CURDites in Kemptville - 14 May 07

Every once in awhile the planets will align, yin and yan will be in perfect balance, the universe will harmonise and people's social schedules will match. That all happened today when three Ontario CURDites met to "do lunch" at a restaurant midway (more or less) between their three respective towns. So at high noon the town of Kemptville, Ontario, was treated to the sight of three Urals sitting outside the Kemptville Family Restaurant; a shiny, new, green '07 Patrol belonging to Derek from Ottawa, a rugged '06 Gear-Up from Bruce in Smiths Falls and the slightly used '05 Tourist of yours truly, the Head Cheese.

It's not often one gets to see three Urals together, never mind an example each from three successive model years, so there was much talking and exchanging of information as we compared the rigs and checked out the various ways each owner had personalised their ride to suit their needs.

Bruce's Gear-Up has some interesting mods and gadgets, including a tank mount shifter, toolbox gas tank and GPS unit on the handlebars. The "CCCP" front fender numberplate and big red star on the sidecar nose were other visual clues that this rig wasn't some namby-pamby Yuppie toy.

Derek's Patrol was so clean and shiny it looked like it had just rolled out of the factory this morning. Which is pretty close to the truth, as he'd only picked it up last week and was 200km into the break-in routine. It hurt me to look at the sparkly chrome and shiny paint and compare it to the "been to hell and back" rusted patina of my Tourist.

Of course, you can't have three Urals in a parking lot without some UDF and it wasn't long before our Russian rigs attracted the attention of another motorcycle enthusiast. This gentleman knew a bit about Urals and was quite interested in hearing about them from the owner's point of view.

After lunch - generously paid for by Bruce - we decided a ride was in order. As Kemptville was more in Bruce's neck of the woods, he graciously volunteered to lead us on a nice back roads route. As Derek was still under break-in rules, we kept the pace to a leisurely 60-75kmh, much to the disgust of a couple large trucks who blasted around us and disappeared over the horizon like we were keeping them from a hot date somewhere. Jeezus, guys, you're only carrying dirt - it'll keep.

Other then the trucks, pretty much all the other traffic seemed quite taken with the site of three Russian beauties bobbling their butts (the bikes, not the riders) along the countryside. Riding in the Tailgunner position, I was privy to all the reactions of oncoming traffic and acknowledged countless smiles, waves and thumbs-up as we rode by.

We stopped at the Andrewsville locks by the Rideau Canal for another photo shoot and informal tech/gossip session. Our arrival attracted the attention of the groundskeeper, who was mowing the lawn as we pulled in and parked. When he saw me taking pictures of the group, he stopped his mower to ask if we'd like him to operate the camera so that all three could be in the photo. We were happy to oblige.

Of course, that led to another UDF session and Bruce fielded many questions while Derek and I looked at some of the differences between the three rigs. It was very apparent that the Russians are serious about improving the marque, as we noticed several improvements on his '07 that I could only dream of for my '05. Nothing that a bit of cash and retrofitting wouldn't cure, though.

We wound our way through some more scenic roads, ending up in Bruce's town of Smiths Falls where we stopped at a gas station for a final chat before heading our separate ways. Bruce carried on in his role as Official CURD UDF Spokesman by entertaining questions from another curious passerby-by (not shown in this pic) who was quite impressed with the display. All too soon, it was time to head for home and we said our good-byes after promising we'd meet again sometime soon to do this all over again.