Arizona-based Kalaber Creations builds enjoyable, customized Ural motorcycles for three-wheeled adventure

A motorcycle with a sidecar equals rolling happiness. A customized Ural motorcycle with sidecar built by Arizona-based Kalaber Creations equals true euphoria. Mark Tetreau and his wife, Jill, own this small Ural motorcycle dealership and custom outfitter. Kalaber Creations’ name was created from the names of the couple’s two daughters, Kali and Amber.

One of their latest creations is “U1,” the “U” a tribute to Ural and “1” indicating it is one of a kind. U1 took more than three years to build from every kind of old, used, or scrap part imaginable. Since its completion, U1 has become the perfect chariot for Mark and Jill. Although this particular Ural hasn’t seen any long-distance adventures, Mark is perfectly content running around Prescott and the surrounding area with his wife.

Originally hailing from Michigan, Mark became tired of the snow and moved to the Southwest in 1979. There, he went to work in the auto business, first at a local dealership and then creating and building promotional 4×4 rigs from his own shop. “This provided me an outlet for my creative energy and meshed perfectly with my knowledge of vehicles,” states Mark.

After a while, Mark started to sell Ural motorcycles at his store, seeing an opportunity to increase his creativity and automotive master-mindedness. Although he loves Urals in stock form, he soon began to develop aftermarket parts for them, mainly for off-tarmac adventures. All those parts are made in the United States and have been carefully constructed.

After many years as a customizer, Mark amassed lots of spare parts. He didn’t know when he’d need them; he saw them as shelves of opportunity for future modification. With U1, the opportunity to use those parts presented itself. Mark wanted to showcase the bike and sidecar as a token of love for both his wife and his craft.

This truly unique Ural started out as a 1999 two-wheel drive Ural Patrol, a trade-in which had been disassembled, was missing many parts, and did not run. Mark saw a perfect opportunity to give the Patrol a new life, installing a rebuilt motor and transmission. The rest was a “clean out of the left-over parts in the shop” says Mark. “Carbs, left-over drive shaft, the sidecar drive wheel that was bent from what, I have no idea.”

He and Jill found five 18” steel rims, two of them for spares. They didn’t want to mount the spares on the trunk so they cut and narrowed the sidecar and put them on the side. Mark narrowed it about nine inches to fit the spares, then added Jeep CJ-5 fender flares to cover the spare tires and hold down the sidecar fender, which was “pretty bent,” so they cut off the damage.

Allowing his creative juices to flow, Mark found an eight-inch headlight from his old parts shelf, so he cut up a Ural headlight bucket, increased the diameter to fit the headlight and made it fit. He had some material from a gravel screen, once used for sifting rocks out of sand to make concrete, so he repurposed it and had just enough material to make grills for the motorcycle headlight and sidecar lights. Then he welded in the mesh where he cut up the fender on the sidecar. The sidecar handle is a Cobra handle from a 1956’ish Steib S-500 sidecar . . . the list goes on and on. Mark loves to repurpose and reuse. His passion for customizing Urals is evident.

“I am a Ural dealer who sells and rides new bikes,” says Mark. “They are great fun! But when you’re old, old school is just as fun. Besides, you have to do something with all those old parts.”

As Mark was building U1, he didn’t get the speed he expected from it. But that didn’t stop him. It turned out to have a “bobber” look because of the rough fenders and all the dents he had to cut off. Not having a taillight was an issue, too. It was a great opportunity to put to use a 1930s Cocker taillight collecting dust. Then it was time to make a rear rack that looked correct with that taillight, and he carried over that rack style to the sidecar. Nothing fit, as the rear was narrowed, so to make it work, he used leather straps from a BMW sidecar rig he and Jill used in the mid-70s. Then the tan sidecar interior leather was installed.

Mark’s handlebars were also on his shelf, from an unremembered source. Although three inches narrower than stock, they were comfortable for Mark’s riding style (slight cafe). The gas tank came from a Ural gear-up that was cut in half, to a seven-and-a-half gallon capacity.

In addition to found, kept, scrap, and unique parts on this one-of-a-kind Ural, it also showcases a multitude of Kalaber Creations’ fabricated parts: skid plates on the bike and sidecar, a Kalaber step plate, and a Kalaber winch mount housing an automotive battery in the sidecar to run the WARN 4500 winch.

What is Mark’s favorite thing about this unique Ural?. With a smile, he says, ”Because it fits my wife so well!” There were many left-over parts from this project, and a lot of time cutting, fitting, and building, but it wasn’t a high-dollar project, it was just a labor of love.

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