Motorcycles - Russia: books - history, types and construction

Motorcycles and Motorcycling in the USSR from 1939 - A Social and Technical History

This book is the first accessible English-language account of motorcycles in the Soviet Union. Focusing on the period from World War II to 1990, it explores Soviet motorcycle production, domestic use, and exports. It covers wartime production, different models, the social role of motorcycling, and Soviet motorsports.

Rather than following market demand, Soviet manufacturers based their designs on pre-war German BMW and DKW models, producing hundreds of thousands of durable, practical motorcycles. These were significantly different from the more style-focused machines in the West. Factories in Ishevsk, Kovrov, Moskva, and Minsk manufactured various models, while the well-known Ural and Dnepr brands came from Irbit and Kiev.

Richly illustrated with Soviet-era photographs, many from private collections, the book offers a glimpse into a lifestyle shaped by ideology and state planning. It also features images of popular imported models such as Jawa from Czechoslovakia and Pannonia from Hungary.

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Mit Hammer und Schlüssel: Der Ratgeber für M72, Ural und Dnepr

When the first edition of this book was published in 2003, Russian motorcycles were considered the epitome of "junk on wheels". They were barely suitable for rough driving fun on your own property or as a relatively everyday vehicle for hopeless optimists.
Anyone who dared to take on the Dnepr or Ural adventure back then really had to have a lot of courage and constantly had to defend themselves against the teasing of know-it-alls. Today, around fifteen years later, things are not much better, but the once cheap imports from beyond the Iron Curtain have matured into genuine vintage cars with a constantly growing fan base.

At the same time, the legacy of post-Stalinist mass production has given rise to a small motorcycle manufacturer that builds Russian classics to current standards. Riding a Russian motorcycle - whether old or new - is a very unique attitude to life. It teaches you to be slow, pragmatic and able to suffer.

This book helps with that. It is intended to open up the world of these survivors of times long past, especially to those who are thinking about buying a classic 650 Ural or Dnepr. Or to give the new "Russian driver" a deep insight into the history of these controversial sidecars.

And above all, it is intended to clear up the half-truths and rumors that still persist today at the local bar or even in the specialist press. After more than 100 000 km with his Ural "without any particular incidents" (measured by the world view of a Ural driver), the author set about combining his experiences and interesting facts about history and technology - from the great-grandmother and BMW copy "M72" to the current generation of Ural sidecars - into a guide that quickly established itself as a standard work and is now finally available again as a bound and updated edition.

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Motorräder des Ostblocks - Bulgarien, Polen, Sowjetunion 1945-1990 (Typenkompass)

It was not only MZ and Simson that drove in the former GDR: in the course of so-called compensation deals, vehicles were repeatedly imported from Eastern Bloc countries.
Since the GDR was given sovereignty over motorcycle construction up to 250 cc by the CMEA states, the CZ and Pannonia, the CZ and Ural were hardly to be found on the road, but all the more so in the countries of origin.

In his usual meticulous manner and extensively documented in numerous, often historical photos, Frank Rönicke offers a comprehensive overview of two-wheeler production in the Eastern Bloc in this Typenkompass.

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