Relief from dreadful RV gas mileage
Hi all y’all, I had to get some relief from the dreadful gas mileage these RV’s get, hence my new toad, or perhaps Unconcealed Carry Vehicle (UCV) is a more appropriate term. What you’re ...
Forum Discussion
fj12ryder wrote:
I've always thought sidecars were cool, but never have wanted to own one. Kind of blurry and hard to tell what kind of bike it is. Looks like an Earles fork though, so maybe BMW? Surely not a Ural?
Yup, that's a 2006 Ural Tourist! They use leading link forks on the sidecar models, along with a Brembo floating disk brake. It's a one-wheel-drive model; they also make two-wheel drive models with a drive shaft connected to the sidecar wheel but we didn't feel that we needed that complexity for the riding we do.
The Ural is modeled after the late 1930s BMW R71 - Russia received the tooling, drawings, etc. for it from Germany through the Ribbentrop Pact because Germany had recently updated their military from the R71 to the R75. When the War broke out Russia just kept on building the bikes for their military. After the War they continued, although at a slower pace. About 20 or so years ago the factory was converted from government ownership to private ownership and currently they build about 1000 bikes a year for the world market, with about 75% of them being imported to the US. The 2014 models will even have fuel injection replacing the Keihin carbs that are used now. It is currently undergoing EPA testing here in California.
