I’ll let the cat out of the bag and explain why I started reading this forum. I bought a sidecar last summer because I wanted something different after 30 years of riding my old FL.
I got lucky and found one on kijiji right away, the guy was a trucker and even hauled it half way across Canada for me. The car was attached to my bike in less than an hour.
I jumped on and took off out of town to the nearest highway doing 60mph right off the hop.
After about 30 minutes on the highway and arriving back in town my troubles began. At the first set of lights I came to I had to make a left turn with one vehicle ahead of me, the car ahead of crept out and then stopped for no reason, I saw an opening in traffic and nailed her to get around the stopped car. I completely forgot about the sidecar and was way too close to the stopped car. The hack climbed up the back of the car and over I went on my left side in the middle of the intersection. I had removed my highway bar from the bike thinking at the time it wouldn’t fit with the hack gear so my footboard, shifter and outer primary were damaged, badly. I got off the bike and somehow got up enough strength to grab the sissy bar and handle bar and drag the bike sideways till the hack was far enough away from the car and could push it over and back on its wheels.
I went to the driver’s door of the car and asked why he was stopped and he said his car stalled and wouldn’t start. We agreed that there was no damage to his car so I got on my bike, luckily she fired right up so I took off using the nub that was left of my shifter.
I was headed home and on the last right turn towards my house there was a car sitting at the stop sign turning left, as soon as he saw my signal light he started pulling out. I’m not really clear on what happened here but I think a combination of two things caused me to drive straight into the side of his car.
I was pulling the handle bars to turn right and applying the front brake at the same time which I think caused my right hand to somehow twist the throttle. Meanwhile my right foot was on the wrong side of the hack mounting gear and I didn’t get my foot on the rear brake pedal quick enough.
Anyway I drove into the side of that car damaging the nose of the hack and my front fender with minimal damage to the car, I knew the guy in the car so that was no issue. As a matter of fact he laughed at me for doing something that dumb.
I wasn’t laughing, I was out with a sidecar for 30 minutes and beat the crap out of my ride and almost killed myself. I parked it in the garage and started repairs right away. After 2 months it’s ready to go again and I’m hesitant to climb back on.
I was considering selling it but my wife talked me into keeping it learning to ride it before taking to the streets again, so here I am.
In the spring I’m going to try again only this time with many hours of parking lot and back road practice.
Thats my story.......Cheers
