newbie with somw ?'s

Any of your choices make good tugs. The Beemer is the most expensive to put a hack on unless it is an early /2 model which is lacking in power. All the rest have full perimeter frames and are easier to convert to a sidecar rig. The Triumph bonneville makes an excellent sidecar hauler. Yamaha Star models and also the Moto Guzzi Stones.
THe displacement needed will depend upon your plans for usage . Touring, back road cruising, day tripping, etc.
For entry level rigs we put the Velorex models on all the above since they are a quality sidecar that come with everything included in the price except the motorcycle.
Here are a few examples of our conversions.

Lonnie Cook
Northwest Sidecars, LLC
Boise, Idaho
nwsidecar@aol.com
208-629-8409

Any of the bikes you mention will work and the price to mount them is all about the same. I would start with a bike that you can get bike specific NOT UNIVERSAL mounts for as in general universal means it fits nothing uinversaly and is at best only a good starting point. Another thing to consider is if steering modifications are made for the bike and what their cost is. The older model BMW's work well however they are also not as robust as a lot of the newer bikes are and to modify the steering normaly we go with leading link front ends which make the BMW one of the more expensive bikes to modify the front end. Honda shadows work well however there are at least 14 different frames used on the 1100's and we do not have steering modifications made for these. If you go with the shadow 750 we have triple tree's to change the angle of the forks which makes for lighter steering. The Vulcans can work well, we have mounts for many of these as well as triple tree's for some. The 900 Vulcan would be a good option. The Bonneville is a very popular sidecar bike, we build about one every 3 weeks or so usualy around our M72D sidecar. Of course if the bike is in our shop it does not matter all that much which bike you go for when it comes to mounting as we would just build bike specific mounts as we will not use "universal" mounts as there are far to many compromises with these. We also have triple tree's for many more bikes. Also make sure that what ever sidecar you go with is strong and safe for the bike you choose to go with. Many lighter sidecars we do not feel are safe on larger bikes.
If you do want to ride a Harley there are some great values on Sportsters out there, we do offer bike specific mounts and triple tree's for the Sporty. I picked one up not all that long ago in good running order for $2000 for a 1995 with 30K on it
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
jay@dmcsidecars.com

Thanx for all the great info so far
"jaydmc" site is where I got some of the ideas on a tug . I am suprised no has weighed in with a ural being as popular as they seem to be .
thanx again smitty

Most Ural sidecars or other similar sidecars such as the Dnepr and the CJ have non adjustable front lower mounts and the rear mounts are way to far aft for most modern bike frames to work with. So to mount up a Ural sidecar to non Ural bikes the way we do it is to cut off the lower front mount weld in an ajustable mount and weld a new lower rear mount forward of the stock location. You then also need all new lower mounting arms. Some Ural and CJ sidecars do have adjustable front lower mounts. The reason they do is that for a while we were the Ural sidecar distributor and we had the factory build them this way for us. We also imported a few container loads of CJ sidecars from china that we had the frames made this way. We found that quality was all over the place on the Chinese CJ sidecars some to the point of not being safe as the frames welds were very poor and hidden with bondo so we stopped importing these. Ural sidecars the quality came way up and they are pretty good sidecars however with the quality increase the price also went up so by the time we made the changes needed such as changing to disk brakes they were costing us more then we could build them from scratch which is why we developed our M72 type sidecars while they look similar to the M72 Steib sidecars that the Ural, Dnepr and CJ sidecars are a copy of they are a fully modern sidecar and of a much higher build quality then the sidecars we were importing. The Urals and Dneprs are also very heavy, The CJ are even heavier with the leaf springs to support the bodies. They also have poor suspension with the torsion bar suspension with out any dampening. Dnepr, Grey market Ural's and some CJ also have wheels that shall we say are less then round. The export quality Urals the wheels are fine however they are drum brake only on the sidecar making it difficult to make the brake match up with the bike. Brakes on sidecars are important especialy when it is a heavy sidecar on a lighter bike. We often see Velorex, Ural, Dnepr and CJ sidecars that have brakes not having the brakes hooked up as installers either feel that brakes are not important or do not know how to make them work.

The way to tell if a sidecar is a Ural, Dnepr or CJ is not all that hard. If the sidecar apears to be really old it could be a Steib however not likley. On Ural sidecars there are two different quality levels. The export or domestic. The Export the quality, fit and finish and paint is much nicer. Ural sidecars and CJ sidecars have trunks that open from the out side. Dnepr's do not. Ural and Dnepr sidecars the rear of the body is supported on rubber mounts. CJ on on leaf springs. Ural sidecars have the mounting holes in the trunk for the leaf spring mounts that they were originaly designed for so you can drop a Ural body on a CJ frame no problem. I suspect that when Ural went to the rubber mounts (often called "Snow Men") the forgot to stop punching the mounting holes for the springs. Value wise Export Urals are the best, Domestic Urals are worth a little less. Dnepr's are worth a lot less then Ural's, some CJ depending on which of many factories built them are worth about the same as a Dnepr while others make the Dnepr sidecars look great.

All of these different sidecars also sit failry high when we use to mount Ural sidecars to cruiser type bikes we would lower them by cutting the frame between the body and the fender and mounting off set plates.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
jay@dmcsidecars.com

Hi Smitty,
Have you seen the info on the USCA National rally coming up in C d'A Idaho in July? Weather or not you have a rig by then, come on over and take a look and hang out for a day. Or register and attend the whole rally. Information available at sidecar.com under the National 2012 rally tab. Also Urals are a great way to go. I don't think the newer ones are quite as maintenance intensive as the older ones but what does need done is easy to do yourself if you're the least bit mechanical. www.imz-ural.com. If you get over toward Spokane give me a call and we'll have a cup and chat. Good luck!

Thanx again for more great info ,
I have been reading a bit more on the newer urals and it does seem they have improved a bit. As far as maint .goes I spent a lot of time in my younger years on the old harley iron as my situation improves (bills paid off ) all of this will become a real deal The internet has opened up a literal endless supply of info that 20 yrs ago would have taken forever to gain , and these types of boards in particular as so many have much to share with others "jaydmc" enuclaw is not to far so it is quite possible as I get closer to this that I will stop by your shop
thanx again smitty

Hi Smitty, Just thought I would throw in my 2 cents about the Triumph. I connected a CSC hack to a 2004 Triumph Speedmaster , 790 cc. It works great and was fairly easy to connect with no frame modifications. I had to have one special piece fabricated and that was pretty simple. Good luck in your choice.