Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Resonable person??

As alluded to in a previous post, I wanted to discuss what kind of person thinks it is reasonable to spend time and money on what is an obscure, and many would say obsolete, machine with a questionable pedigree at best.
So, what kind of person puts themselves through the trial of owning a Ural/Dneper sidecar rig?
Well...there are some informal unscientific stats I can throw out there.
Most foil-heads are between the age of 45 and 56.
Most are experienced motorcyclists, with 25+ years of riding experience.
Most either have school-age children or grandchildren at the time of acquiring their rigs.
Most own other bikes, few have a Ural/Dneper as their starter bike.
There doesn't seem to be a 'feeder' brand of bike. Owners of Russian bikes come from both the Harley and Metric camps, however there are enough owners of British and/or Beemers to cause a statistically significant anomaly.

Few would classify themselves as introverts, and those that do go through a pretty massive paradigm shift due to the UDF (Ural Delay Factor) which forces them into a minor celebrity status at random times.
Most foil-heads also enjoy working on their machines nearly as much as riding them, and take a strange sense of pride in the 'creative problem-solving' and WWID moments necessary to have a happy rig.
Roughly 15-25% enter into the relationship with skewed expectations( 75MPH+ Interstate travel, high performance handling/braking, gas-n-go low maintenance) and discard the rigs in disgust. The remainder are prepared to ride the rigs in the Soviet Style and find they have another problem...they begin to neglect any other bikes they own.




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