Chief Trike Rentals

We have spoken to several people who purchased sidecars and or bikes from this company. Usually we do not hear from people who have purchased elsewhere unless there are real issues that the company is either unable or unwilling to resolve. We have two bikes that people removed the sidecars from and shipped the bike to us to have sidecars built and properly installed. The sidecars this company uses look to be either Cozy or Inder sidecars out of India designed for 350cc bikes. NOT bikes as large as Indian's. One person told us on the way home the first time that the upper mount slipped (just a cheaply made frame clamp) and as such alignment changed but more importantly, it was not possible for him to get his foot on the brake pedal as the strut was in the way. We advised not to run this sidecar as it was simply to light weight / light duty of a sidecar for a bike as large as his. As he had spent a lot of money on paint he did not want to change sidecars, We sold him a curved strut in order to make room for him to be able to use the rear brake of the bike (the sidecar had no brake) Several weeks latter he then ordered an entire new chassis and mounting system to mount the sidecar body on as he realized that we were right, this combination should never had been done. The first person we were contacted about a sidecar they did ended up removing the sidecar and shipping the bike all the way in from Florida for us to install a properly sized sidecar with proper hardware. With this bike all of their hardware was removed except for a trailer hitch that they had made. The hitch was attached to a longer rear axle they installed on the bike adding greatly to un-sprung weight. Not a good engineering practice but beyond that they way they built the hitch was appalling and would have failed. They used pipe and rather then bending it they cut short pieces and welded them together to get the shape they were after. In time this would have failed next to the welds. They either do not have or know how to use one of the most basic tools needed to make proper hardware a tubing bender. We have a bike shipped in from California right now that they sold with a sidecar on it. It worked poorly enough that the owner removed the sidecar and shipped the bike to us again to put a proper sidecar and mounting hardware on. In the case of this bike they drilled a 3/4 inch hole in the frame for the upper rear mount. 3/4 of an inch is a lot of material to remove from the frame.

This company from what I can tell is not a case of you get what you pay for, in their case you get a lot less then you pay for with a lot more trouble then you would expect. Also I doubt that they are carrying any kind of liability insurance to protect you should some thing go wrong.

Jay G
DMC sidecars

www.dmcsidecars.com

866-638-1793

No idea about the company James looks for, but each time I think about Florida and sidecars, the name Holowpaw Gene comes into my mind. Sadly we couldn't visit him December 2017.

Excellent reputation:  https://uralofholopaw.com/index.html

Good luck with the search.

Sven