Riding two-up, empty chair?

The weight ratio between the bike and sidecar would be the main factor. And I'm sure others will go into more detail. But a possible answer that comes to mind would be put your German Shepherd in the sidecar and get your wife her own scooter... Your dog will be better off in the sidecar than on a trike if that's one reason your considering a trike. Good luck at any rate. My wife of nearly 45 years now rode with me for many years, many miles and several bikes then some years back decided to give it up. I bought a used Ural to see if she'd like the sidecar. Her mind was made up. But I discovered two things- riding a rig was a whole new thrill and the Boxer I had then loved the sidecar. After riding the Ural for two years while the Harley mostly sat, I sold it and my Kwik Kamp trailer and ordered the Liberty. That was about 50.000 miles ago and three dogs. The adventure continues!! Good luck to ya, what ever route you go...

Really not the best way to go, If you can get her to try the sidecar more then likely she will find it a much nicer place to ride. When people tell me that they will not ride in the sidecar and have never tried riding in the sidecar I always ask them how they feel about green eggs and ham.
If you are any where near us either my self or one of my staff would be glad to take your wife for a ride in a sidecar. If go this route pick a nice sunny day as we want the experience to be as good as possible, or pick a nasty rainy day, bring her here on the back of the bike and then we will take her for a ride in a nice dry and warm sidecar.
One angle not often thought of in the argument, my wife likes showing up at events with other riders being the only women wearing a long dress, some thing most would not do riding on the bike.
I know of one women after a very long ride on the back of her husbands Harley trike that was hospitalized due to sever hip pain, she more then likely would not have had the problem had she been in a sidecar.
If she insists go with a big heavy sidecar on the bike, keep the dog in the sidecar and put as much weight as practical in the sidecar.
If you can take a sidecar trike class, this allows you to try both sidecars and trikes http://evergreenmotorcycletraining.org/ Better still, have your wife also take the class, there is no reason she can not ride a bike with a sidecar or a trike. At the class she will have to ride in a sidecar the first day as this is the way the class is laid out. Her having the ability to ride gives you options should some thing happen to you on the road. In my case this is why my wife learned to ride sidecar. Now she is a certified instructor and we own a sidecar company.
You might also consider the book by David Hough "Driving a sidecar outfit" also known as the "yellow" book. We sell if for $34.95 white horse press also offers it.

Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793

Lee, some people never will get used to riding in a chair (ME, for one!). I've got over 200,000 miles driving a rig, but every time I have been the passenger in one I just didn't feel right. I also hate riding as passenger two-up, though.

I had a girlfriend in Calif. who had ridden with me several thousand miles on one trip looping the US, but as we approached home at the end of the ride she all of a sudden had an anxiety attack as we were riding through some gentle curves on a six-lane highway. She wanted to go slower, and we were already at 50mph on a freeway with lots of trucks behind us. I had no idea she would ever react that way. I had to shut off the fuel valve to fein a breakdown and called a flatbed truck to pick us up and drive us out of that area!

Although I will ride in a hack, there is just that certain feeling about "hanging out there" that is hard to overcome. I can only suggest adding lots of sandbag ballast to the hack until you can get her feeling comfortable in the chair. Maybe spend lots of time at slow speeds in a large parking lot.

BTW, where in the KC area? I'm in Independence.

Is riding two-up on the bike, with an empty sidecar, unacceptable for some reason? If so, why?

I know the question is very general, and there are all kinds of factors being glossed over, but a general answer will suffice at the moment.

Thanks,
Lee in Kansas City

After re-reading Tom and Jay's posts, I see that your question still wasn't really answered. So, I will try.

Just imagine trying to go around a right-hand turn on a solo bike sitting straight up, with no lean into the turn. What will keep you from falling over to the left? NOTHING! This is what you are doing with a sidecar attached, EXCEPT that the weight of the sidecar will keep you from falling over.

Now, imagine what would happen if the sidecar weighed just 10lbs and the bike weighed 1000lbs, as a lot of bikes do. You WILL fall over in any right-hand turn going more than about 5mph! If the sidecar weighs 1000lbs, too, then you could probably take that turn at any speed you wanted.

There is, of course, a happy middle ground for sidecar-vs-bike weight ratio to allow comfortable cornering when the chair is EMPTY. This is the most critical consideration of which hack works with which bike. Almost any chair will work with any bike when it has an adult passenger in it. But, you will want to be able to use that rig by yourself once in a while, or in emergencies, too, so the hack has to be able to let the whole rig take right-hand corners comfortably and safely. Any hack with sufficient strength will let you take left-handers just fine. Of course, this is all considering that the rig is a right-hand mounted hack!

