I upgraded my kit and tested all the stuff over the months and feel confidant about writing about them now. I blame a lot of this discovery on Adventrue Rider Radio as they first brought much of this to my attention.
The Ural is a strange beast – I explain to most people that riding with a sidecar is a lot like having a psychopath setting next to you because occasionally it wants to kill you. There is about 0% horse power and about 100% drag so anytime you let go of the throttle so you end up decelerating incredibly fast. I first heard of Atlas on of course Adventure Rider Radio and quickly dismissed it because my GS has a proper and amazing cruse control. However I was at Overland Expo and actually met the people behind Atlas and I thought it would be just the thing for the Ural Gear up so I could occasionally not be required to have a death grip on the throttle the entire time while riding.
The installation was actually pretty simple. Watch the videos a couple of times on the website – dry fit it a couple of times – and then it all makes sense on how it works and how to apply the pads and the entire unit. I have used other throttle locks and they were always a huge pain in the butt. Other locks take up space on the handle or have only one adjustment which never seems to be at the right place or worse of all use the cap in on the ends and only work for that specific handlebar type. This was something I had discovered back during the dark days of Buell Ulysses ownership and I never found anything that worked properly.
After talking to David I thought I should give the whole throttle lock thing a try again. David seemed like a cool cat who really had given this problem a proper amount of thought. In typical MotoLizard fashion I tend to hand out Rum or Cigars to people I think are interesting. I connected the Atlas throttle lock up to the Ural with the help of my youngest son and we had it up and going in about 30 minutes. I took it out on a few test rides just to make sure it worked. That’s really it – it just works – it works when ever you need it at any setting you need when you need it and turns off very quickly when you need it to. I never really thought about it since I installed it. It just works and it works better then any other throttle lock I have ever used. I guess the best way to describe it is it works so well you just don’t think about it – which it turns out is actually high praise.
The MotoLizard
