• Gas Price Per Gallon: $3.559
• Gallons: 4.009
• Fuel Total: $14.27
• Tripmeter at fuel-up: 135km/84 miles (approx)
• Date & Time: Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008, 5:42 p.m.
• Gas Station: Jerry Brown CFN, 2690 Prairie Road, Eugene, Oregon
• Fuel: “V-Power” 91 octane (some Ural owners say they don’t go for the high-test; I respect their opinions, but for my money, I’m going to listen to what the manual says and pony up the extra coins per gallon)
• Note to self: At next fill-up, try to track approx. kilometer-per-gallon/ miles-per-gallon

Putt-putt-stall

I’d intended to post up something entirely different today, but this evening’s ride turned out to be very post-worthy. Read the rest of this entry »

Good press

Ural is by no means a well-known brand in the motorcycling world. That is changing every year though. Reviews such as the one below can only improve Ural’s name recognition, and further expose these unique, awesome machines to a marketplace that had no idea sidecar motorcycles were even still in production.

In Arv Voss’s December 8, 2007 review, the SF Gate has some overall very positive things to say about the Ural — and one “drawback”:

“The only real drawback associated with traveling on a Ural is that you have to field a a multitude of questions from passersby. The Gear Up was actually thought by most observers to be a restored World War II bike, no doubt due to the Forest Camo paint treatment. Disbelief showed visibly when told it was an ‘07 model.”

I’ve gotten this reaction too, when people ask me about my “vintage” Patrol. It takes a minute for it to sink in that I’m not lying when I say it’s a 2007.

It’s a good review, and I’m glad Ural is getting press like this. My only quibble with the review is that it didn’t answer one crucial question — how well would a Ural “sport utility motorcycle” handle all those steep San Francisco hills?

Read the whole review: SFGate.com - 2007 Ural Gear Up / Russian sports utility motorcycle is ready for off-road adventure

On Saturday afternoon, we picked up Jodie’s silver, size small, HJC CL-15 helmet (just like mine) at Eugene’s Discount Motorcycle Parts.

Since our helmets are identical, we had to find a way to tell them apart. So we found her a wee sticker for the back of her helmet. It says, “Foxy Rider”. Hell yes she is!

More smiles per gallon

The day we got the Ural, Jodie had gotten to sit in the sidecar, but this was the first time that we actually got to ride around together. We’d been looking forward to this for a couple of days, as I finally felt confident enough for her to start going around the neighborhood with me. (We also tried to ride with Ella, but so far she’s not adjusted enough to her doggles or the bike in motion. She’ll be riding around with us soon enough though.)

I did feel a little nervous, since this was my first time driving the sidecar with an actual passenger, instead of some bags of pellets. On the plus side, pellets don’t shift their weight on turns. Jodie did just fine, leaning with me and the bike on turns and curves.

Driving up the Happiness Factor

Driving the Ural already has been an exercise in seeing lots of smiles and waves. At the risk of sounding a bit corny, these crazy Russian sidecar rigs bring a bit of happiness to people.

Riding around with an actual passenger, however, drives that happiness factor up exponentially. The entire time we were out, people were waving. Grinning. Tapping their walking buddy on the arm and pointing. Seeing two people on the bike, not just one, made a big difference. Jodie and I got a big kick out of all the smiles and waves.

Back home, Jodie was all smiles too. “I loved it!” she told me after we took off our helmets.

I knew she was the perfect hack monkey. And such a foxy one, too.

Something like 3-6, anyway

I’m not really counting, that’s for sure. Usually I’m too busy trying to remember which gear I’m in, so when I stop the Patrol I can get it down to first and then into neutral smoothly.

Moments of firsts

The past few days have been a mix of riding and non-riding days, but there have been some interesting moments of note — most of them moments of “firsts”:

• First night-time ride. One evening I threw on my fleece and leather jacket, and hit the road. Got the feel of riding with my headlight, and gauging distances in the dark — including distances between the tub and curb. Not too different than in daylight, but a little bit. Or, to put it another way, that nighttime ride is the only time where I’ve rolled the sidecar wheel over a curb. So far.
• First real roads. On, let’s see, Thursday or Friday, I felt confident enough to get a real road. One with, like, other cars. And stoplights. And cyclists. Real-world stuff, man. The street is called Maxwell, and it’s a feeder street connecting two main roads and a lot of neighborhoods. I was riding during rush hour, and while Maxwell isn’t terribly busy, it has a good share of cars. Didn’t have any problems (well, save for stalling once while trying to shift into neutral at a stop sign). Even aced my first stoplight.
• First time swearing into my helmet. Today I made my first (brief) venture out onto River Road — turned left from a stoplight onto rush-hour River Road, a much busier street. Rode up it a few blocks, intending to make a left at another stoplight to get back to puttering around neighborhood streets. As I approached the turn lane, some idiot tried to turn left by cutting across the turn lane — luckily it was before I was occupying that space, but I did feel ready with some swerve skills on stand-by. The idiot turned; I let loose a volley of curses and insults into the padded interior of my helmet. But at least the Patrol and I were still in one piece.
• Shedding ballast. For today’s ride, I felt it was time to start shedding a little ballast. Now my Patrol is riding with 80 lbs. of ballast (instead of the original 120 lbs.) — one 40-lb. bag of stove pellets in the tub, and one 40-lb. bag of stove pellets in the trunk. The next time I shed ballast — probably another week or so — I’ll remove the bag from the trunk, leaving only the bag in the tub.
• 100km! On Saturday, the bike crossed the 100km (or 62 miles). And she’s runnin’ fine.
• The most important first actually merits its own post. On Saturday, Jodie rode in the sidecar for the first time.

