flying the chair questions

To fly on a straightaway you quick swerve to the right, when the rig hits the balance point you maintain it with steering.

Hack'n - 3/29/2013 7:03 PM

To fly on a straightaway you quick swerve to the right, when the rig hits the balance point you maintain it with steering.

Thanks I will have to keep practicing. A couple of weeks ago I took a friend for a ride. He always told me he did not care if I fly the chair so I did all you could see is the whites of his eyes. LOL First and only time so far I have done it with a passenger.

Although flying the chair is fun and something every sidecar pilot should be able to do in control,
be advised the doing so puts extra stress on spokes, wheel bearings, steering head bearings, swing arm and awing arm bearings,
and fork tubes.
This kind of fun comes with a price.
Just like popping wheelies will stretch spokes and chains, yes it's fun and sometimes necessary but I always consider theses strains
when doing it.

Thanks my drive is a belt and have mag wheels. So far I am not bring it up very high maybe a foot or so. I do not slam it down I bring it down easy most of the time. May of the times it does it when not trying not very high a few inches and seems like this is normal from those I have talked to in the club. But I do appreciated all the input as I am still learning about rigs.
Thanks
Jeff

Phelonius - 3/30/2013 10:56 PM

Although flying the chair is fun and something every sidecar pilot should be able to do in control,
be advised the doing so puts extra stress on spokes, wheel bearings, steering head bearings, swing arm and awing arm bearings,
and fork tubes.
This kind of fun comes with a price.
Just like popping wheelies will stretch spokes and chains, yes it's fun and sometimes necessary but I always consider theses strains
when doing it.

Thanks for that, Phelonius. I'll be first to admit I'm completely inexperienced in the fine arts of sidecarology, never driven one in my life. Haven't ridden 2 wheels in over a year and most riding lately is on a trike, not even much of that.

I read a lot about flying the chair, understand it in that way but never done it, don't really plan to intentionally. Plenty of times I've flown a wheel on trikes but that's a little different I guess. I question whether flying the chair is a normal event while riding but think it's not. Near as I can tell flying the chair is a result of high [excessive] speed in a turn, or intentionally racking the bars to cause it, or as a result of a sudden swerve while riding.

Is it reasonable to assume that if a guy just cruises around slow and easy, no aggressive riding and taking it easy and casual that it might never happen? Or better said, it wouldn't ever happen unless a guy is riding pretty hard or a sudden event causes a sudden swerve? I'm trying to relate it to driving a car where you may be motoring somewhat briskly but not pushing it.

Seems like a quick application of brake soon as it starts would drop the wheel back down very quickly anyway. But to repeat myself, in 'normal' riding it would never even happen?
.

Okay I'll elaborate here a bit.
Sometimes the chair will lift unintentionally due to an evasive maneuver or excessive speed in a turn the is tighter than expected.
This is why you should be able to fly the chair controllably. It could save your life to be able to control an unexpected lift.
To this end I would recommend that you spend some time in a large empty smooth paved parking lot learning to fly the chair
and developing the confidence to handle it in different situations. Start at slow speeds until you gain some skill.
Do it with an empty chair first , then maybe with a little ballast weight
until it feels normal. Closely inspect your machine afterward for loose spokes.
When you feel confident, go on about your riding with the confidence that an unexpected lift will not cause panic.

I have only had a sidecar on for 6 months and over 4,000 miles in that time and do not claim to be an expert. I agree going to a parking lot is a good idea and I keep meaning to do but have not to this point.

Yes if you go very slow around some sharp right-hand turns like trunning off one street to another as many lean the wrong way you can keep it on the ground but I have found in some situation it is safer to fly the chair just a little for safety reasons BUT NOT AT FIRST. When I was first learning I was so worried about someone hitting me in the back during a tight right turn so slow.

Some run ballast but I never have only when I put something in the rig like a person groceries and when packed up for a trip. All so keep in mine it is the only real transportation I have.

I did one time fly the chair on a state two lane highway at 65MPH. Main thing is not to freak out and ride it out.

