Adventure is about overcoming the insurmountable using the improbable.
Let’s assume for a moment that adventure motorcycling isn’t middle-aged attorneys riding to Starbucks, their freshly applied ADV sticker and ArmorAll glinting in the mid-day sun. Let’s consider for a moment that adventure motorcycling is really about adventure. Having been around the world a few times I have found exactly what adventure really is – it is the unexpected, the dangerous, the mistakes and missteps, the challenges. Adventure is about overcoming the insurmountable using the improbable. When I consider future adventures, the last method I want to use it the tried and true, the perfect and flawless, the over-engineered and bulletproof. What I want to ride (drive) is the classic, the flawed, the temperamental, the cantankerous – I want to toss a couple of beat leather saddlebags over a Russian Ural Solo and ride to Burma.
It doesn’t matter if the Ural is a good motorcycle or a bad motorcycle. What matters is that the Ural Solo captures exactly what a motorcycle should be – classic, serviceable and flat black. It is going to break down in the most inconvenient place and you are going to need to push it to the next town with the help of a couple drunk locals and that is when life is going to get interesting – really interesting.
I could list a bunch of specifications on the Solo, but that would just be a waste of everyone’s time. You don’t buy this motorcycle on spec., you buy it because it just begs to be ridden someplace interesting. So, who wants to go to Burma?
Just look at this thing – perfection.
Even those humongous turn signals are perfect in their hideousness. The mirrors need to go, nothing a 14mm wrench can’t solve.
For even a little more inspiration, check out the Hammarhead interpretation of the perfect Ural.