10K a Day

My goal for these first couple of weeks has been to average 10km, or about 6 miles, per day. So far that’s been working out well. My “clutch chops” are improving, as is my non-slouchy riding posture (still keeping an eye on that). We didn’t ride yesterday, so to make up for it I did 20km (~12.5 miles) today. Felt great.

Mechanically, the bike and I are getting a better feel for one another (YMMV):

• At start-up, I pull both enricheners before starting the engine. While listening to the sound of the engine, after 15-30 seconds the engine will start to struggle, due to the richer fuel mixture. With the bike in neutral and the parking brake on, I push in both enricheners and let the bike warm up for 5-10 minutes. Am trying to increase the warm-up to 10 minutes consistently — less than that, and the first couple of kilometers are marked by a lot of put-putting, especially while in first. Rolling on more throttle seems to help though.
• Neutral isn’t quite the enigmatic beast it was a few days ago, but we’re still not entirely sure of one another yet. Today at stop signs I was having trouble finding neutral, and stalled a couple of times. Mainly it seems I’ve been having trouble counting down and making sure I’m in first before trying to shift into neutral. To improve this, I’m working on double-checking my shifting, counting gears, and really checking the feel of the bike when I start shifting towards neutral.
• Turns rock. Man do I love curves. And turning a bike is fun too. Even at these lower speeds in the neighborhood, cornering and turning is what it’s all about. Also getting a better feel for how much I need to shift weight and downshift as I enter turns.
• Speaking of shifting weight, I’ve also been working more just on nudging the handlebars and shifting my weight, say to motor past a dodgy-looking object in the road. It’s amazing how little weight shift it takes — even with my wee 135-lb. frame — to affect the direction of the bike.

Overall, I’m feeling really good about my progress on my Ural Patrol so far. There’s still plenty of rough spots to work on (smooth shifting, neutral, etc.), but all told, I’m feeling much more confident on the bike now. Getting to go on a ride with Jodie in the sidecar was also very bolstering. By the end of the week, I’m hoping to be out on more of the “real world streets”, and getting the throttle up some more too.

Or, between 1st and 2nd gear my arse

For the first couple of days on my Ural, shifting into neutral was a bit, well, problematic. Which is a nice way of saying that I haven’t had so much trouble finding a gear since I was 15 and learning to drive on my dad’s 5-speed pickup. Read the rest of this entry »

Stuck with chrome, or switch to black?

This evening I thought I was having my first problem with the Ural: the gas cap wouldn’t turn. It wasn’t locked, and luckily I wasn’t out of gas, but I could not get the bloody thing to turn. The cap would turn to a certain point, like trying to get over a hump that you just… couldn’t… quite… get over.

I shrugged and did the only sane thing in this situation: I went for a ride.

RPOC?

When I got the rig parked back in the garage I tried again. Came right off. I’m going to keep an eye on it, though I have seen people on various message boards mention that these stock locking gas caps can be a RPOC (or, Russian Piece of Cap Crap), locked or not:

Soviet Steeds :: View topic - Newbie to ural,few dumb questions

“Take a strap wrench and remove that ugly chrome gas cap and throw it away. Get yourself a nice black plastic one”

I may go ahead and replace it, seeing how things go. At the least, I’m not bothered about locking the gas cap — though I could also see myself liking a black gas cap over chrome. In addition to seeing if Raceway Services has any non-locking, black gas caps, Crawford Ural in Michigan carries plenty of Ural accessories, including black gas caps (pictured at right).

The weather has gone back its usual gray and rainy state, and I’m going to take that as a reason to take the night off.

Still need to work on my “clutch chops” too — my left hand is sore from all that shifting and clutch work from the past few days. A bit of stretching and a night to rest up should do it good, and then on Wednesday I’ll get back out — rain or shine.

Monday morning was not easy. The sun was shining, and the early-morning fog had burned off. Eugene was green and bright – but I was at work, miles away from my garaged, cooped-up Ural Patrol.

It was hard to look out the window, think of my Ural, and not skive off work to go riding. “Cough, cough” – I can just see it now – “sorry boss, I’ve got to call in bike… I just can’t make it… there’s too much oxygen in this air, and not enough 750cc exhaust…”

On second thought, that probably wouldn’t work. Especially since my boss reads this blog.

I muddled through the day though, sustained by a surprise afternoon coffee break with Jodie, and the knowledge that once I got home, I could go riding.

Maybe Tuesday morning will be easier. Maybe.

When I got my Patrol on Saturday, one of our friends stopped by to have a look. This evening, three more stopped by. One came over earlier in the afternoon, after I’d come home from work, so we ogled the bike and tipped back a Patrol Porter together. Then later on, after nightfall, (and with plenty of time for the beer to work its way out of my lightweight, cheap-date system), two more friends dropped by, and I moved the rig around in his Land Cruiser’s headlights so he could snap photos of the Patrol with his iPhone.

The Ural is the first motorized vehicle I’ve owned in nearly 10 years. And while I know the gawkiness and newness don’t last, it’s fun as hell to enjoy them while they do. It’s great having my friends around to check out the bike, to walk around and look underneath and talk about all the places it can go. Kind of like we’re not just gawking at the bike, but at all the potential. It’s a good feeling, and I can’t wait to get to where I feel confident enough on my Patrol to start going around town in it.