In the summer of 1990 I bought a brand new Dneipr, which was a 650cc Russian-built flat twin, very similar to a Ural, made in a sister factory in another part of (what was then) the USSR.
I think I just expected too much. It was, at best, a 1940s design, with 1960s styling and Friday build quality. I paid a whisker under £2000 for it, and sold it less than a year old for £950. It just goes to show what good value a CBR500R represents in today's money.
Its most notable feature was its reverse gear, and the fact that the heel-and-toe gear lever disengaged the clutch before swapping cogs, so you could ride one-handed.
It was its looks that seduced me, as a shallow and inexperienced 21-year-old. ?
I really tried with it. I toured Scotland on it, and did about 6000 miles on it in the short time I owned it. It was comfortable and easy to ride. Coming from a Honda VF400F though, it was slow; particularly two-up. The brakes were only adequate, despite the twin-leading shoe setup at the front (which needed regular adjustment) and if you exceeded 65mph on your journey you'd need to adjust the tappets when you got home. It was an odd mix of well engineered, over engineered and badly engineered. Being a detail-obsessed pedant, its shortfalls outweighed its advantages for me. If I lived somewhere rural and remote, and had to complete every job myself and manufacture my own spares, then it'd probably be ok. After all, I've run a similarly primitive 1959 Land-Rover for nearly a quarter of a century, and I tolerate its faults. In the end though, I wanted something different and I had to bite the bullet and admit it was a poor choice. I had a few different motorcycles in the subsequent couple of years, before buying a BMW R100RS, which was everything I'd wanted from the Dneipr and more.
Not sure about this but I believe the Russians copied the BMW after the Germans lost the war.
They took a lot of stuff back to Russia.
My grandfather told me a story: the Russians weren't familiar with running water in those days, so they ripped all the faucets out of the walls and installed them when they got back home.
Then they couldn't figure out why the water didn't come out like it did in Germany...
What I'm trying to say is that it takes more than just to copy things, it takes a certain know-how.
Several companies built MCs with boxer engines, including Douglas and Velocette, and a Japanese company, forgot the name, starts with M, but only BMW managed to make reliable bikes and succeed.
Funny that not many car and MC makers employed boxer engines. Subaru and Citroen built them, but it didn't make them famous.
The boxer twin made BMW famous, the flat four made VW famous and the flat six made Porsche famous - all three are German companies.
I once owned A BMW 1983 R100RS, end up adjusting the valves almost every other month on that bike. They were very easy to adjust, maybe all of ten minutes for me after doing so often. For some reason those opposing twins do not hold valve adjustments very well. Easy to do but you end up doing them often. One good thing about that, never had an issue with that motor.
My RS was a 1978 one. Definitely one of the best bikes in my ownership. Mine was a high miler though, even back in the early nineties, and was pretty tired by the time I moved it on. I never had any problem with the tappets on it, but I suffered from repeated clutch release bearing issues. I believe it was revised in the early eighties but mine needed attention every three or four thousand miles. The bike was a dream on long runs, and an enjoyable challenge on the twisties. Utterly fantastic on a long run, two-up with luggage; it would happily sit at any speed you chose, all day long. It was a horrible handful in town on a hot day though and, whilst I could probably still just about manage its bulk these days, I'd not want to.
I had that typical issue with the 83 when it burned up some sort of electrical module that cause the alternator to burn up. Replaced that alternator and then purchased one of those after market modules to fix it. The dealership that did the work, would not even use the standard BMW electrical module, they told me they would only use the after market one, otherwise it could or would burn up the alternator again.
Only other issue with that bike, noise level with wind and engine noise being sent up into you deflected from the fairing along with wind from the windscreen into your helmet. Always wore ear plugs because of that. Good habit to wear ear plugs and still use them to this day.
We always see these bikes at the annual motorcycle show. I guess I have forgotten that outboard wheel is driven. Pretty good climbing (and swimming) ability !
My friend recently sold his Ural with sidecar. Single wheel drive. I've helped him work on it and also attach the sidecar. Horrible craftsmanship, if I can even use that word.
If you ever want a scary ride that will put any roller coaster to shame, try riding around sitting in a sidecar. You are totally locked in and vulnerable should anything happen and of course my buddy has to go around a corner lifting me up in the air. LOL.
The whole time I'm screaming at him to watch out for the parked cars and to move over more to the left. Good fun. Open country roads would be better.
I'm 180 pounds and Peter is about 160 pounds. We headed up a steep hill and he had to downshift to first gear and pin the throttle and we barely made it up the hill. Very low power.
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