You did What ?!!?

Before I go much further I'm sure some people are questioning my sanity and why I bought a used Ural Motorcycle.
There are several reasons. The main one is I now live in Northern Michigan.
The motorcycle riding season up here is from May to maybe late October.
It snowed 8 inches on April 20th here.
I can't afford to buy a car just yet and when I do it will have to be an all wheel drive.

The past two years I was living in London, U.K.
Had a great time, saw a lot and made some great friends.
Killed my bank account though.
While I was in England I had a 500CC Royal Enfield. Great design that hasn't been changed since 1955.....literally. Single cylinder, carburettor, coil, wet oil gear box, 22 Horse power, drum brakes, right side gear shift, left side brake, top speed 55 m.p.h. and got 75 M.P.G.
You had to constantly fiddle with it but it was simple to work on.
It was made in India. Great design but the quality of the metallurgy in the parts had a lot to be desired. Sounded like a tank engine and parts fell off but it always got me home.
My favourite moment will always be coming around a bend and seeing the sunset behind Stone henge......just before the engine died from vapour lock.

So I'm back in America and need a way to get around.
Look around and all I see for sale locally are Harley Davidson and Sports bikes.
Can't afford a Harley or a sport bike and both are only good for 6 months riding at best.
I was looking at a BMW R80, which I may still get in case I need to run to the next state over to get milk or something.

So I'm still looking at Urals. A brand new one is $11,500 out the door.
Used one is still anywhere from $4,000 and up.
I saw Natasha for sale for $2,000. But it was broken and I would have to fix it.
Well it's a used Ural I'd probably have to fix it at some point anyway.

Plus Dom kept a blog so I knew the history of the bike and everything that had been done to it.
That makes a big difference.
Anything that could go wrong with a Ural had pretty much already
happened to this one.
Alternator grenaded, broken side-car shaft, etc etc.
But it did have a 750 engine and a total loss system installed.
Even with all those problems he logged over 15,000 miles on it.
That's like going across America 4 times.
Pretty impressive for only owning the bike a few years.

I also knew that a certain dealer in Florida wanted to buy it
and break it up for parts.
I'm a sucker for homeless animals and lost causes.
So I decided to buy it.
I have no idea if it was a good idea or not.
But I figure you'll never know deep the water is till you jump.