Another objective of the trip was to continue what has now become an annual outing with my good friend Dan, whom I met while living in Utah nearly two decades ago.  We met up at his place, just south of the city, and immediately headed up the pass near Mount Hood.

A third reason for this mini adventure was to confirm that the relatively low horsepower, outdated motor could really handle 10 hours or so of highway operation - not to mention all the other systems of this rather mechanically complicated vehicle.

By the time we reached this rest area at the top, only 150 miles from home, it looked like that last objective was already being met - and not in a positive way!

The Ural climbed the mountain fairly strongly, albeit not quite at the speed of a lot of the traffic.  As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, however, it began to sputter and the engine light came on!  Thinking perhaps it had overheated, and hoping to avoid permanent damage, I immediately turned off the motor.

After stretching our legs a bit, and grabbing a drink and a snack, I switched it on again.  But the menacing red light remained.  It was idling better though, so I pulled away and Dan followed.  I didn't make it far.

Just before turning onto the highway, it died completely.  I was able to coast off to the side, and Dan and I began to assess the situation.  The last thing I had told my wife was that I wasn't really worried about the bike.  If it broke down and I couldn't figure it out, Dan would.  And if he couldn't, that's what tow trucks are for.

Fortunately, the middle scenario is what played out up on that mountain.  Once we figured out that the right cylinder was not firing (due to an observed temperature difference between the two exhaust pipes) Dan noticed a rubber grommet that had gotten wedged under the throttle cable, preventing proper delivery of fuel to that cylinder.  I'm pointing it out in the above photo.

Once that tiny piece of rubber was freed, slid up the cable, and reattached to the end of the threaded mount, the engine fired up again and ran much better!  It wasn't quite perfect, but perfection had never really been a design goal of the Russians who first copied the pre-war BMW motor to put into their sidecar rigs back in 1941.  This particular one is brand new, and a few improvements have been made over the decades since then.  But it is still primarily an old-tech design.

What the Ural lacks in modern performance, it makes up for in style and character.  At least that's what the brochure says!  By the end of this two-day, 600-mile trip, I'll probably have my own opinion fairly well formed.

This time, we both pulled out successfully onto the highway and began our descent into central Oregon.  Going down was certainly easier on the motor, and full posted limit speeds were certainly achievable.  The trick was keeping it on the road.  The faster it goes, the harder it is to turn!