Steering damper (aftermarket, 2014+)

More inventory has arrived!

Replacement steering damper for 2014 and later Urals. If you have a 2018 or later, you should have a Bitubo damper, and in our experience those are more durable, although we've heard reports of their damping being insufficient for some riders. The black ones from 2014-2017, however, like to leak oil, at which point they don't work properly.

This damper is long enough to work properly on the Ural, and it can be adjusted to a setting I would call "way too much damping", as well as to settings that I find appropriate. So if you like heavily-damped steering, this is still for you. 

We can rebuild the original 2014-2017 dampers, but between the cost of the repair parts and the value of shop time, rebuilding runs about $80-90, so this replacement is less expensive, even though it always saddens us to discard rebuildable original parts.

And now for my reviews of alternative/competing products! There's one design that installs an automotive shock absorber between the top of your front-right shock absorber and the bottom of your front sidecar strut/bar. We dislike that design because it's non-adjustable, usually has way too much damping, and is a pain to install. (Or in my case a pain to un-install, because we always remove it from trade-ins.) On the other hand, that design does work on 2013 and earlier Urals if you find your friction-style damper to be insufficient. (There is also a kit from Ural to add hydraulic dampers to pre-2014 bikes, though it's expensive and not often in stock.)

Then there's the "economy aftermarket hydraulic steering damper" sold on a certain north-eastern website. We recommend against it because that one is literally too short for the Ural, so once you install it, the new damper becomes your steering stop. That's not a good thing, even if a lot people say they don't mind. In the seller's defense, the website does say "Steering damper rod is slightly smaller than original". Anyway, ours is about $10 more expensive whilst also being long enough to work properly, so here we are. (They lowered their price by $20 recently, so I had to edit the previous sentence...)