How to buy a Ural

 

How to buy a Ural

Steps,

.25 get enthused about 3 legs

.5 Send money to Russia

.75 wait 4 years

I, go to China

2, go to Russia

2.5 spend money sent for Ural due to war

3, go back to China

4, go to Singapore

5, go to Ozzie

5.5 spot Ural and bend over

6, pull gorse out of pocket

7, enjoy said outfit.

2019, excited about having travelled to South Korea, Russia, Mongolia and the Stans on my WR 250 I wanted to do travel on a Ural sidecar, for 2 up it just seemed easier apart from the phenomenon called UDf which is real, this is the Ural Delay Factor where even normal non petrolhead humans and possibly some strange EV types are interested in the bike. We had not had ours more than an hour, it didn’t even have a plate on it and it was all on at Big W Ozzie.....more on that later.

Cast back to 2019, year of excited trip, I met Denis from Lensk in Russia, he helped us get our money over to Russia in order to buy a Ural, $23k kiwis. It did take 4 weeks to get it there and our money turned up the day of our first level 4 lockdown of the Plandemic.... excellent.

Roll on 3 years later when the world nearly realised they had been stiffed by a Plandemic and Vladimir Putin decided it was a cool time to invade Ukraine....that buggered our plans until 2023….excellent…again.

Gooood mooorrnning 2023, we decided fuck it, we are going, will go to China, Russia then Ozzie, Denis’s daughter was getting married and they invited us, that was all we needed.

On again, off again, repeat, with the embargoes against Russia shit got exponentially harder trying to join the dots, we tried everything until it became apparent that Xi and Vlad started having group cuddles meaning we can go over land borders without issue, perfect this was us and we were off like a robbers dog.

We travelled China for about 5 weeks, saw a Chang Jiang Sidecar (second grade and uncool) and I was a rockstar in Changbai as they hadn't seen a whiteyfoo in four plus years.

Getting into Russia was easy enough, the customs lady even filled out our entry forms, this was a great start.

Jacob and Lena whose wedding we were invited too picked us up in Vladivostok, a city I was well versed with, we had a 21st floor apartment room, there were only 21 floors so yeap the penthouse.

From Vladivostok we flew to Irkustk then on to Mama (yes that is correct), a policeman on the flight stopped us before we even left the airport in Mama saying he was…well…a Policeman of the village and what we doing there? We discussed a new phenomenon called tourism…he said no one comes here for tourism let alone paying to fly there (only way in), we explained that the dude on the other side of the fence was our mate backed up by the fact he was waving with enthusiasm, then he believed us, he also spoke to Denis in Russian cos he could and verified our story which to be fair looking from the outside didn’t tick a box they were familiar with as we clearly fell outside their training parameters. 

We spent the night 30 km way in a beautiful small village called XXXX and of course we made ripples again from who are you and where are you from, all good and curiosity combined with laughter and smiles saw us really enjoy the town.

 

We then left and all piled onto Denis’s boat travelling 400 km down the Mama ,Vitim and Lena rivers to Lensk stopping for one night and having a classic Russian banya and a birthday at midnight, again great times with super coulas Russians.

From Lensk it was a flight taking off on a dirt runway to head to Irkustk (being the central point) then up to Magadan to see Natalie and Galina the two chics who helped me on my way to start the Road Of Bones of Siberia In 2019, just like my sisters it was as we were, Vodka, Gin smiles and even a new waterfront café, they both wanted to meet the crazy lady that put up with me so I honoured that.

A week of food, fun, grog, swimming, hiking and smiles it was time to leave for the wedding in Vladivostok, Jacob and Lena were tying the knot and it was an extremely nice musical wedding, it was such a treasure to be invited back for this, had I not made the effort in 2019 and Denis not made the effort to make a foreigner welcome this would not have happened, think about this then think of the news on TV, you decide what is better, exactly turn that fucken idiot box off and get out there.

 

Post wedding we had approx. nine days to fart around and enjoy, back to Irkustk again (yeap we are local now) then of to Olkhon Island in Lake Baikel where this time we enjoy the beach like a European summer, it was excellent to say the least, finishing Olkhon Island we arrived back in Irkutsk again then out to Listvianka for a boat cruise and day in the sun.

 

This bought our time in Russia to an end, long story short we had 30 days in Russia consisting of late flights, cool wedding, old friends, a military coup and in general good times proving yet again people are the same world wide….yeap good bastids.

The fun started when we went to leave, the kiosk chic was useless to the point the VISA, a kiwi passport was too difficult for her and we got detained after she called the police. We explained we had seen friends in Russia (apparently you are not allowed friends in Russia)

We had a vibrant discussion about the location of our friends being Lensk and Magadan, two very very different locations some 3000 km apart, that raised their eyebrows, then we said we had been to a wedding in Vladivostok as well which tipped the scales the wrong way, I pulled out my phone and showed them photos of the wedding with our friends and the bride and groom as well as the same face in Mama and Lensk….picture is worth a thousand words, suddenly the note in room changed when they could clearly see we were in fact tourists not terrorists and things smoothed out as we suddenly became almost normal.

