27
Thank you to David Strong, who asked me in an email:
You haven’t really mentioned your relationship with the hack recently in your Blog i.e how you feel when you hop onto it, warm it up etc?
I’ll do my best to answer that, David. Read the rest of this entry »
16
Yesterday Ella, Svetlana and I helped some buddies with a photo shoot for a new marketing campaign. I don’t have pictures or details yet, but hopefully will have more to share soon.
Who would’ve thought? By naming my Ural after a beautiful sorceress, now she’s magically become a model too.
If you’re in Eugene, keep your eyes peeled for some ads featuring a Forest Green sidecar motorcycle, complete with dog and rider. I can’t wait to see them.
13
You bet you can.
Clay, a long-time Ural owner in Dover, England, writes:
As far as getting all your gear on a Ural I do a lot of travelling and I carry a 16ft round 8ft high canvas tent, a double inflatable mattress, double sleeping bag, a couple of sheep skin rugs, fresh food, some cold beers, a home made travel kitchen containing all I need and clothes, oh, and my gorgeous girlfriend Shirley. Depending how big your dog is it should be no problem for you.
Jodie and I plan to begin our Ural camping adventures this summer. Clay’s list is similar to what Jodie and I will be carrying. Granted, we don’t carry sheep skin rugs, but when you’re engaged to a knitter, odds are good that there’s the better part of a fleece snuck into the rucksack somewhere.
As far as this summer goes, we probably won’t be going to far afield, so our supply list will be a little tame. Some of the things we’d be taking (rough list off the top of my head) include…
Thanks for the advice, Clay. Once we start camping with our Ural, we’ll be posting photos (on the trip and how we pack out the Patrol) and our camping gear list too.
10
It took some pondering, and it took some time, but at long last I have named my 2007 Ural Patrol.
The name for my Forest Green, 2007 Ural Patrol is…
Svetlana. For short, “Sveta” is fine too.
The name comes from a powerful, beautiful sorceress in the renowned Nightwatch series of novels by, appropriately enough, Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko (Sergey Lukianenko - Official site).
Maybe I ought to get “Svetlana” stenciled around the gas tank or something… hmmm…
So… meet Svetlana!
And by the way, pick up the books too. Great reads. A friend introduced them to me and Jodie, and they are now some of our favorites. There are 3 books out now, with a fourth, Last Watch
Nightwatch and Daywatch
02
Saw this in the news today. When you ride anything not a car — and I ride both a bicycle and a motorcycle — a story like this is always a reminder of how fragile life is, and how quickly things can change… or end.
“A May 17 traffic accident near Florence that killed a husband and wife from Springfield remains under investigation, Oregon State Police said Friday. No citations have been issued or arrests made in the collision on Highway 101 north of Florence that killed Robert Ellis Shimp and his wife, Nancy Ann, Sgt. Ron Martin said Friday. The state police crash reconstruction team is continuing to work on the case.”
What happened? The Shrimps were riding their motorcycle (no details on what make and model) and about to exit Highway 101 outside of Florence, Oregon. Then a driver in a Ford Taurus rear-ended them.
Now they’re gone.
These things happens; it’s one of the risks we accept when we ride. But it’s never easy to see that headline, to read that story, and know that a rider died while riding.
Our thoughts go out to all affected. And we remember them, whenever we get on our bikes again.
30
When you don’t ride, you feel it.
The longer you don’t ride, the more you feel it.
It’s an itch, a twitch, a burn — and nothing will sooth it but saddle time.
Such has been this Ural owner the past few days. Over Memorial Day weekend, a holiday, I hardly got any saddle time. Got to do some hiking, some cooking and even a bit of DIY, but not much riding. I felt it though. Felt that tug in my gut, pulling me towards the Patrol in the garage.
On Sunday I got in at least a little riding, and that helped. It wasn’t enough, but it helped. The twitch was still there.
And it grows, oh how it grows. When I don’t ride, my thoughts drift more and more towards riding. I think about the feel of the air around me, the way the Ural responds. I think more and more of all the looks and waves, and the sheer simple joy of buzzing around town on slightly chattery valves and a big green asymmetrical bathtub to my right.
Tuesday night, a real ride. Jodie and I went to a party for a friend who was in town. We’re pretty sure a cop even double-backed around a block just so he could see the Ural again. We got to spend plenty of the evening talking about the Ural, what it was like, how much fun it was.
The next day, the twitch was gone.
Only for now though. More than 2 days of not riding, and I know it’ll be back.
But I know the cure — and it’s supposed to be a nice weekend.
Itch on, twitch. I’ve got saddle time on the way to cure thee.
29
Ah, kayaking — how rarely do we get to go kayaking. Never enough. Never. But with a Ural sidecar motorcycle, well, getting and hauling around a kayak might be just a tidge easier. This IMZ-Ural boards discussion goes into the hows and difficulties of hauling or towing a kayak or canoe with a sidecar rig — experience towing a kayak/canoe?
I am new to the sidecar game and am having a lot of fun with it. Would pulling a trailer like this take the fun out of it, or be extremely hazardous? I never considered pulling anything on a two wheeler, but I find that I keep the sidecar outfit in the middle of the lane more than a two wheeler. Does this make sense?
Follow the whole discussion: experience towing a kayak/canoe?
28
I’ve heard and seen this time and time again. If you have other motorcycles, and then you get a sidecar rig, be prepared for your other bikes to do nothing but collect dust.
Granted, this hasn’t been an issue in our household – our “other bikes” are 2 bicycles, and they get a fair amount of use. But if I’d had another motorcycle before getting my Ural Patrol? Yeah, I think the other motorcycle would’ve been sold by now. Check out this ADVrider discussion, Ural is now my only ride:
“Alas the damned Ural has forced me to neglect my other bikes for the last 3 years”
Do you have any other bikes? Or did you sell ‘em all after getting your sidecar rig?
23
The list is long, and often Russian… or, at least, with Russian variations. As I ponder what to name my Ural Patrol, I’ve been paying attention to some of the other Ural names out there. Here are a few (note that these are the “official” names, and not the, ahem, endearing nicknames we have for Urals when it’s time to get out the wrenches):
22
What is your first motorcycle memory? What was the moment you knew you’d ride motorcycles? Were they the same moment? When you think back to it, how does that memory still grab you?
For me, it was 3 things. I remember being a wee boy, maybe 5 years old, and my dad riding me around on a big black motorcycle (if I remember correctly, Dad, wasn’t that a Honda Shadow?) That was my first memory, but to tell the truth, I can’t remember how well I liked it.
Fast forward a few years to 2003, I was in Thailand. Rented a, well, glorified hair dryer — a 150cc Honda Crystal or Dream, I forget which — and rode around all day. Went to ruins, went hiking, got humiliated when I couldn’t kickstart the bike but a 15-year-old Thai girl — in heels — could, but still, it was a great day, and I had so much fun.
It was about 2 years later that the itch, the true, from-the-inside-out itch hit me. Then in 2006 I first heard about the Ural, and I read, and researched, and lurked in message boards, and took sidecar training, with all this culminating, at last, in Feb. 2008 when I finally took delivery of my 2007 Ural Patrol.
What was it for you?
