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Why a Ural?
by Ed Paynter
Originally I purchased mine as a winter bike. :)
Most of us have seen movies of the WWII sidecar rigs rolling along snow covered roads. That's my first memories of sidecars and my first motivation to buy one....a snow bike, something to safely ride when the roads were unsafe on 2 wheels.
And they do great in the snow!! Think of the Ural as a motorcycle, ATV, and snowmobile rolled into one fun machine. Granted, it may not perform as well in any one role as the real McCoy but it is an excellent compromise between the three and is street legal!!
I bought my 2WD Patrol in November of 2000. The bike was named Oksana after Russian figure skater, Oksana Baiul.
At first, I was cautious with the Ural. I had heard they were old technology and needed more maintenance than most modern bikes. I had heard that about 55mph was top end and that pushing them too hard would result in a seized engine or worse....a broken crank. So the Ural was broken in carefully....no lugging, no over revving, constantly varied speeds, and lots of stop and go for the first 2500km.
I used the Ural as a work bike, commuting to the school where I work, a ride of about 80 kilometers (50 miles) per day. The kids at school loved it! I actually enjoyed the ride to work each day! In all my years of riding, never had I seen so many smiling faces on the road. And I found a renewed sense of joy in falling snow......the Ural made snow days fun again! I began looking forward to falling snow! With good cold weather gear, a Ural is a very capable snow vehicle.... for snows up to 8" (very deep snow can be a problem for them but is still fun as long as you don't have somewhere to go!)
With time and experience, I gradually realized the Ural was very tough and much more capable than I had originally thought! Not only could it reach speeds of 65-70mph, if properly maintained and operated with some common sense, it could run for hours at these speeds. Running the Ural at high speeds did not seem to bother the rugged opposed twin engine, but the original alternators supplied on the early bikes were sensitive to the vibrations of high speed running and some owners have had problems with these, especially when operated at Interstate speeds for prolonged periods of time. IMZ, the manufacturer, has always reacted promptly to any
problems the owners reported with the bikes and is now contracting with NipponDenso, one of the world's leading suppliers of automotive alternators, to produce a retrofitable alternator that is supplied as standard equipment on all current production bikes. IMWA (the American
importer) and IMZ (the Russian manufacturer) are both very concerned with owner feedback and maintain a website with owner forum to assist the owners and serve as feedback for quality control issues. Many improvements to the bikes (and even a few new models!) have been the result of this dynamic 3 cornered factory/distributor/owner interaction.....a support model other brands might be wise to take note of?
Before long, my "winter bike" had become my favorite year round bike. By March of 2001, with about 8000km on the engine, Oksana made her first Interstate road trip.....down I95 to Daytona Beach, Florida for Bike Week, a ride of about 600 miles from Greensboro, NC. Typically the ride takes about 12-14 hours, depending on weather and traffic. Oksana has now made
that trip to Daytona Beach for 4 consecutive years (and winning trophies in the Hack'd sponsored Bike Week Sidecar/Trike Shows for the last two years.)
Without ever really intending to, I had become a proponent of long distance riding on a Ural. As the Ural held up to increasingly longer rides, I began pushing it harder and longer. Hardened by the daily rides to work, the bike performed so well and was so reliable; I reached a point where I was not afraid to take off on longer trips on the Ural. In 2002, I rode it from NC to Indiana to attend UralFest in the midwest, a ride of about 800 miles. After being there for the week long festivities, I made the return ride to NC in a single day.
The idea of attempting an IronButt SaddleSore 1000 (1000 miles in 24 hours) had been discussed with other riders at rallies before this, but after this ride I realized it was possible! If a Ural sidecar could complete a SS1000 ride, some of us felt it would do much to improve the public image of reliability and endurance of Urals in general.
Plans were made, some modifications were installed and in April of 2003, I was ready to go. Oksana had completed just over 910 miles in 18 hours when a lean fuel condition occurred that burned a hole in the right piston. the ride was over less than 100 miles from completion. The
rebuild took several months, but I knew all along that as soon as the engine was broken in, we would try again.
Almost exactly 11 months later, we tried again.
On March 25, 2004, we left Reidsville, NC at about 8:15pm, rode south to Atlanta, Georgia, then to Ocala, Florida, east to Daytona Beach and then south to Delray Beach, arriving there at a little after 7:00pm on the 26th. The ride was documented and witnessed and has now been approved by the Iron Butt Association.....
Oksana became the first Ural sidecar to complete an IronButt SaddleSore 1000 ride.
A little over 3 year old now, she just turned over 75000km recently. The Ural is still the only one of my bikes that my mother and my wife will ride!
I own two "bulletproof " Hondas that are wonderfully reliable machines, but there's something special about the Ural..... that old world technology, the element of risk, the fact that with the Ural, reliability has as much to with you as the owner/mechanic as it does with the bike itself.....all this brings back much of the excitement and sense of adventure from heading into the unknown....that I remember from touring on bikes in the 60s and 70s.
Every ride on a Ural is a new adventure!
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