New Kid On The Bloc
A right hand drive Ural sidecar outfit is on its way to the UK
There's a new sidecar outfit in town for aficionados of the Ural. It's a bit of a different offering from the makers this time - a right hand drive motorcycle with sidecar called The Ranger.
Born in 1940 as the one of the Red Army's secret weapons against Hitler, the tough versatile Ural M-72 was created as a tool in the armoury to help with stopping the German war machine. Since then, the Ural motorcycle sidecar outfit has grown in popularity with its ability to go anywhere and take a friend to boot. Up until now British fans have had to make do with left hand drive imports but change is afoot! Ural has revealed a new model coming out in the spring and it's right hand drive!
So the configuration is simply the mirror image of the left hand drive Ural, IE it's been reversed so everything is just the other way round - as you might imagine. But one of its additional USPs to help it traverse the muddy hills and tracks is that it has manually selectable two wheeled drive - i.e the sidecar wheel is powered as well as the motorcycle wheel, giving it great off road traction.
Slow and steady wins the race
The Ranger sports a 745cc boxer engine giving 40bhp and 54Nm of torque at 4,300rpm and a cruise speed of 65mph - not the fastest outfit on the road admittedly, but speed is not what enthusiasts get a Ural for. The Ranger has a four forward speed gear box and an additional reverse gear to help get it out of the mud off road.
With a 191 fuel tank, disc brakes on each wheel, both a kick and electric starter, a shovel, jerry can, spare wheel and luggage rack - it really looks like a rugged, go anywhere adventure bike!
We have a keen enthusiast friend of Wemoto poised to test one of these in the spring so will hopefully be able to give you a heads up about the Ranger then from the horse's mouth, well Dave's.
Oh and yeah just saying … there's talk about a potential electric one eventually too so we'll let you know about that one in due course.
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