Howdy!
In my LAST childhood (a couple of years ago), with no biking experience whatever I got myself a Russian Ural motorcycle, and went through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s class to learn to ride it RIGHT… by this time, I’ve gotten too fond of staying alive to go any other way.
To make it a bit more interesting, the bike is a sidecar rig… a 2000 model Ural “Bavarian Classic”.
These bikes are essentially a Stalinist era product; in the late 1930s, Uncle Joe was impressed by Hitler’s “Motor Rifle” troops who rode around in BMW sidecar rigs. The story goes that NKVD smuggled three BMW R-60 bikes into the USSR and reverse engineered them. They made changes to make the BMW clones easier and cheaper to manufacture, as well as changes to make them more suitable for the Russian environment.
The bikes were made for the Soviet army right up until the collapse of the USSR. Later, in the Russian Republic the factory reopened, the bikes were changed to make them street and EPA legal, and they began exporting them to the US and other places.
In the meantime… tapped into my old high school experience in working on Volkswagen engines; there’s not a whole lot of difference between a Ural 650 cc Boxer and half a VW engine! <> These are bikes meant to be maintained by the owner, not taken back to the dealership when something breaks. In fact… in the sidecar trunk they still include a Soviet Army issue tool kit, tire pump, and most everything else you need to keep it running in the field.
It’s no crotch rocket, and that’s fine with me. It’s just a bike for bopping down 2 lanes and country dirt roads; tops out at about 60 MPH while carrying my fat ass (250 pounds), and an Irish Setter in the sidecar!
Mr. T., aka Road Name GAVNO,
Member, Russian Iron Motorcycle Club