The rig shown in my avatar picture to the left is an '83 Kawasaki Voyager sixer pulling a Motorvation Spyder 'car. Best rig I ever had, but the bike weighed 940lbs, alone, and the chair weighed 265lbs, alone. Pretty lightweight hack! With a bike that heavy the car should probably have been heavier, but I really love those earlier Spyders! I did carry 100lbs of leather shot bags (like they use in custom body shops) when I had no passenger.

Personally, with a big Harley like you have, I would pull something like a Motorvation Formula II. It's a 2-place (for kids, or really skinny adults!) car, with great styling and features. It's reasonably heavy, and would be a good match for your Harley. They come available frequently in the classifieds here or on eBay. There was one on eBay just a couple of months ago that you could have had for $1100. New paint, convertible top and upholstery would have made it like a new $5000 hack! I regret that I didn't pick it up!

Another thing that enters into all of this is how heavy are you and how heavy is your passenger? This is covered both in the sidecar trike class and in the yellow book which is why I recommend them both. Really she should be in the sidecar as when you are on the bike half of your weight is out side of what we call the tip over lines, this is a triangle drawn between the three contact patches with the ground, your tires. Half of your passengers weight is also out side of the tip over lines while on the back of the bike, when in the sidecar most of their weight is in side of the tip over lines. Now you go into a right hand turn and more and more of your upper body is out side of the tip over lines, with out a passenger you can move your weight around, with a passenger this is difficult to do. It is possible but truly not the best way to do things with a big heavy sidecar mounted wide and loaded heavy, But again not the best way to go, this assumes you and your lady are not all that heavy. Smaller people can get away with this with much more of a safety margin then heavy people.
Should you convince her to ride in the sidecar which she more then likely will like more then the back of the bike there are further things to consider with the sidecar its self. First, if you are considering a Harley sidecar keep in mind that Harley for what ever reason never got around to adding any suspension at all to the sidecar! Every other sidecar company of any size at all that I can think of had suspension long before WW2. On the Harley the wheel is mounted rigidly while the body is on leaf springs with out dampening so you hit a bump and you know about it on the bike and your passenger gets to be reminded of it while they bob up and down. Harley could get away with this due to their great marketing. There are people that buy and run these and swear they are the best as they must be, they say Harley on them. This could not be further from the truth. Another thing to keep in mind is how hard is the sidecar to get in and out of. If it is a hard sidecar to get in and out of like Harley sidecars and some of our lower priced sidecars then chances of her ever riding it in are minimal. And, how do you get to the trunk area? On Harley sidecars and some of our lower priced sidecars to get into the trunk you kick your passenger out, then tip the seat back forward. On our more expensive sidecars you have an external locking and sealing trunk which is a lot nicer to live with on a day to day basis.
And yet anther consideration is ride quality, some even made in the USA sidecars while they have suspension, they may not have dampening. All of our sidecars have full swing arm suspension with motorcycle type shocks. Our least expensive sidecars the bodies are mounted right onto the frame while on the more up market sidecars the bodies are mounted on rubber vibration isolators which helps with the overall fatigue of the passenger. Other things to think about, believe it or not in this day and age there are some sidecars that do not offer brakes even as an option and the manufactures will tell you that you do not need a brake and this may be true up until the one time that you do need the brake, if a brake keeps you out of the emergency room even once, it is worth all of the cost and effort. One option that some sidecars have is electric trim. What this does is raise or lower the suspension at the touch of a switch while riding to trim for load and road conditions. So lets say you have the sidecar set up to go straight down the road with no passenger with out pulling, add a passenger and the suspension drops a bit which in turn leans the bike which in turn causes a pull to the right. So with electric trim, you simply trim for the passengers weight. I have had Harley sidecar owners try and convince people that the Harley sidecar is superior to every thing else as with out suspension this does not happen however the next scenario is true with or with out suspension. Sidecars are not aerodynamically symmetrical so if you do not have a pull at 40 MPH you will at 70 MPH. Electric trim allows you to adjust for this.
If you are looking at used sidecars make sure that they can be mounted to your bike. As your bike is a 2011 you need mount that work on bikes made from 2009 up until 2012 and they need to be bike specific NOT a bunch of "universal" type frame clamps. Of course our sidecars come with bike specific mounts, we can also provide bikes specific mounts for most other makes of sidecars. If you are looking for used phone me or email me BEFORE you buy the sidecar, some sidecars by the time you make them safe and purchase the proper mounting hardware they end up not being such a great value.
One really nice thing about the 2009 and up Harley is that Harley went with a much wider 17 inch rear wheel then they did for 2008 and back. Pre 2008 you were lucky to get 5000 mile out of a rear tire with a sidecar as it was just to small and light duty of a tire for sidecar use and was marginal for the bike with out the sidecar as over the years Harley's like all of us have gotten heavier. 2009 and up, you can run an in expensive automotive tire on the stock rear wheel which will give you significantly longer tire life, runs at a lower pressure so you have a better ride quality, has better traction, higher load capacity, can be plugged if punched and best of all is a much less expensive tire.
For your bike this also holds true for trikes (which we also do) we offer real engine driven reverse and steering modifications to lower the steering effort as a three wheeled motorcycle. In the case of reverse it is really nice to have as a trike as it is no fun to get off and push it back and forth for a couple of reasons, first you have to kick your passenger off and second the moment you have to push it forward you are trying to run over your own foot with the wheel of the trike. In the case of a sidecar, reverse is not needed any where near as much as you can get off to push, assuming your passenger is in the sidecar as they should be they need not move and if you do need to push the bike forward to jockey it around the rear wheel is not likely to run over your foot. Pushing a bike backwards as a three wheeler is much easier then pushing a two wheeled bike as when pushing a two wheeled bike much of your effort is in keeping the bike from falling over. Not so much of a worry as a three wheeler as you would have to be doing some thing pretty stupid for there to be any chance of the bike falling over when pushed.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
jay@dmcsidecars.com

