Awhile back, I posted here regarding my interest in developing a sidecar rig here in Sacramento. Dick was nice enough to respond to my post and offer me an opportunity to take a look at his rig.
Today, I met with Dick. He has a nice Honda CB750 sidecar rig (not sure the brand of sidecar). When I got there, he showed me the rig, then handed me a helmet and told that he could talk about driving a sidecar all day long, but I'd learn a lot more actually driving one. We fired up the rig and I dropped it into gear, let out the clutch and began moving. The rig began going to the left and I instinctively wanted to countersteer and lean the other way to straighten it out...but then I remembered that the bike did not lean and I had to steer it into the direction I wanted it to go...so that's what I did.
Dick stood out on the road and tutored me and I went down the road and back several times, the last of which was at about 40 mph. I felt the gyroscopic effect of the front wheel trying to center and the heaviness of the steering when commmitting to a corpen port niner (left turn, for you non-Navy types). The sidecar on this particular rig was good and stout, so I think it would have been more difficult (but certainly not impossible) to fly the chair, but I didn't do any right turns, so didn't have that experience.
After I played around with the rig a bit, Dick got on it and gave me a nice demo of moving the bike down the road at serious speed and then flying the chair a little bit on the way back to the driveway. He then invited me in for a glass of ice tea and, it turns out, he and I share a profession and had a nice discussion about that.
Dick was absolutely right...you can talk and read about driving sidecars all you want, but nothing replaces getting on a rig and running it down the road. It gives you a whole new appreciation for what sidecar rigs can do (and also what they can't do) and some of the quirks about sidecar driving that you read about you now actually know about first hand from running the rig yourself.
This message is, in part, to advocate that any newby needs to try a rig out and, after you get one, practice with it until it feels very natural to you. It really is very different from a two-wheel motor.
It also is to thank Dick, a very kind gentleman who offerred his time, his knowledge, his rig and his hospitality to someone completely unknown to him simply because he's a nice guy and likes his sidecar rig and wants others to do the same. Thanks, Dick!!
Bob
Very nice post.
I agree with you completely, on all points. I had a similar experience last March when a fellow member (Milow), who I had not met, let me drive his GoldWing GTL. I ended up getting one, but probably wouldn't have without the test drive,
I suspect many of us (at least I do) get lots of questions from motorcycle riders as to "what's it like ?".
greg
That is one of the reasons I will let just about any one try my rig to see what it is all about . Have sold a lot of rigs that way .
