The dreaded flasher electrical gremlin strikes my Ural Patrol

I’m typing this from Eugene’s 5th Street Beanery, where, despite 8 oz. of a 16 oz. coffee coursing through my veins, I must report my first true problem: On the ride over, my turn signals stopped working.

Luckily, I knew this might happen. Read the rest of this entry »

Up in Salem, Oregon, Raceway Services not only sells and services Ural sidecar motorcycles. It also comes up with some pretty sweet hand shifters, including a new hand shifter that will shift between single-wheel drive and two-wheel drive on 2WD Patrol and Gear-Up models. Learn more by contacting Raceway, and also be sure to check out this discussion on Soviet Steeds:

“Most of you are already aware of a fine product made by Jim at “Raceway” his tank shifter that will shift the forward gears and reverse. I have been bugging Jim for over two years to make a shifter that will shift the two wheel drive instead of the forward gears. My wishes have been answered. “

Follow the whole discussion: Soviet Steeds :: View topic - “NEW” shifter from “Raceway”

When taking Ella to the dog park the other day, Jodie and I had a slight dilemma: what to do with our helmets?

Naturally, we didn’t want to carry them around the dog park with us. The helmets would both fit in the trunk, but they wouldn’t be secure (my trunk lock will get installed when I take the rig up to Raceway Services for its 500km first service). Besides, there will be plenty of trips we take where the trunk is full of other stuff, so we still need a way to securely stash the helmets elsewhere on the motorcycle.

A quick look around the garage, and our bicycles provided the answer. We’d make our own helmet lock instead.

WWID — What Would Ivan Do?

The elements of our DIY helmet lock are available at any bicycle shop, and are standard for any bicycle lock. Prices will vary by shop and brand.

• Braided steel cable (plastic-coated and with a loop on each end)
• U-lock

I opened the visors on each helmet and laid the helmets in the sidecar seat so the head openings were up against each other. I looped the cable through both openings a few times, tying in the helmets through the chin bars.

After unlocking the U-lock and running the “U” bar through the cable loops, I hung the helmets and bar on the sidecar windshield grab bar, and locked up the whole assembly. The result? Two secure helmets, safely locked up on the bike:

Now, this is not a perfect system. No security system ever is or will be. The main improvement we could make would be getting a longer U-lock just for the motorcycle. My current U-lock is too short to fit through both helmets. A longer U-bar would do the job of the steel cable, and would be much harder to break through.

In the future we’ll most likely be getting some proper helmet locks, but this is working fine for us so far. We were able to use and re-purpose equipment we already had and, above all, could lock up our helmets and feel confident they’d be there when we got back.

Sidecar ballast is important to the rider new either to sidecar motorcycles in general or Ural motorcycles in particular. Getting the feel of riding a machine with a bunch of dead weight on one side – dead weight that loves to rise up and kiss the sky depending on the turn you’re taking – takes some getting used to, and ballast is how you get used to it.

Ballast was critical to me in my first weeks of riding. Here’s how much ballast I used in my Ural Patrol’s sidecar, where I put it, and how long I rode with it:

• 120 lbs. of ballast (3 40-lb. bags of stove pellets) for one week. 2 bags in the floor of the sidecar, one in the trunk
• 80 lbs. of ballast (2 40-lb. bags of stove pellets) for one week. 1 bag in floor of sidecar, one in the trunk
• 40 lbs. of ballast (1 40-lb. bag of stove pellets) for one week, 1 bag in floor of sidecar

Now I’m running with no ballast, and have been doing fine. For the first few days without ballast in the tub, I took it slow around the neighborhood, getting the feel for how the bike’s handling changed with braking, turning and acceleration. The bike handles very differently without ballast, and it takes getting used to. Finding an empty parking lot and practicing turns and braking is essential to knowing how your rig, and you, will handle and react.

It’s important to know how your sidecar rig will handle with and without ballast, especially when first getting used to your motorcycle. Find something you can put in the sidecar (dog food, pellets, potting soil, lead shot, whatever), and run a few weeks first around the 100-lb. mark and working your way down. You’ll feel much better about your rig, your riding ability and how you respond under different riding conditions.

For more opinions, ideas and recommendations about sidecar ballast, Soviet Steeds has a good discussion going: Best place for ballast,how much is enough:

“I started with (3) 40 pound bags of water conditioner salt on the side car seat and floor. try to keep the weight in the triangle (tip lines) between the 3 wheels. You take one out each time you get confident. about a week each. It took me about a month of regular riding to get to a nice comfort level with the transition from 2 to 3 wheels”

Read the whole discussion: Soviet Steeds Message Boards - Best place for ballast,how much is enough

On the IMZ Ural boards, Jim is looking for a bag to store some things on his windshield:

I’m looking for a windshield bag to fit my Slipstreamer SS-30 windshield. Nothing real big. Just big enough for, say, a pen, a small pad of paper, a tube of sun screen, some Visine, and some Chapstick. Any suggestions?”

Suggestions range from hunting around thrift stores, to some new products in catalogs. Read the whole discussion: IMZ Ural Boards - Windshield Bags

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 inventiveness of Ural owners will never cease to amaze me. When Pat on the Ural boards asked about front wheel traction:

“I was wondering if somebody with off road experience could give some advice. When riding on snow packed roads my biggest concern is front wheel slide”

Chris gave a great MacGyver solution:

“When I was in the military and my only transportation was my Honda 350 enduro,I would wrap a hemp rope around my front and rear tire very tight. This works fine until you encounter dry pavement but in snow they last all day.”

Hemp rope for better snow traction — certainly save you a few bob over getting some knobby tires, and could be good in a pinch.

Read the whole thread — IMZ Ural Discussion Boards - Front Wheel Traction? »

What do you use for better traction?

Spotted in a foilhead’s sig in the IMZ Ural message boards:

You only need 2 tools, WD-40 and Duct Tape…. If it doesn’t move and it should, use the WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn’t, use the tape

Ah, the simplicity of the purest truths…

For all the wisdom in this statement though, no self-respecting Uralist would be without his third — holy trinity? — of Ural tools: the BFH, or Big Feckin’ Hammer.

Below is a list of Ural accessories available from Raceway Services, in Salem, Oregon. This is not an exhaustive or authoritative list by any means. For latest availability and current pricing, contact Raceway. Most of these accessories, such as the shifter kits, are made on-premises at Raceway.

• Tank shifter kits (also known as hand shifter kits) — made in-house (forward gears, reverse, reverse and forward gears, reverse and sidecar wheel engage/disengage)
• Nose racks
• Skid pans for under engine
• Side car skid pans
• High-mount exhausts
• Trim rings for ignition switches
• Shift rod improver kits
• Wrench-adjustable toe setting devices
• Hydraulic hill holder brake system for front wheel
• Beston grip conversions
• Tank-mounted temp and clock systems
• “Hippo Hands” (not a Raceway product but something they carry)
• Foot boxes
• Trunk locks

“Designed by alcoholics to be driven by drunks”

Have you wondered if repair and maintenance of your Ural motorcycle will reduce you to a vodka-pickled lump cursing softly on the floor of your garage? In the ADV Rider Hacks forum, Stefan asks about Ural Maintainance Headaches – essentially, what it’s like working on a Ural, if you need special tools, what parts availability is, etc.

Personally, I take great comfort in this reply:

“They are the only motorcycles on Earth that were designed by alcoholics to be driven by drunks.”

Happy wrenching, indeed!

Go to the discussion: Ural Maintainance Headaches