Phelonius - 3/31/2013 11:15 AM

Okay I'll elaborate here a bit.
Sometimes the chair will lift unintentionally due to an evasive maneuver or excessive speed in a turn the is tighter than expected.
This is why you should be able to fly the chair controllably. It could save your life to be able to control an unexpected lift.
To this end I would recommend that you spend some time in a large empty smooth paved parking lot learning to fly the chair
and developing the confidence to handle it in different situations. Start at slow speeds until you gain some skill.
Do it with an empty chair first , then maybe with a little ballast weight
until it feels normal. Closely inspect your machine afterward for loose spokes.
When you feel confident, go on about your riding with the confidence that an unexpected lift will not cause panic.

Okay, thanks, that makes sense. The roads here are extreme, very twisty in mountainous terrain. 2 particular turns are hairpins, 5 mph even if you were in a Porsche. I almost ran into my back bumper yesterday. I'm in no hurry to get anywhere but I guess I'll have to learn that technique regardless, just in case. I think Claude said something similar.

Thanks!

Okay thinking back over 45 years of sidecar riding, I should mention one very dangerous aspect of flying the chair.
As you gain skill and confidence you may try flying for longer distances. technically there is no limit on speed or distance other than the capabilities of your bike.
But, and this is avery big butt, If you lift the chair at slow speed and then speed up, remember that the hack wheel does not speed up and in fact will slow down.
At about 65mph in third gear about to go into fourth, I let the chair down. The hack wheel upon touching the ground was rotating at about 5 mph.
This yanked the hack to the right violently and the front wheel tucked under. My friend riding with me said the machine went end over end three times and that I was still in the saddle when it hit upside down the first time. I don't remember, I was unconscious for about a half hour.
Keep in mind when a aircraft touches down there is a screech of rubber as the wheel catch up to the planes speed. You will hear this same sound from your sidecar tire
on touch down if the machine is going significantly faster than when the chair lifted. If you hear this sound and do not crash it is your warning to not make that mistake again.
It hurts a lot and ain't good for the bike either.
Endos are expensive.

Phelonius - 4/1/2013 1:24 AM

Okay thinking back over 45 years of sidecar riding, I should mention one very dangerous aspect of flying the chair.
As you gain skill and confidence you may try flying for longer distances. technically there is no limit on speed or distance other than the capabilities of your bike.
But, and this is avery big butt, If you lift the chair at slow speed and then speed up, remember that the hack wheel does not speed up and in fact will slow down.
At about 65mph in third gear about to go into fourth, I let the chair down. The hack wheel upon touching the ground was rotating at about 5 mph.
This yanked the hack to the right violently and the front wheel tucked under. My friend riding with me said the machine went end over end three times and that I was still in the saddle when it hit upside down the first time. I don't remember, I was unconscious for about a half hour.
Keep in mind when a aircraft touches down there is a screech of rubber as the wheel catch up to the planes speed. You will hear this same sound from your sidecar tire
on touch down if the machine is going significantly faster than when the chair lifted. If you hear this sound and do not crash it is your warning to not make that mistake again.
It hurts a lot and ain't good for the bike either.
Endos are expensive.

Thanks for sharing your years of experience as this is things I need to know. What rig where you driving at the time?

I do it all the time now, the grandson will actually ask me to "fly " . I have done it in parkinglots at car and bike shows and actually drag the left foot peg. Just need to practice 😉

wvsporty - 4/1/2013 2:37 PM

I do it all the time now, the grandson will actually ask me to "fly " . I have done it in parkinglots at car and bike shows and actually drag the left foot peg. Just need to practice 😉

Have you had any problems with messing anything up? I am getting there but still need more practice.

messing it up in former times when i was a student with the mz rig i could put the watch for a frame adjustment every three month the bloody nut that connected handle bar with seat was too crazy ahhh when you imagine the grey hair as fair and take off the glasses you might recognize peter pan

gummiente left quite a few decendency in berlin

At the time of the triple endo I was mounted on a 77 Yamaha 650 with a Bingham hack. It was a good handling rig when I was sober. On that occasion I was not.
It was a "Now y'all watch this moment", exacerbated by Jack Daniels. I deserved what I got.

My most successful Y'all watch this moment was in a parade. I was piloting a Dnepr with a machine gun on the bow and the local police chief in the hack in his dress uniform.
At the end of the parade without warning him I flew the chair about 45 degrees high for a whole block at about 15 mph. He was white knuckled on the grab bar as I set it back down and told him he just got initiated as a sidecar monkey. The next year I extended the invitation to ride the parade but he declined.
Those old Dneprs had some of the shortest thickest spokes and so could take a lot of punishment.