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It's a Ural!

Now all we had to do was drive it across the USA, back to Ural HQ in Seattle. Easy! Or so I thought as I carefully reversed it out of the workshop, shifted into first and inched my way into the street, mowing down a few traffic cones with the sidecar in the process. Oops! Yep, having a giant lump of metal attached to the side of my bike was going to take some getting used to. As we waved farewell and wobbled our way into Richmond's afternoon traffic I had the distinct feeling that ten minutes pottering around a Spanish campsite a year ago was not quite training enough for what lay ahead.

Maybe starting our trip in the twisties of the Appalachian Mountains was not the most sensible idea either – what we really needed was a very long straight empty road leading to Seattle. But to be honest, not an awful lot of sense had gone into this venture. From the very beginning it was borne from a romantic notion; from our shared penchant for vintage iron, the golden age of motorcycling and the great American road trip. The actual practicalities and techniques of driving a sidecar outfit had barely been discussed in the run-up to our departure. Being accustomed to travelling on our minimalist trail bikes, we were far too excited about the capacity for carrying loads of clobber ('It's got a boot!'), to consider the more practical issues that might arise. Like going round corners.

By the end of our first day we had somehow made it unscathed through the winding roads of rural Virginia to Shenandoah National Park at the north-eastern end of the Appalachians. We were thoroughly exhilarated by our novel form of transport, not to mention amazed that everything had gone according to plan, with only a few near-death forays into the path of oncoming traffic. The main thing was that the rig had remained upright and all shoulders remained un-dislocated, but only just. My arms were fairly hanging out of their sockets and I felt as though I'd spent the day wrestling a grizzly, rather than taking a leisurely ride through the countryside and I had serious doubts about how I was going to keep this up all the way to Seattle. Piloting a sidecar outfit was turning out to be far more of a physical experience than I had anticipated, and despite Austin and me sharing the driving we were both thoroughly exhausted by the time we stopped for the night. As we set up camp and slipped our aching limbs into our sleeping bags to the sounds of deer skitting around the woods and cheeky skunks and chipmunks snuffling for food, we lay down our weary heads in the humbling knowledge that we still had an awful lot to learn.

Austin outside Nashville

Driving a sidecar outfit is nothing like riding a motorcycle and nothing like driving a car. It's not even somewhere in between. There's nothing else to compare it to and once you get the hang of it, it's tremendous fun but in the beginning it can be positively terrifying, as if all those years of motorcycling experience count for nothing. Unlike riding a solo bike where a quick burst of power will often get you out of trouble, especially off-road, giving it some gas with a sidecar will generally make life more difficult, as the faster you're going, the harder it is to steer. Just keeping it in a forward direction at 50 mph constitutes a serious upper body workout and hauling it round the corners requires an act of superhuman strength (I speak purely for myself here of course, I would hate to cast aspersions on my husband's manliness!).

As we made our way down the endlessly twisty Blue Ridge Parkway that winds its way along the crest of the Appalachians, one thing that became quickly apparent was that the role of the passenger is not to be underestimated in this three-wheeled riding relationship. Not for the hanging off the side type antics you see in sidecar racing, but for the far more difficult skill of keeping your mouth shut when convinced you are approaching certain death at the hands of your loved one. Most couples who have attempted any long-distance riding together will tell of occasional marital friction on the road, but on two bikes, you are at least in control of your own destiny. Handing over fifty percent of that destiny to your better half is a huge leap of faith, and if you're going to sit there barking out 'helpful' instructions from the chair, you might as well take the next turn-off for the divorce courts.

Out on America's fabulous open roads it didn't take long for us to encounter our first example of Ural Delay Factor, or UDF, as it's known in the Uralist's lexicon. This is quite a serious consideration if you're planning on getting anywhere by a certain time; you simply have to factor in an extra hour or so for the inevitable barrage of questioning that occurs each time you stop. The query is usually the same so you soon get adept at replying.

Floyd, Virginia

'What the hell is that thing?'
Fortunately, the good folk at Ural, veterans of some serious UDF, had had the foresight to apply a sticker on the front of the sidecar proclaiming 'IT'S A URAL!' but this rarely helped the typical onlooker.
'It's a WHAT?'
'A Ural, it's Russian'

This would invariably provoke a look of confusion and by the time our inquisitors had established that we were two Brits riding a Russian sidecar outfit with Washington plates across the USA, the whole conversation would end on a vaguely baffled note, this degree of globalisation proving too much to comprehend for the average American.