Mid-'80s it must have been, I got a call from a mate, that he'd been admitted to hospital and would I take his bike home for him. I'd never ridden a combo. I might even have been banned, since I took a long detour through the surrounding countryside rather than head through town. On the other hand it could have been because I was shit scared of riding it in traffic. But it was a lot of fun. '59 Thunderbird. I used to maintain it for him. One time I had to take the chair off so took the opportunity to ride it that way. It didn't half go with the sidecar sprocket! Like a Bonneville.
A story from my Father’s campfire repertoire. One evening having collected my Mother from work in ‘the chair’ they were in traffic going through Slough. They found themselves sandwiched between two lorries at @5mph, one of which was slowly creeping over towards the other, I think going round a bend, having no doubt not seen my parents. Lorries of course in those days didn’t have the side protection gates, so Father tucked the chair with Mother in under the lorry bed whilst still moving until the lorries parted again. Mother didn’t speak to him for several days apparently.
I had a Sunbeam with a Steib chair for years. I did my homework about setting up a outfit and was confident I was golden so took it for a spin. I got to about 5 miles a hour and the handlebar shake was so violent I could barely hold on. When set up it is still cumbersome at low speed but gets more and more stable the faster you go. You go faster round corners opposite side to the chair as you can lean on it and slow the other way as they tend to lift. There is a reason why most good outfits have leading link forks, massive steering damper and car tyres. It's because it makes them less painful to drive. That's right, drive not ride. They are the worst of both worlds as you have all the disadvantages of a motorbike and all the disadvantages of a car with neither of the advantages. I personally don't think I would have another one. It was great to take the family out when the kids were small but in the end it didn't get used any longer so I sold it.
Jezz what’s the average age of sidecar lovers. Me personally I wouldn’t touch them. If needs be I’d have a gold wing trike.
I think perhaps what happens when you get to a certain errr... mature age is that you don't actually care what others may think and actually relish the idea of having summat that is so obviously obtuse To pompously paraphrase from a rather more important speech from a rather more important man than me - "perhaps it's not because they are easy, but because they are hard"
3 sidecar stories, 1. when I started racing with a 650 Triton back in 1970 I could not afford a van so I bought an old G9 Matchless outfit, fitted a 600 Norton Dominator engine, took off the plywood single chair body and fixed channels to the side car chassis so my Triton could be transported to race meetings. At the try out of this rig in the back alley behind my parent's house I got about 100 yards before the channels which were bolted to the sidecar chassis with exhaust pipe clamps started to relax their grip on the chassis with the result that my pride and joy (the Triton) started to lean and before I could stop the outfit the Triton had mashed the lower fairing against the sidecar wheel mudguard. I soon found a guy to share expenses with in his van who has been a lifelong friend ever since. 2. refitting the sidecar chair body it became my sole transport for about 3 months, an acquaintance and hanger on in our drinking crew (the one who absolutely never bought a round but always had the best road bike in our crew) wanted a lift to Stockwell in South London to buy a fancy camera and lens he had seen advertised there. I took him Ok and was starting to really enjoy riding the outfit, particularly roundabouts, slow in on the left hand bit then whack it open on the right hand bit and get the outfit drifting. At the Cherry Blossom roundabout on the A4 about 5 miles from home I gave it the big hand full for the right hander and the top front sidecar chassis to bike frame joint parted, the bike leaned left and the chair chassis veered right and we headed straight for the armco barrier. My mate in the chair who had been lovingly examining his new purchases on the trip back was now juggling them to save them being ejected from the chair. The plywood front of the chair connected with the armco and shattered nearly as far back as the windscreen. Rider and passenger undamaged. It was about 3pm and I needed the chair for the next day (see below) so I unhitched the remnants leaving my mate and his camera sitting on the armco next to the wreckage and rode solo to Mundays back in Stockwell to buy a replacement fitting, getting there just before they closed. Returned to Cherry Blossom roundabout and refitted the chair chassis and the remnants of the body and made it home. 3. Next day I was due to collect a mate from Burnham nr Slough with about 6 others on solos and we were off to Crystal Palace for the racing. My Burnham mate was not hugely impressed with the completely open fronted passenger accommodation. The outfit had a top speed of about 55mph so I was flogging it on the M4 to and from Burnham what I did not know was that the accident the previous day had kinked the breather pipe from the crankcase. About 2 miles before Hammersmith on the way back to Crystal Palace the pressure in the crankcase broke the piston rings and 2 columns of thick white smoke were to accompany us all the way to Crystal Palace and home again. With broken rings it would only stay running at about 3000 revs and we looked like a WW2 destroyer making smoke to avoid incoming artillery. In the Hammersmith one way system I looked behind to see the car behind with his windscreen wipers going full smearing lovely rainbow coloured smears all over his windscreen, naturally I pointed out this phenomena to my passenger. At this precise moment the car in front stopped suddenly and I had to execute an emergency stop, I was Ok because I had the handlebars to brace against but my mate could not stop himself being half ejected out of front of the non existent chair. I watched his legs going like Fred Flintstone's paddling to keep them being run over by the chair chassis. We stopped just, without injury and subsequently watched a great day's racing at Crystal Palace. He got a lift back to Burnham on the back of one of the solos.
Only type of sidecar I've ever been in, I passengered for this driver once back in the '80s at Brands in a Marlborough Clubmans round.
I dabbled with British bikes for a while and had an AJS model 20 for a good few years. I knew a local old boy who was mad on his bikes and he had an outfit made up of a Norton 16H (I think, deffo 350cc) and watsonian side car. Boy was it slow in a straight line! I remember following him a few times and the first time he lifted the sidecar wheel on a bend I nearly crapped myself, I was sure he was flipping it. Only after following him a while did I realise this was a common and expected thing. I had one brief go on it but not my thing.