Captain grumpy who bought us in said go, and he instructed a less unfriendly guard to escort us to the departure lounge, it was all over in about ½ hour or so and quite funny really, we only wanted to leave as our VISA was about to run out LOL.

Chinutta

Having successfully exited Russia we had to transit through Beijing, we had a day to kill so Ellen and I met up with some of her friends and had a very nice time before they dropped us off at the airport in person to make sure we left LOL….not much more to say.

Beijing to Singapore

Singapore is somewhere I had not been, Ellen had some 30 years ago so essentially new territory for both of us, we did a 4 day stopover to catch our breath and catch up with Ellens friend Weili who had stayed with us in New Zealand, we hit some coulas attractions including Living Sands Marina, the gardens with the light show and or course the beach, the place should be called Singarich as the wealth there is next level, very nice and clean but WAY to sticky for this kid, I got wetter when I got out of the shower.

Ozzie

Next desto Brisbane in Oz to see the Karitane Nurse Wendy that looked after me some 53 years ago when I was a little brat, this was a well coul catch up with her and hubby Lyndon, unfortunately he loves port etc so I had to shoulder the responsibility of downing one or ten with him and sorting out the world’s problems, got it pretty well sorted. We took in Surfers Paradise etc and supported the local bars for fud etc before bailing off in a rental motorhome, this took us inland to all sorts of places including Uralla, the home of Ural in Oz which Lyndon had kindly pointed out (send ya the bill mate 8-)), we looked at a new one being delivered that day…the excitement of riding a sidecar was rekindled.

Slightly horrified at the new price which was about a hundred bucks shy of $40 large Kiwi this started to dampen the spirits minimally, we both wanted to make it work so withe the help of my dutchie brother we bounced the idea of a second hand jobby, or last years 2022 model hopefully at run out price.

A quick google came up with 2 suitable in Oz, both about 800 km away so in Ozzie terms…just next door mate, both 2022, one had delivery km plus 20, the other in a dealer in Melbourne.

Phone calls and emails to the dealership fell kinda flat, they seemed almost uninterested to sell as we had to chase them pretty much all the way, a little disappointing really as Ellen liked the outback orange.

Off to Port Macquarie to visit Richard and Tracey Bullock ex Wanaka Motorcycle Club, they had bailed to Oz to be closer to their girls so we invaded them for a night on our way through, very cool to catch up guys.

Dropping off the campervan in Sydney we then made our way to Canberra to pick up Willies Landcruiser Prado, great vehicle for over land travel and camping, settled and sorted we left from Canberra and made a B line for Mildura.

More than a week of mucking around and we had not heard from the dealership, we had contacted another fello in between and were already on our way to his place given the lack of response from the dealer, the dealer did contact us till the day before we got to Mildura….too late.

Arriving at Mildura we got to see the bike in person, it is flat metallic slate grey and had 52km on it, looked kinda flat next to the outback orange but it is a nice colour all the same and probably a little more incognito for stealth camping etc.

The price was right with some negotiation and an agreement was made, we took it in for a road worthy (WOF in NZ) as it was purchased new in NSW and we were registering it in Victoria, we are now experts in how to register and Ozzie bike with a Kiwi passport, sing out if you want the info.

At Vicroads we met a dude called Booza who was trying to re-register two trailers, he was in good spirits but Vicroads were grinding him down too, we both had a bloody good laugh and persisted, as it turned out we found out when we got there we needed an appointment…..another week and half away…humpf, the lady said if there was a cancellation they might be able to do ours so we could wait but it was highly unlikely, we said done as we had nothing to do and all day to do it, we will sit and stay while smiling like a grumpy assassin, well roll around 3.00pm the place was very quiet so they said game on, we took that with both hands and not to soon after we were riding back with full rego etc (after some UDF....more later) so our day panned out well with persistence…never give up!!

Booza did succeed too, he was as happy as a sandboy and gave us some bloody good info for our travels, onya mate your blood is worth bottling.

On our way back to Wentworth first thing pick up a camp chair from Big W, $13 Ozzie slides and we were done, in between the UDF (Ural Delay Factor) had already taken place with a guy saying nice bike, lovely resto and how old was it?...yeah bran new bud.

I told him it was basically new but I didn’t know where the left front wheel went, he did look confused LOL.

So, crowd, meet Скиппи (Skippy) …or should we call it Скиппи our new ish Ozstrailirussian 2022 Ural gear up left hand chair 2wd, let the threesome fun begin.