Who in Australia is a PROUD owner of a URAL sidecar Outfit

Finally we can go home ....


Sent from my iPad using Talk a Tap ....

So how long do these things last...reliably. Mileage?

Would one last a few years trouble free, living in the corner country day in day out for example.

I bought my '09 Ural Tourist five yeas ago today. It's now travelled 123,300km and run better and harder than ever. It's only been worked on by me, and I have only average mechanical skills. I also have a '10 Tourist that's done 43,000km.
Both bikes just need a basic service and they will be ready for any long ride in Oz.

I only have 41,000km, but the rack you made is good as new... I can only say I've bugger all problems in the last 30k km.

I just came back from 11 days travelling in Tasmania. 1,671 km of bitumen, gravel, some mud and sand. I only have 16800km on mine so she's still a baby. Had no major issues and I carried spare filters, cables, inner tubes, tyre patches, bulbs just in case. I was happy to cruise at 80-90km/h and did get to 100km/h on the open freeway. Carried a tent, sleeping mat, sleeping bag, clothes, food, 10L of water, cooking utensils, more clothes (i am not a 'turn the undies inside out and use them the next day'), an axe, enough rope to sail a ship and myself. I do most of the maintenance myself but I did bring her down to eurobrit for a check before I left.

I did have 3 incidents.
1. Went on some very potholed and extremely bumpy roads and lost two nuts on my homemade jerry can holder. Nothing a decent sized cable tie wouldn't fix.
2. Riding to cradle mountain and enjoying the scenery, the engine sounded different but no lack of power or major rattling so I kept going. Stopped for a break and directions at the hotel and started chatting to one of the ground staff. We noticed that both left and right rubber branches to the carby had fallen out. He had a screwdriver and tightened them up.
3. Went to Macquarie heads on a tip from a friend who told me the sidecar would be fine and I can drive on beach. Pfft! Short track of semi hard packed sand to the beach was alright but then I got bogged in the very soft stuff 50 metres from the beach. Had a tow back to the main road and gave some old fellas a good laugh.

Have you been bed ridden? I thought you would have been a high milage man by now.



My main thing is wake up turn the key and ride off. Its got to do that over and over and over in a very Isolated region. Minimum stores just basic overnight fend for yourself stuff. Fuel, water, rifle and a couple of traps.

In heavy slow going how far to a tank full?

One of the Melbourne Uralista recently rode to the OCR via the Tanami, and back via the coast without issue. These bikes are sound, but like all bikes, not immune to failure. But they can easily be worked on in bush.
I ride a couple of four to eight thousand kilometer trips each year without any problems.

A tank is good for 200km before reserve, a with a couple of 10 litre jerry cans range is well over 400km.

"A tank is good for 200km before reserve"

Hmm that's a show stopper just there. I would need to consider a large capacity tank build as well as the floor mounted fuel storage I had intended.
200km wont work for me. Up round 400km to start with then my reserve from the chair would be minimum. Say around the 700km without outside intervention.

Well maybe Safari might make you a tank
Maybe adapt something.
Ive got 45 litres on my 990 = about 650-700 at a pinch.
Couldnt do without it anymore.
Plenty of room in the hack for fuel anyway

This is on Gumtree atm...............I soooo want to buy it

For 700km you'll need to carry around 65litres. Standard tank is 19lt. Maybe a Ural is not for you.

Do they really suck that much?
Thats 9.2 litres/100 :eek1
I thought the 990 was bad at 6-7....

The sidecar increases dramatically the amount of fuel use. Air speed (a combination of road and wind speeds) also has a huge impact.
On a recent 6,500km ride I averaged a bit better than 8.0 lt/100km, but in extreme conditions have emptied the 19litre tank in 165km.

A few issues in there...

Bad idea... wake up, do basic checks (oil levels and stuff) then turn the key and ride off. Waiting for problems to appear before detecting them is bad mojo, you have to head problems off at the pass if you can.

I just did a ride up to the Ural get together at Nymboida towing a trailer. Just under 3000km without a problem apart from excessive wear on the trailer tyres. Gotta find someone to modify the trailer to tow better; know anyone around the southern end of NSW?

Before you muck around with the trailer you SHOULD raise the tow hitch height 3 inches.

Yeah yeah... I know that, but that isn't why the tyres are scrubbing out.

Now that sounds like a great plan

An easy 300 km from the tank of my EFI and that was loaded to the max
over some pretty rough dirt tracks.