“There aren't too many motorcycles I would chase at this point, but I was like a hungry cougar who just saw a baby rabbit,” I cold-emailed Ural’s PR rep after spotting one of their units rolling in my neighborhood and demanding its owner stop and spill the beans about this rugged, combat-ready-lookin' machine.
Five days later I was on my way to Ural’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, where I took possession of a prototype of Ural’s new electric motorcycle-with-sidecar, which we’ll call a “hack,” one of its traditional handles, from here on in.
Ural, for those not in the know, has been manufacturing their motorcycles with sidecars since 1939, first for the military effort during WWII, and later for civilian use. The brand's popularity has grown around the world since then with international distribution in North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, China and a number of other markets. Since meeting my first Ural, too, I've started to see them all over the place in my travels - Brooklyn, Hoboken, Denver.
It was my first time atop both an electric motorcycle and a hack, and some instruction was required. I was led to a parking lot by Jason Rae, VP of Operations and project manager, who explained to me that I was not riding a motorcycle, which one countersteers to aim where one wishes to go.
The Ural instead requires its rider to lean hard left or right with their body even on minor turns, as the threat of tippage ever looms. Experienced riders can tip on purpose, the same as experienced motorcyclists can pop wheelies, but that wouldn’t be me, not today, thanks. After a few spinarounds, I was off.
My big-fat-butt-sidecar’s right rear tire clipped a few curbs at first. The resulting jolt is as alarming as when your vehicle strikes anything, so you’ll get aware of all four of your corners very soon. As with any other machine you’ve ever ridden, the first few hours or longer are get-to-know-you, break-in periods.
The very first impression was the same impression anyone trying an electric vehicle for the first time is hit by – the silence of the operation. In the case of a motorcycle, part of which people own because they like the “vroom,” it was surreal. Nobody on the street or in crosswalks heard me coming, thus necessitating frequent beep-beeps. But nobody who saw me seemed to feel annoyed or threatened, either; I made tons of new friends while out and about, many of them children. I was beeped at, photographed and videoed wherever I drove.
My prototype had two batteries; one under the sidecar and a second under the frame of the motorcycle itself. There are three driving modes; Eco, Sport and Custom. Eco is for extending your range to squeeze the last possible bolt of lightning out of the battery, and Sport is naturally for a killer blast-off, though you can’t smoke the tires; you can, however, make skiddy noises when you stop via the Brembo brakes, with no loss of control.
On the highway, it’s like being in a small car without a roof or body, or imagine driving a motorcycle with two additional motorcycles mounted on your right and you’re rolling triplets.
You learn to stay in the left section of any lane, not in the middle. You don’t handle like either a sport bike or a cruiser and you’ve got to hang on more than you would with a two-wheeler. You don't wave to other bikers as removing the left hand from the steering wheel causes the unit to veer left; a quick toot suffices.
I maxed out the throttle to 70 MPH just to see how it felt, but it wasn't really comfortable there, so I eased it down to 60 and kept it around that speed for highways. I had more fun in neighborhoods than on highways over the two-day test, but of course I did not take the unit off-road or over snow, which is where Urals excel. (I tested their gasoline-powered unit the next day - but that's for another article.)
After a night in a nearby hotel, where the unit sat overnight plugged into a regular outlet that turned out to be non-operational, though I still had 75% charge, I set off the next for the city of Seattle, where the Pike Place Market turned out to be ideal for making lots of new friends, many of whom seemed to know all about my ride before I said anything.
Pike Place, with its steeply inclined hills, was also the ideal locale for flooring the accelerator. In “Eco” mode, I was Fred Flintstone, but with “Sport” engaged, the acceleration was more than acceptable.
I plugged in that night at my hotel at 33% power, and set my phone’s stopwatch to record exactly how much time passed and how much of a charge I got overnight. But when I arrived at the bike at 7 AM the next day, someone had unplugged my ride and flung the cord back toward the hack. I charged for two hours, got up to 66%, and headed back to base, all smiles despite a temporary loss of faith in humanity.
Was I impressed? Absolutely. I'd bonded with the Ural by the end of the test, and I was sorry to see it go. Would I buy it? It doesn't matter right now – it's not for sale. The decision to manufacture or not will “based on market research, consumer and industry experts’ feedback,” says the company.
The electric Ural will be displayed at the Progressive Motorcycle Show in Long Beach November 16-18. Ural is offering demo rides to collect feedback before moving to the next phase of this project. Meaning it's up to you, the public, as to whether or not the prototype becomes a reality. We think it ought to.
