A Safe, Healthy, Happy New Year to All!

 

Late to the party, as usual!

Happy New Year, boys!

Jan 3 is an odd date for us. Not only is it our anniversary, it is our 2nd daughter's birthday.

Damn winter is killing me worse than usual this year. It's actually been fairly mild, so it's not that its been horrible. I'm just bugging to get out on the bike something fierce.

Calendar is slowly creeping toward spring...

 

Seems like once or twice a week it’s the roads safe enough to ride not so much at night time during the day here in Indiana north

 

Looks like some of the dirt/gravel farm roads not far from me. I'd ride them in light snow with a Ural sidecar rig I have, but I'd never get rid of the rust even one good salt soak would do to it here, and there's always a lot of it in winter.

 

I had a dnper w sidecar long ago 500 cc what a handful lol

 

1930's technology for the most part. Ural got bought out by an American even though they're still made in Russia, and he's making changes, buying a lot of parts from other countries to update them. The Brembo front brake is great of course, but the rest of it is pretty crude. A used one used to be a cheap way to find out if you would like a sidecar, but they're getting more expensive than they're worth, in my opinion. You can get a decent used Harley and a new American made sidecar for the price of a new Ural, and have a much better rig. Ural advertises as an off road capable sidecar rig, but I tried mine once on some fairly easy off road and won't do that again, rides so rough it beats the heck out of you.

 

The dnper I was talking about was told to me the story it came in Canada in the 50s with a bunch of Russian farm machines..the motor was rebuilt with Mercedes-Benz bearings before I got it .. When I bought it about 20 years ago could be more now there was a car battery sitting in the side car seat you hooked it up and that’s how it ran. I had to learn basic Russian color code or color word I had to rewire the bike it was a fun bike except it had no brakes on there sidecar
I eventually sold it to a fellow that had a son that was in a wheelchair and he wanted to ride his son around the neighborhood,,,

 

Pal of mine bought a new Ural outfit back in the 1960s. Just it well it had a sidecar, as the tool kit it came with included engine spares in a large wooden crate and weighed a ton! It had every workshop tool necessary to do every job imaginable and would have required a car trip to collect, if the bike had been a solo!

 

Both my '98 and '07 Urals have a pretty good tool kit but no spare parts. Urals train riders to be mechanics. . At least the carb years are pretty simple to work on. My '98 needs a new alternator and wire harness, been sitting a few years now. The '07 has been the most reliable bike of the 9 I have, but I still don't take it out of trailer range. Haven't put 1000 kilometers on it in a year yet, not many miles over 80kph. I need to sell the '07 this year, both my later acquired Honda and Harley sidecar rigs are far better in every respect. A Canadian was going to take a new Ural from Canada to Patagonia and back starting over a year ago, and it broke down a few times before getting to Nevada, where he had it put in a car crusher and compacted. Talk about hating a bike... Here's the Ural crush:

 

Winter finally decided to get serious these last few days.



Every morning, I stare longingly at my bikes, waiting for spring.

Did take my oldest grandson down to the range today. Sending 50 rounds downrange through an AR-15 warmed us up a bit.