Advice needed; sidecar jockying.

Okay, here comes the science bit:

You don't countersteer an outfit, normally. You steer it by turning the
bars in the direction you want to go. Think of it as a three-wheeled
tractor, not a motorcycle with an add-on. You've got a left-hand chair, so
I'll refer specifically to left and right, rather than toward and away from
the chair.

We'll start off with straight and level. If you're at rest on a flat, level
piece of ground, and you accelerate without any particular steering input,
the outfit will veer off to the left. This is because your thrust line is
off-centre - the bike is driving around the chair. Similarly, if you're
moving in a straight line at a constant speed, and you brake or just close
the throttle, the chair will come round the bike, and you'll veer off to the
right.

Both of these behaviours can be controlled by steering against them - as you
get used to it, it becomes second nature. Alternatively, they can be used
to help get the outfit round corners.

Approaching a right-hand corner at a reasonable speed, you maintain course
and speed a little later than you would normally on a bike (we're not
talking very fast here). Then you reduce power a little, steer into the
corner a little, and the plot comes round almost effortlessly. Straighten
up and accelerate away.

Approaching a left-hand corner, you reduce speed well in advance, then start
to feed in some throttle as you steer into the corner. Keep the power on
all the way through.

In a left-hander, the outfit will tend to roll to the right on its
suspension. Add in centrifugal force, and you'll feel like it's going to
tip up and fall on its right side.

If you put too much steering in, or too sharply, on a left-hander, you can
lift the chair. This is something best avoided on public roads, at least at
first. If you do somehow contrive to find yourself heading into a
tightening left-hander with the chair already airborne, widening your line a
little will get it back down. Then scrub off some speed while you have the
chance.

What's more likely is that you'll be coasting into a long, open left-hander,
think "Hmm, better slow down" and find yourself drifting inexorably into the
oncoming traffic, because you've closed the throttle without resisting the
consequent veer to the right.

Hills are the next complication. Uphill right-hander, just keep the power
on and steer into the turn. Uphill left-hander, you don't need to slow so
much, more power, less trepidation. Downhill right-hander, as on the flat
but don't get carried away. A dab of back brake can help it round if the
engine braking on its own is a bit feeble. Downhill left-hander, approach
with caution, control your speed, and just feed in a breath of throttle to
get you round.

Don't forget to steer into corners.

Wobbles: resist. Just brace against the bars and damp them out.

If the rear shocks aren't on their maximum setting, adjust them so that they
are. Tyre pressures on the Ural are 22psi front and chair, 36psi rear,
which would probably be a good starting point for your outfit.

 

This above all is rule 1.
--

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Wotcha.

Try holding the 'bars with just one hand ( preferably the right 'cos of the
throttle control ) and using them as a tiller - play on a car park or
similar for a while, you'll soon find out what does what.
You do have to physically turn the 'bars when riding an outfit. . . . . and
you will "run out of road" sooner or later - I know I did with my outfit.

 

<uWhHi.15662$>:

<SNIP Instructions>

Thank you very much.

Could you possibly post it again in a larger font so I can paste it to
the petrol tank?

 

Won't work - you've got to know this stuff off by heart or you're doomed.
You'll end up like sweller, a laughing-stock with a cracked head and a
broken toe. You can't react in a split second if you have to read it off
the tank first. Remember, pilot error is when a committee takes 6 weeks to
decide what you should have figured out in 3/10ths of a second.

Good luck - you'll need it.

 

*gulp*

This all sounds so final.

 

Are you trying to say you've got fighter pilot reactions and I'm a spaz?
You are, aren't you.

 

Here's a bit of a repost of something I put up 8 years ago. There's
bound to be at least one or two confusions of left and right, but don't
let that worry you.

To start with I'll go through the basics of sidecar alignment:

If we ignore all the joys of physical attachment of the motorcycle to
the sidecar, we are left with alignment. There are three basic
variables: lead, toe in and lean out.

Lead: the sidecar wheel has to be in front of the motorcycle wheel by
somewhere between 3 and 12 inches, 9 is suggested as a good starting
point. If the wheel is correctly located, the steering should be just as
heavy in each direction - if it's too far forward it's easier to turn
right than left and if it's too far back it's easier to turn left than
right. Probably.

Toe in: the sidecar wheel has to point slightly towards the centre line
of the outfit. Too little toe in and the outfit will tend to drift to
the left, too much and it drifts to the right. Drift either way is a bad
thing as it means there has to be constant physical effort to keep it
going in the right direction.

