Buying a Bullet from the dealer in Chennai was a bit of a no-brainer. Various business trips to India had re-kindled the lust for a bike after more than 20 years, and the Enfields were so reminiscent of my old heavyweight Ajay 16MS. So a deal was done on the spot following a chance diversion past the dealer by the three wheeler auto-rickshaw driver, and subsequently the whole challenging rigmarole of customs and import and all the rest was duly learned, gone through and just about survived. What a palaver.However, my lean-burn single was a dream to ride, and I loved the interest and attention it received. I should have been happy. But I had been brought up on a Bonnie with E3134 cams. In a 5TA frame... The Bullet was too sweet for me. So what to get next?
Well, the next option, given that I really didn't want anything as commonplace as a Milwaukee Harley - fine bikes from a fine city, and fine beer brewers though the citizens are - my taste for a challenge meant something much more obscure, such as a Ural.You know the story, there are a few versions, but it hinges around the Russians getting the 1938 model BMW design, taking it away, and building their own modified version by the tens of thousands for the war effort.
From there the story is pretty similar to that of the Enfield. The factory kept making what it knew how to make, year after year after year, with incremental design improvements rather than a brand new model every two years. So a relatively recent Ural would still be a living museum piece, but with a bit more grunt. I wanted one.
I found a 650, one of the very last of the old design, built in 2001 just before the factory collapsed post-perestroika, resulting in the need for an American financed rescue package. This machine, really one of the last of the old school Urals, was built with the finesse that I would have expected of a Ukrainian designed and built tractor ( with apologies to the Ukrainians). Throw metal at it. Bend it. Weld it. Build it. Rugged in the extreme, but from questionable metals and with appalling detail finishing. 'What's primer?' is just one of many questions they just forgot to ask.
But I loved her, despite her rapid aging over a few years to the patina of a 30 year old machine. The weird sideways kickstart. The gear change so slow, so clunky, soooo noisy! The confusion in the eyes of onlookers, and the oh-so retro looks. Oh and yes, everything you have ever read or heard about the equally rugged, do-everything toolkit supplied is also perfectly true.Ongoing interest in the Ural started a new string of thought. The factory by this time had been 'saved' by American entrepreneurs and was making big strides in improving build quality, component spec, etc, and also attracting buyers in the North American market, targeting the bike there as very cool 'go anywhere' transport for the outdoor man. But someone there also suggested a small run of premium-build bikes to meet the growing demand for retro styled products.
The result was the Retro, a bike styled and built in the image of the M72 and R63
Well I saw and I wanted. I positively lusted. But could I buy one? No sir! None in the UK for sale, and probably no more than three or four in the country, if that. None expected ever at the dealers. Some expected at the dealers on the continent, but when? Well, who knows?So I turned to the States and
Our buddy Basem from About.com just got the first ride on the new $10,000 Ural T sidecar, finding that the 40bhp Russian-made throwback is prone to “lift throttle oversteer.” Basem, aren’t you supposed to be more responsible than us?
However, few will disagree that the Ural sidecar outfit must be a hot contender for the top slot in motorcycling mediocrity. This BMW inspired flat twin is outstandingly one of the worst motorcycles ever put into series production - a creation of such comprehensive awfulness, in every respect, that it almost defies belief that even one example has ever been sold in the West.Yet, it need not have been like this. The Ural began life as a BMW R71 and was the product of the 1939 Ribbentrop/Molotov pact whereby Germany sold, amongst other things, state of the art technology to the Soviet Union. Germany granted the Russians a credit of 200 million Reichsmarks to buy German equipment and in return the Nazis had free access to Russian raw materials.
Compared with walking and carrying a heavy machine gun on your back, the R71 was a big improvement. It soon became the Russian jeep, with drive to the sidecar being taken from the rear wheel of the bike. The outfit could carry a heavy machine gun, plus two men and their rations, in the harshest terrain. Its light weight, compared with a truck, meant that the outfit could be dragged through bogs and hauled up cliff faces - and it had the added benefit of being a small target for German tourists armed with 88mm anti-tank weapons. So the legend of the macho, go anywhere, catch-bullets-in-my-carburetor-and-eat-them sidecar outfit began.Sixty years later, this myth needs viewing objectively. The all conquering Ural war hero belongs to the same age as when carcinogenic DDT was considered a good fix for delousing submariners' genital areas and being trapped in a burning bomber was a mere occupational inconvenience. Things have moved on.
