The Midwest was hit by an intense snow storm earlier this week, and while the conditions may have been more appropriate for a snowmobile than most cars, at least one person found it acceptable weather in which to ride a motorcycle. Granted, this wasn't your typical motorcycle. Instead, it was a two-passenger, two-wheel-drive Ural being ridden along the snow-covered Interstate 65 in Indianapolis.
As far as we're aware, there isn't another motorcycle in the world – especially one with a sidecar and two-wheel drive – that comes straight from the factory with a wooden oar. As in, for paddling. Which is why the flat-orange-painted Ural Yamal Limited Edition is so great.
There's a new niche emerging for car sharers like Zipcar and peer-to-peer entities: ride sharing. The way ride sharing works is that a car owner, perhaps for additional income, offers a ridealong to those willing to pay. Those interested can schedule a ride share through their smart phone. The renter signs up for the service, ch
How many ride shares does it take to emerge from beta testing? If you're the San Francisco-based company SideCar, then it's somewhere north of 10,000.
From what we've been told, riding a motorcycle with a sidecar is a unique experience requiring massive amounts of upper body effort. With three wheels instead of two, riders can't use the textbook press-and-lean method to negotiate turns. This rider apparently missed that memo. While tackling the infamous Mulholland Drive just outsid
Ural, the Russian motorcycle company that specializes in sidecars, has never been known for groundbreaking designs that blaze a trail through electronic gadgetry or super lightweight composites on the way to the most technologically advanced motorcycles possible.
2010 Ural Patrol T – Click above for high-res image gallery
Stars and Stripes. Peanut butter and jelly. Harley-Davidson and sidecars. Okay, fine – one of those pairings is not like the others, but H-D does have a long history of adding a third outrigger wheel to its line of heavyweight motorcycles, starting back in 1914. That's over now.
2010 Ural Patrol T – click above for high-res image gallery
2009 Ural T sidecar motorcycle – Click above for high-res image gallery
Vespa-based sidecar - Click above for high-res image gallery
Ural T sidecar motorcycle - Click above for a high-res image gallery
Those of you considering a motorcycle for its undeniable visceral thrills, or even its fuel savings, should consider another option which could add a bit more practicality to your new two-wheeler: the sidecar. Sure, you'll lose out on some performance -- both in a straight line and in the twisty bits -- but you'll easily make that up when the coolness factor is counted in. What, you don't think sidecars are cool? How wrong you are, and oobject has fifteen bits of Jeremy Korzeniewski
Triazuma, Quadrazuma (click here for Autoblog coverage) and GG-Quad (Jeremy Korzeniewski
