Achieving the best for Soviet sidecar motorcycles

Enthousiasm and practical knowledge

Two enthousiasts improving Soviet two-wheel-drive sidecars with upgrades they found proven very succesfull during their own off-road escapades, turning their passion into a small enterprise: BestBear in a nutshell.

During a restauration of a 1943 BMW R75 taking several years, Titus Nietsch - owner of the company Alltimers, selling mainly war time and pre war motorcycles - bought a Dnepr K750 MW built in 1964. Just to be able to ride off-road while the restauration of the BMW R75 was still going on. With the Dnepr K750 MW only costing a fraction of the BMW this puchase was an easy decision. Here was a 1960’s Russian sidecar combination having most features in common with the war time German BMW R75: produced for the armed forces with a permanently driven sidecar with differential for road use and especially rugged off-road use, equipped with a differential lock for extreme terrain circumstances.

Of course a Soviet motorcycle is of a different standard than a German one, Russian quality was not quite a guarantee for reliable products, sadly enough motorcycles not excluded. But the Dnepr K750 MW was built by the Kievskiy Mototsikletnyi Zavod (KMZ) – Kiev Motorcycle Factory - for the Soviet army at a higher quality production line than the one used for the civilian Dneprs (mostly with non-driven sidecars). Selected best quality parts were used and the whole production proces took place under military supervision. All this resulted in good all-terrain sidecar combinations excusively built for the Soviet armed forces, the best motorcycles of the Soviet era.

Reliable naturals

Riding his K750 MW in many different circumstances with surprisingly good results, Titus fell for the rugged charm of his Russian sidecar combination; when the restauration of his BMW R75 will be finished the Dnepr will not leave his private motorcycle collection any more (as was the intention at first). Still, during riding practise Titus found out some aspects of the K750 MW turned out to be points for improvement. At that time he met Hans van Tilburg, a mechanic who has 35 years of experience with classic and pre war motorcycles, who was already enthousiastically improving his own Soviet two-wheel-drive sidecar combination.

Both Titus and Hans share the opinion that technical quality and reliability prevail over nice looks and fancy paint schemes (chrome won’t bring you home), as long as the over-all impression of the combination is a good “natural” one. Together they developed a number of modifications to improve the Dnepr MW 750 into the reliable all-terrain machine it was originally meant to be; the best you can build from Russian heritage and still call it a Dnepr.

Improving by upgrades and replacements

The keys to these improvements are a better oil distribution throughout the entire engine, counter-balancing of reciprociating parts and replacing parts of doubtfull quality standards by better ones.
These modifications proved to be real improvements in the field, the plan to bring these upgraded 2WD Dneprs within reach of others was made and BestBear was born.
Made in Russia, tuned in Holland, now available for other enthousiasts!

It is all about riding

BestBear’s philosophy is all about riding; exploring the off-road limits of your sidecar driven machine and your own riding skills, it is this combination that really matters. During these exercises scoring some form of paint scratch or dent is not uncommon at all. That is why BestBear does not stand for ultimate showroom condition for its motorcycles in the first place: technically better-than-just-good and optical okay is the BestBear style.
During their long and hard service life Russian motorcycles often have seen two or three shades of green paint, added by grey, blue or any other color at hand. The original green or khaki paint used by the Soviet Army is almost indestructable and chemically imune when applied the right way. As long as there is no serious rust damage we respect this historical fact of Soviet life, where spare parts were as scarce as American jeans. Behind the Iron Curtain maintaining original factory finish or matching numbers could be considered as a useless form of Western decadency; for a Russian the machine had just to serve as long as possible, one way or an other. For BestBear it technically needs to be reliable while maintaining the original character.

Running his Alltimers company, Titus Nietsch has 20 years of experience with selling and looking after transport of motorcycles around the globe. Technical know-how, correct and up-to-date infomation on the motorcycles for sale, correct documents, certified wooden crates, individual service during and after purchase and lots of enthousiasm for the Soviet 2WD motorcycles make BestBear your professional partner in the Netherlands.

Enjoy this website...

We hope you enjoy rooming around our website as much as we do making and improving it. Feel free to ask questions when information should not be clear enough.

... and please rember this

- Off-road riding is a skill, it isn’t just simply going where
   you want.
- Respect nature, it needs to be protected, so choose your tracks
   carefully.
- Always mind the safety of your passenger and yourself.
- Riding at speed needs experience and adequate brakes.
- Our enthousiasm for Soviet Dnepr 2WD sidecars has got
   nothing to do with politics or militarism, it is just the passion for
   the bike. And the fun of riding one.

As of 2023, BestBear will no longer carry out assignments.