Three Wheel Chariots

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I grew up in a sidecar – at least that’s how it seemed at the time. While my parents were hardy well off, that they had transport even as rudimentary as a sidecar outfit, made us a mobile family. That, in the nineteen sixties was more than most.

All of this was brought back to me when a member of the UK Bike Forum related her experience of riding one for the first time. Ah, yes it brings back all sorts of memories. I learned much about the peculiarities of sidecars during my formulative years from my father. So all that quaint sorcery involved in setting them up, such as toe in and lean out, meant something to me long before I ever rode a motorcycle myself. Even so, despite the dire warnings about how difficult they can be to ride, my first time was a shock indeed.

Before I get to my own ignominious adventure, let’s talk about Uncle Bob. At about the time my father was riding sidecars, Uncle Bob had one too – an AJS, it was, I think. Like all budding sidecarists, he got the thing all set up and like all budding sidecarists, made exactly the same mistake – he thought he was riding a motorcycle. Wrong! Sidecars look like motorcycles, but with a big lump hanging off one side, they do not behave like one. Bob approached his first right-hand junction with every intention of turning right. The outfit, on the other hand, had other ideas – it carried straight on ahead, across the pavement (sidewalk to our US friends) and up the steps of a police station where Bob had to explain his sudden appearance to the somewhat bemused police constables inside.

My father wasn’t much better. Having persuaded his new combination through the first couple of junctions, he opened the throttle only to execute an unintentional left turn straight into someone’s drive. The bike ended up on one side of a gatepost and the sidecar on the other.

So, armed with these tales of caution, I set off. Now, intellectually, I knew that the lump on the left-hand side of the bike would pull it left, particularly under acceleration, and right under braking. Made sense. What I forgot about was the camber. As I accelerated, the bike kept pulling left, not to mention the handlebars shaking uncontrollably as I tried to keep the whole plot going in a straight line at about 30mph. Ah, I thought, all I need to do is brake, the sidecar will swing right and then I can accelerate again. So I braked. The outfit lurched left, down a ditch up an embankment and into a hedge where the engine stalled. I was sitting there wondering just how I was going to extract myself, preferably before anyone I knew saw me, when a women stopped her car and asked if I was supposed to be there. Well, that wasn’t exactly the plan and I did try to explain, but gave up and meekly accepted her offer of a tow back onto the road.

Riding sidecars, as one wag once put it is doing the impossible with the unrideable. I guess that’s why they are so much fun. I haven’t ridden one for over twenty years now, but I still look at them with some affection. I guess because it takes a degree of bloody-mindedness to ride them well and that’s a quality I admire.