Lean out: The bike has to lean away from the sidecar slightly, so that
when travelling on a straight bit of road, the camber causes the bike to
sit upright. Too much lean out, the outfit pulls to the right and is
difficult to steer left, too little, it pulls to the left and is
difficult to steer right.

So each symptom can have one or more causes. Probably.

...and fit a steering damper.

...and if there is no-one in the chair, put in at least 50lb of
ballast.

Then there's driving:

Basically it should be 0K at a constant speed in a straight line. It
follows that any deviation from this is bad. Lets look at the basics:

Speeding up: As you accelerate, the weight of the chair pulls you to the
left, so you have to steer right when you accelerate to keep you going
in a straight line.

Slowing down: The opposite to speeding up. As you brake, the chair tries
to go round the bike, so you have to steer left to keep going straight.

Turning left: Slow down to an acceptable speed for the corner. Then slow
down some more. Then knock another 5 mph off. When you reach the corner,
use the 'it goes to the left when I accelerate' feature to your
advantage and accelerate whilst gently turning the bars left. The slower
you are going the harder you have to accelerate.

Turning right. Similar to turning left, but completely different. You
must arrive at the corner too fast. At the last moment, shut off the
throttle and ease the bars right. The chair will start to overtake the
bike and you turn right. If it's a sharp turn you may need to brake
also.

Problems turning left: The basic problem is that the bike will not
disobey the laws of physics. The weight is all on the left, so when you
turn left there is a tendency for the sidecar wheel to lift and flip you
over towards the outside of the bend. At low speeds it'll flip you over.
At high speeds you may slide if you are lucky. So if you happen to be
going round a left hander too quick and the wheel lifts, here is what
you do: steer right to drop the wheel, brake hard whilst steering left
to scrub off speed and not turn into the oncoming traffic, slow as much
as you can (remembering that you are heading towards a lorry at the
moment) then steer hard left whilst really nailing the throttle. If you
go too far before attempting the turn again you'll be on the wrong side
of the road and the camber will hinder you rather than help. A very
natural sequence I'm sure you'll agree.

Problems turning right: Again the laws of physics have a lot to do with
things, but this time it's a lot simpler. If you go into a right hander
too quick, the bike's rear wheel will lift as you pivot about the line
between the sidecar wheel and the bike's front wheel. It all lands on
top of you. Game over, insert coin. No need to remember a recovery
technique as there isn't one.

With all that memorised, I set out from my father's house for my maiden
voyage on the BMW K75 and Squire ST2 combination.

In terms of alignment, it was soon apparent that I had far too much
lean-out. The outfit was pulling hard to the right. I also had no
steering damper (let's just see if it needs one before spending money)
and no ballast (1 wasn't planning on going very fast). I think I also
had too much toe in as well, but the lead seemed about right.

And the wiring hadn't been done. So it was hand signals for everything.

There was a slight wobble as I set off, and I kept it to 15 mph or so
until I was out of the village. Out of the village, I set off gently
down the back lanes and started to slowly sped up. My first left hand
bend loomed. Nothing particularly spectacular; a shallow left hand turn.
On a solo, my speed would be illegal by this point, so 40mph seemed like
a reasonable speed. I didn't make it beyond about 30 as the bars started
to flap very violently in my hands. So I was trying to turn a gentle
left, but the bike was determined to turn right and spit me off. I
decelerated (bad move - I went further right) and had to turn the bars
hard left to avoid hitting the poor chap in the MGB coming the other
way. As I had turned left, the wheel lifted, but luckily the driver MGB
was out of the way when I landed it. Slow down, pull in, stop
(remembering not to put foot down as it usually results in a broken
ankle). Decided to travel the remainder of the way at speeds not
exceeding 30 mph.

For an hour or so, there was not much excitement, other than the fact
that I was only doing 25 mph and had to be constantly steering left and
also hanging on with all my strength to stop the slapping. I couldn't
indicate, as that required me to take one hand off of the bars, and that
wasn't an option.

At that speed, I decided that using the back lanes was a good idea to
avoid problems with people coming up behind me at speed. The trouble
with back lanes it that and single track road puts the bike on the wrong
camber all the time, making turning left almost impossible but requiring
yet more effort to keep it going straight.

