Looking to lose weight?  Well, get rid of your stair-climber and get yourself a kickstart-only Ural motorcycle.  I guarantee that you will have calves of steel in no time.

Smutyanka is having ignition issues.  Trying to kickstart a bike 150-200 times will give you quite a workout.  I am really not pleased that we told the mechanic that the #1 issue we had with the bike was difficulty in starting, and yet after five months in his shop, she is still having the exact same problem.

Smutyanka’s return also means that I really need to get off my butt about getting my motorcycle license.  I’ve decided to go the learner permit route instead of taking the weekend course, and instead will save my money for the sidecar class they are offering in May.  Every sidecar bike owner I’ve talked to has extolled the virtues of taking a sidecar-specific class, and I think that it will go much further toward increasing my safety on the bike than a regular motorcycling class will.  Also, since I already have considerable experience riding motorcycles from when I was living in Korea, I think that the sidecar class is a much better investment of my money.

Look for photos of our newly improved Russian troublemaker soon!

It was a hard decision to make to send her to a shop, but really, it will be a good financial move in the end.  There are a lot of small and easy to fix things wrong with her, but we don’t currently have the know-how to find them or know where to begin.  There are also some major things wrong (her throttle cable is seriously screwed up and her front brake disintegrated), and we’d rather have a professional do the work than end up with the side effects of the hack-job we’d do.  The other factor was weather.  It’s too cold right now to be spending large amounts of time outside working on the bike, and it’s bad for the bike to just sit outside in the parking lot all winter.  The shop will not only fix her, but will also help to keep her out of the weather during the bike’s non-working downtime.

The other thing is that really, once we get her completely fixed and running, it will be much easier to find and deal with problems as they arise.  Right now there are so many small problems that they end up masking eachother, making it difficult to really tell what’s actually wrong with the bike.  Once we get her “zeroed out”, so to speak, it will be easier for us to do the repairs ourselves.  We’ve gotten some flak from the Ural community for trying to “save” a 1992 bike, but really, we both feel that there’s no point in condemning a bike to the parts pile just because it’s old, if all that it needs is a little TLC.

We’ll let you know what the results of her visit to the motorcycle doctor are.  Hopefully by spring she will be in good enough condition to be a daily rider.

Ah, the joys of Urals…

At least it’ll probably be warm enough to ride by the time we get her running!

We did a lot of work on her last week and replaced the air filter, put on the new carburetor flanges and heat blocks, and replaced the torn fuel line.  Our plan was to take her to Crossroads Cycles this week to get the carbs balanced, now that they are firmly attached, and with that and her inspection, she should be good to go for regular riding.

No dice.

We tried to start her up on Friday and got nothing.  I couldn’t even really hear the engine trying to turn over, which usually means something is very wrong.  We headed over to the Soviet Steeds forum, and folks advised that when we drained the tank, we probably pulled some gunk into the petcock, and to take it off and clean it.  We did that, and there was indeed a little bit of gunk (especially blocking the reserve tank hole), and then re-attached it.  It still won’t start up.  The fuel flow now seems fine, but in the process of looking at all that stuff, we realized that our throttle cables are barely hanging on, and are literally hanging out of the throttle assembly on the right handgrip.  Back to the boards!

This is starting to get really frustrating for both of us.  We enjoyed getting to work on the bike and learn about motorcycle maintenance, but we have had the bike for three months and have driven it for only around an hour and a half, total ride time.

So, we’re thinking of selling Smutyanka and buying a brand new Ural Patrol T, sometime in the next couple months, once Marc starts his USIS job.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. The Patrol T comes factory painted in the original Soviet army green/brown.  While we have photographic documentation of black, civilian sidecar bikes being requisitioned for military use, using Smutyanka in her current color configuration makes her stand out at events, and might draw some “farb!” remarks, even though it’s not.
2. The Patrol T has 2WD.  For city driving it’s not an issue, but both of us really want to do some offroading with our Ural, and Smutyanka’s seemingly brittle condition and 1WD make that a little more difficult (though not impossible).  2WD would also allow us to drive in the snow, which would be nice.
3. With a fresh, brand new bike, it would be easier to diagnose problems.  Right now we’re stuck in a cycle in which we fix one thing, only to realize that it was just a symptom of something else that has been broken the whole tine.  With a new bike, you have a fresh starting point, so it’s easier to know when something is wrong.
4. Quite frankly, we’re not really in a good position to be doing major work on a motorcycle right now.  If we were living in a house, with a garage, it might be another story, but it’s very difficult to do any major work on a motorcycle when all you have is an apartment parking lot.
5. Urals now come with a 3(?) year factory warranty, and we live only two hours away from a dealer.  We can continue to do the minor stuff ourselves, but it’s nice to know that if something really goes wrong, we can get it fixed for free for a couple years.
6. The biggest of all:  even if we got Smutyanka running well, neither of us would trust her to be anything more than a “fun around town” vehicle.  I wouldn’t trust her to get me to work, and we would have to trailer her to all reenactments we took her to, however close.  A brand new Ural is reliable enough to be used as a daily commuter, and then it truly could be our second vehicle.  Marc wants to get a new car, but he would prefer to wait a little longer to replace his, and having a Ural that works might be a good stopgap.

We haven’t made up our minds yet, or even really discussed it all that much, but the topic has been brought up for discussion a couple times.  It wouldn’t be for a couple months yet, but it’s a possibility.

An amusing video in German about the superiority of a Ural sidecar rig over a Harley sidecar rig:

Who needs a snowmobile if you have a Ural?

The Ural factory display team doing donuts on wet pavement:

The display team showing how the bike can be driven from the sidecar and the sidecar wheel can be changed while driving (2 videos):

Urals in Siberia. At the 3min mark, you can see them drive through over a foot of water:

Urals have a reputation for being easy to tip over on righthand turns (due to the fact that the sidecar can’t turn and is much lighter than the bike), but this video proves that you can also tip them over on lefthand turns!

Last week it was our right-side carburetor deciding that it didn’t want to stay attached to the engine head (the flange/compliance fitting on that side is old and the rubber is stiff, making it difficult to crimp the pipe clamp down tight enough to hold the carb on securely), and now we have a hole in our fuel crossover line.

On Friday, Marc and I went out to install the new, louder horn we bought (the old one sounds like a sick goat), and were greeted by the sight of a thin stream of fuel spurting from the side of the bike.  Upon further inspection, it seems that the fuel crossover line (going between the tank and the reserve section of the tank) is made from rubberized cloth, and the pipe clamp holding it in place had rubbed and eventually cut a hole in the line!

Thankfully, the cut was a V-shaped cut, which meant it was just a matter of clamping the V back into place, which I did by lowering the pipe clamp a bit to be located over the cut.  We ordered a new fuel line and it should be here on Monday, along with new flanges.  So, both of those will be installed when we get them.

We have also found out that our carbs are idling too high, and that they need balancing.  If the new flanges/fittings seem to work well, we’ll keep our current carburetors and take the bike to the shop to get them balanced.  If they don’t seem much better than the old ones, then we may look into getting some Pekar K68 carbs, which bolt straight onto the engine head.  You can get a pair, plus all the cables, etc, for about $90, so it might be a worthwhile investment.