Sidecar Saga
By Chris Ross

 

The most fervent disciples of the Ural motorcycle share a conviction that the bike possesses, in addition to the signature sidecar carriage, a sort of Russian soul. To look at the sidecar—hung low to the ground, compactly built, often painted camouflage—inspires less a feeling of saintly beauty than grim utility. But the history of the Ural may bear out its spiritual nature better. Forged deep in the hinterlands of Western Siberia, it was a bike born of bloody strife.

The Russian sidecar’s home, Irbit, is a godforsaken little town that sits in the shadow of the Ural Mountains (hence the cycle’s name). In 1941, as Hitler was flooding the Motherland with the minions of his Barbarossa campaign, Irbit seemed an ideal location for producing the bikes, far from the reach of German bombers. In fact, the original Ural model was based on the Germans’ superior BMW R75 line—the Soviets swiped a few models, took them apart, and reverse-engineered the parts back together at the Irbit factory. The bike proved to be a Red Army favorite: nimble, durable, with sidecar-mounted machine gun and two-wheel drive, the Ural had teeth and could survey intractable terrain. In the 1950s, production was switched to civilian use and farmers found the sidecar adept at transporting bags of potatoes, sacks of grain, and lumpy babushkas.

In the early 1990s, however, the factory lost government subsidization, and the Ural’s domestic market vanished. On the brink of collapse, the company was rescued at the eleventh hour by a band of enterprising Russians who began exporting the motorcycles to Europe and North America. Consequently, these areas remain the Ural’s strongest markets today. Currently under the ownership of Irbitski Mototsikletny Zavod, or IMZ-Ural, the bike maintains a small but fiercely dedicated clientele.

“There’s an extraordinary passion about this bike,” said Madina Merzhoyeva, an IMZ-Ural representative based out of Redmond, Washington. “Our customers who own these motorcycles give them human names.”  The typical Ural rider today is likely a heavy-duty grocery shopper, dog owner, or cello player. Owners have coined the term UDF, the Ural Delay Factor, for the inevitable conversations their ride tends to trigger: “Wherever they go, to a grocery store or a gas station, people ask questions: Where did you get this? How long did it take you to restore it? What year is it? They can never believe it’s a brand new bike,” said Merzhoyeva.

The two major Ural bikes produced today are the Gear-Up, closest to the military incarnation and popular with hunters and cross-country adventurers; and the Retro, a hot item for vintage motorcycle enthusiasts. Neither model, however, handles like a typical bike; there is a bit of a learning curve. IMZ-Ural representatives say some amount of “crunchiness”—harsh gear shifts and structural stiffness—can be expected in the bike’s first 1,000 miles. With the sidecar, steering consists less of leaning and more of manual pushing and pulling. Taking a turn with an empty sidecar can cause the carriage to lift clear off the ground, making tight curves somewhat breathless. In an attempt to dispel the bike’s reputation for shoddy craftsmanship, IMZ-Ural recently introduced a redesigned transmission and modern features.

But it is partly the lack of sophistication that lends the bike its air of gritty authenticity. Though the sidecars of today may not sport a Maxim machine guns, nor their occupant Red Army fatigues, the rough sound of a Ural engine turning over is enough to make even the most hardcore Russian biker a little wistful. Maybe that’s what they mean about a soul.