Looks like we finally have a working hack.
I have talk to quite a few of you on the phone, visited a few of you at your shops and met some of you at the Idaho run.
We ended up with a used California friendship one that was sold to us unexpectedly by a friend when he learned we were seriously trying to get a hack up.
Turns out he had purchased it used, but never mounted it. He was glad to get the space back and we were overjoyed to have it.
My wife and I designed and built the mounts. It came out really well so all those questions you folks answered were not in vain.
A special thanks to the gentleman at the Idaho rally who sold me some of his old-stock mount pieces so resonably.
We had to add a raked triple trees from Liberty. My wifes back was not up to the stock trees. Her being very tall it was an issue.
The trees made just a world of difference. Nice design, went right in. We were impressed with the engineering that went into them. Glad we didn't try to make them myself.
It was nice to see the fairing just go on with very minimum alteration for where the bars come through.
My wife gets the credit for the work. I got hurt last year and I am still waiting for surgery so I was unable to do much more than instruct and assist.
She is a former NASA engineer who built payloads for high altitude research balloons for NASA. So she didn't really need a whole lot of instruction.
Mostly she needed me out of the way so she could get things done. I felt a lot like that fellow who once said "I am their leader, which way did they go?"
The last hurdle was to re gear the bike. Thanks to the tech board we got it correct at 3.37 to one on the first take. It runs good, tracks straight and the wife says she loves it. Gets 30 mpg which seems to be typical.
I have mastered getting in and out of the hack without using my damaged shoulders. Took a little practice and a few pain pills to work it out but I got it. Fortunately my knees are up to the task.
I really thought my life was going to suck when my accident at work ended my ability to ride my own bike. I've logged at least 250,000 miles solo and I really do live to ride. I have had some bad luck recently but running across this website and the community of riders is some of the best luck I have had in a very very long time.
I never thought that I would really enjoy being a passenger. The other day I was riding in the hack, returning from my surgeons office. It is a 400 mile round trip. I was reading a novel in the hack, going on a road parallel to a river. The road was very smooth, I would read a while, when the scenery was boring, and when my eyes got tired I would look out at this wonderful river. I had been down that road a hundred times but since I was always driving and watching for deer etc, I never had the time to appreciate the beauty. I guess I am hooked on being a passenger. I sat there and realized how much better it was to ride than drive. Life is good!
More than that it was great to be out riding rather than sitting waiting for the lawyers to make something happen, and worrying about things I can not change. Someday they will get off their ass and decide to fix me so I can go back to work and live a normal life. But till that happens this is making a huge difference in how I feel about who I am.
I just wanted to thank you for your part in making that happen.
Congratulations Joe. Glad to hear you're back in the wind!
congrats to you and the Mrs. Joe,..we love our CF1 car and here's to them fixing ya up soon,..cheers and happy miles ahead. crawf.
Excellent report Joe. Glad you all have the rig up and running.
Sometimes a blow in life allows us to notice some of the things that mean so much. Being thankfull for what we have and enjoying one day at a time has a whole lot to be said for it.
Thanks again for sharing that with us. You should send a story into the sidecarist 🙂
It's good to hear you're rig is up and running well, but it's even better to hear you're up and running/traveling. Hoping you get the delay issues resolved so you can get patched up soon.
Lee
MB5+TW200+CRF250L+GTV300+INT650
XL883R w/Texas Ranger Sidecar
Zuma 50F + Burgman w/Texas Sidecar<Mrs. SwampFox
No, Thank you, Joe.
Thank you for taking the time to post, for giving credit to your incredible spouse, for your positive outlook, and for making us all stop and think. I agree with Claude, yours is a story for The Sidecarist magazine. I hope to see it in print there.
Congratulations on your new hack. Welcome to the sidecar world, and thank you for sharing that experience with us.
Gail
Thanks for riding to Spokane and letting me get a good up close
look at those HD mounts. It was just what I needed. Once I had seen yours I was able to design ours from the pictures. Our "tug" is identical to yours just an earlier variation. So it made it much easier.
Owe you a coffee, or maybe a pot of coffee. Now that we are up and running we will stop bye.
No problem at all Joe. If you're ever down this way, give a holler. The coffee pot is usually on here or there's a new restaurant open in town as well as the two other spots. Archie and I would enjoy riding somewhere with you two as well... From the sounds of the forecast for the upcoming week end, we can finally put this past winter behind us and get some good riding underway.