Somewhere deep in the Cotswolds, I started down a long, wet, gravel and
mud strewn descent only to be met half way by a chap in a Sierra. As I
don't have reverse I was a bit stuck, so he reversed back. Unfortunately
he was rather impatient, requiring me to put the wheel up a slight bank
to get round him. Now that wouldn't normally be a problem except that
this banked the outfit even more to the right and it felt as if it were
going to topple. I turned away from the bank and ended up heading across
the road towards the Sierra. Brake! on the wet/mud/gravel surface the
whole thing started sliding so I had 2 options: drive into the Sierra or
slide into the Sierra. Luckily (again) the chap powered through the
small gap before I hit him & I came to rest in the middle of the road at
90 degrees to my intended direction of travel.

It struck me that people have been driving these things for years
without too many problems, so with nothing around I tried a little
experiment. I drove the sidecar up a slight bank on the left of the road
with the intention of driving it back down again and proceeding without
any fuss. It took me a while to manoeuvre the outfit out of the right
hand hedge and get going again, but it was a useful learning
experience...

I managed to get home (slowly) without further incident.

It took me 105 minutes to cover 35 miles. I was physically exhausted. I
had been home 3 minutes when a friend turned up to see if I wanted to go
for a thrash!

Since then I have fitted a huge, monster steering damper (modified VW
Beetle suspension unit) and reduced the lean out significantly. I have
yet to venture far, but it seems lot better. It still pulls to the right
a little and refuses to turn corners, but at least it doesn't shake
itself to pieces. I got 34 mph out of it yesterday! .

Yes you do

Platy's has links; it was still heavy

Only with a fat bloke in the chair

Not really, they give you some relaxation time.

After a while, the biggest problem I had was the attitude of other
drivers. When you're trying to pilot an outfit (especially one with an
18-month old child in the chair) you want to be left to get on with it
and not be hassled by other drivers.

Vehicles behind struggled to cope with me going round left-handers at 30
and right handers at 70, and always having a truck bearing down on you
in left handers doesn't make them any easier

 

Death usually is.

 

And? And? One totalled outfit on the M25 suggests he's right.

Now, me, me, I've never pranged an outfit, not even one with seventeen
stone of wailing Dodger on the pillion seat and a pissed Bonwick[1] in
the chair, trying to turn off the ignition.

[1] Is there any other kind?

 

1/4 the fun at 1/16 the speed

 

Gyp wrote:

I'm not quite sure how these things are still legal, but I'm very glad
that they are, and really feel that I should get one before they're banned.

 

I've got a pilot's licence. You drive trains. It doesn't mean you're a bad
person.

 

Eddie wrote:
[of sidecars]

I don't think that they should be banned but I really, *really* can't
see the point of them.

At all.

 

Many people would say the same of motorcycles.

 

That's half the fun. Ah, I forgot that for most UKRMers motorcycling is
a pastime only to be properly enjoyed riding solo on a litre sports
bike.

They enable a child to be involved in family motorcycling activities
before they are old enough to ride pillion. How irresponsible you say.
Much safer to cosset them in the back of a 4x4 Volvo or such like.

If transporting a family of three they do have an advantage when parking
over even the smallest of cars (plus several disadvantages naturally).

IME most car park attendants at places like tourist attractions will
find you a convenient corner near the entrance (particularly if
ostentatiously carrying a child buggy).

You can fit them in to odd spaces because you can clamber on to the bike
rather than have to open a door. TBF you have to watch out for the
gradient of the location unless, like platy's device, you are equipped
with reverse.

I remember circling a packed car park along with all the cars waiting
for someone else to leave. Then I spotted a space with a small tree. The
tree nestled neatly between the chair nose and leading links. When it
was time to leave the consternation on the faces of those car drivers
waiting to pounce like vultures on the free space was most entertaining.
--

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

 

<snip lots of good advice>

You missed out one major bit...

Petrol and matches.

If sidecars were a new invention they'd be immediately banned from the
road.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

I have to tell him that?

They wouldn't be invented nowadays.

 

No need for such extravagance as a Volvo - simply build a trike.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

In communiqué <>, Grimly

Beyond my capabilities. I preferred to buy an outfit that had been
properly set up at the Squire works. Anyway, I have watched the antics
of some trikes and three-wheeler 'cars' at hill climbs. Some seem to be
very unforgiving. They will hold on and hold on, then suddenly flip. An
outfit gives you plenty of notice that you are pushing your luck IME.

--

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+