Not a good thing to do unless the sidecar is carrying a full keg of beer and the pillion bought it for you.

Interesting. I have a buddy seat on my '65 Harley FLHFB and had one on my (now gone) '63 (no sidecar). I like the "full bagger" look and naturally put a 2-up seat on the '65 (with sidecar) along with the accessory lower back pad. Blondie has ridden in the sidecar exactly once and doesn't like it for the "exposed" reasons cited earlier in this thread. One of us had gotten a bit "larger" over the years so we quit riding together on the '63 pan. There wasn't enough real estate left on the seat to operate it safely. Now I'm glad I read this thread. So far, I really haven't taken a passenger any real distance yet but always envisioned taking Blondie and a 8-yo granddaughter riding. I suppose it is "doable" but now I think a bit too shaky. I keep a vintage metal coke cooler in the sidecar (with ice and glass bottles) and load up a few chairs on my way to one event or another. Based on this and other recent threads, I'll be adding more ballast in the sidecar. Hmmm.... she has a "M" license, maybe she'll ride the bike and I'll do the sidecar!!! Uhhh, nah. Good subject. Jay... got a product that hooks up out of the box to a Harley Topper? - AZP

Thanks for all the good information. I appreciate the help.

Does anyone make a sidecar with a rumble seat?

I saw one Motorvation Spyder that had the lid of it's trunk reinforced with stronger straps to hold it open, then a special child's seat was installed. Does that count as a rumble seat?

kc1200r - 2/4/2015 10:09 AM

... Is riding two-up on the bike, with an empty sidecar, unacceptable for some reason?....

Hi Lee, I not going to delve into technical discussions, but, yes, generally speaking, riding two-up on the bike with an empty sidecar is unadvisable. I installed solo seats on a couple of my tugs for this reason. However, we have had two couples in our region who have traveled two-up on the motorcycle, but both rigs were very large touring bikes with large/heavy sidecars with ballast in the truck plus enough stuff to last a couple of weeks - likely some 250 pounds of gear in a 230 pound sidecar.

Watsonian still lists a price for their Palma Sidecar which is very similar to their Monaco but it is fitted as a two seater. There is an adult seat and a cramped child seat behind. They don't show any pictures on their site [that I found] but there are pix on line if you Google "Watsonian Palma".

Watsomian-Squire made a model named Oxford witch was a four seat model. Two faced forward side by side and the other two faced rearward behind the first two passengers, also side by side. The Oxford body looked like a Cambridge until you got to the rear 1/4 of the body. Somewhere I have a picture of one with 4 adults in the car and one on the back behind the driver. They were going to lunch.

Have a good day,

mrmustash-1

Watsonian no longer makes the wider sidecars such as the Oxford and Cambridge. I had an Oxford on a GL1500 back in the 1990's It has two forward facing bench seats. The Chinese make sidecars with rumble seats, we imported a few of 3 different models however the fit and finish was awful and in the case of the M72 styled body, the rear seat the way it was made was not safe due to the way they supported the trunk lid which became the seat back.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1893