discodisco
Observer
I don’t post a lot but for the first time I get to tell a story about my own adventures in my new Ural Patrol. My wife pilled the kids in the car and drove me down to meet the bike about 2.5 hours away. We reached the bike and I was stoked…. It was beautiful. Absolutely Beautiful. Long story short I hopped on the beast and I was a little nervous. I have been riding a cruiser as my daily driver for over 4 years and though I am experienced but a little nerves and a lot of fighting the urge to lean. A couple of shaky turns around the parking lot and we were off. 10 miles down the hwy 58 at about 45-50 mph, I was really starting to feel comfortable. Turning is a totally different process…. Reading for months about it is nothing like trying to do it for myself. I brought with me about 70 pounds of ballast for the side car and I thought things were going great.
I have yet really nail down what happened next but the short of it is I was airborne the off road and in a ditch. Coming over a hill in the hwy 58 (two lanes each direction) I hit a spot of brand new asphalt and bad things happened. The rear end of the bike/sidecar shot right and we headed left into the ditch in the median of the free way. This ditch had a very decent 15-20% grade on both sides and was at least 30 feet wide and covered primarily in waist high grass. Hidden in the center of the grass was a foot wide cement drainage channel that proved to be a lot of fun to cross. As my wife and the my tracks showed me later… I was airborne from the edge of the free for a little over 2 feet. At the point I left the hwy I realized I couldn’t turn right as I would most likely fall on my side and roll the wrong way down the hill. So I hopped up on my feet and rode down the hill while controlling the bike. Jumping the ditch I slowed down and turned prior to going the wrong way on the other side of the free way and worked my way back to the original side of the hwy to my very nervous wife and kids.
So I was only little banged up which is fortunate and after we sat for a half hour to make sure I was ok and the bike was OK I finished 100+ mile ride home.
The URAL factor was in full effect when I was driving. Almost every person who passed me either stared and gave me a thumbs up or the kids in the car turned full around in their seats to stare with wide open mouths. I love the motorcycle and it is a dream.
I have yet really nail down what happened next but the short of it is I was airborne the off road and in a ditch. Coming over a hill in the hwy 58 (two lanes each direction) I hit a spot of brand new asphalt and bad things happened. The rear end of the bike/sidecar shot right and we headed left into the ditch in the median of the free way. This ditch had a very decent 15-20% grade on both sides and was at least 30 feet wide and covered primarily in waist high grass. Hidden in the center of the grass was a foot wide cement drainage channel that proved to be a lot of fun to cross. As my wife and the my tracks showed me later… I was airborne from the edge of the free for a little over 2 feet. At the point I left the hwy I realized I couldn’t turn right as I would most likely fall on my side and roll the wrong way down the hill. So I hopped up on my feet and rode down the hill while controlling the bike. Jumping the ditch I slowed down and turned prior to going the wrong way on the other side of the free way and worked my way back to the original side of the hwy to my very nervous wife and kids.
So I was only little banged up which is fortunate and after we sat for a half hour to make sure I was ok and the bike was OK I finished 100+ mile ride home.
The URAL factor was in full effect when I was driving. Almost every person who passed me either stared and gave me a thumbs up or the kids in the car turned full around in their seats to stare with wide open mouths. I love the motorcycle and it is a dream.
