Hello everyone, I have been lurking around here for 2 years with the anticipation of acquiring a sidecar rig so my son can ride with my wife and me. I looked at many different options and asked a few questions along the way. My final decision was to add a sidecar to my 2004 Yamaha Venture and keep it attached all the time.
I purchased a Champion Escort earlier this year and have been leisurely mounting the sidecar ever since. My son is still too little to ride, but I wanted to spend some time learning to drive before he started to ride with me. I have been learning many things along the way. One is that I am not that good at setting up a rig. I changed the setup about 6 times before I was happy with it. I have logged about 1000 miles with the rig and no passengers. I started feeling comfortable with it and I can see why so many of you enjoy traveling this way.
I live in a residential neighborhood and I can travel many roads within a square mile without using a main road (25MPH). I took my wife and son for a ride the other day and he loved it. He is not a big fan of his helmet, but he put up with it and was smiling and laughing the entire time as long as we were moving.
The next thing I learned was not motorcycle related, but I thought I would share my new knowledge so you don’t make the same mistake. When your wife climbs aboard the motorcycle, there are many things you can say. What I choose to say was “ WOW, I didn’t think the suspension would drop that much”. I am still paying for that one.
So I changed the setup again based on both of us riding it. I am going to lower the air ride suspension when I ride alone and keep it at max when we ride together. We are going to wait until spring before we venture out further with my son because his helmet is a little too big for him.
Looks great. glad you are enjoying it.
Welcome to the road Barry! Hope to see you out there sometime soon.
LOL! I think you are going about sidecaring the right way. Always tweaking, and learning. ... When I was without a passenger, I used to use bags of sand for ballast. If I had a passenger, we removed the sand. In essence, my passengers were always better ballast than a bag of sand. 🙂
Safe riding.
g
p.s. Very nice looking rig.
I too use sand for ballast. Beware, tho, if the bag tears, you'll have a mess on your hands! What I do now is I take the sand bag, wrap it in a heavy-duty trash bag (of the type used in 55-gallon drums) then drop the bundle into a canvas gym bag. The gym bag helps prevent tearing and provides handles for easy loading/unloading.
Thanks for the tip oldschool. I use a plastic bag but I didn't think of using a duffle bag also. That is a clever idea. My ballast will always be in because my son doesn't weigh much
LOL. Thanks for the ballast reminders. It certainly brings back memories - the perennial hunt for the best ballast. I went from sand, to encasing 10 lb bags of BB's in food storage plastic vacuum sealed bags.. The bags were then encased in heavy weight denim sleeves.. They worked pretty well until someone stole them, which led to my favorite removable ballast. Weighted wrist and ankle workout belts. Flat, easy to manipulate, durable canvas covering, and they stayed where they belonged - right rear. 🙂 Hey guys, thanks for triggering the old memory juice. Safe riding.
g
very nice rig Barry,..when my daughter was 4, I installed her car seat in the CF1 car,..gave us a 5 point harness, and she sat up much higher,..she was more secure also, a special order helmet in the xxs child size was o.k. for us,..good luck, take your time and smile on!, cheers crawf. p.s. a loaded tool box and a car battery are good ballast also,..cheers
Ballast---I took jeans cut the legs off , filled the legs with pea gravel(about 25 lbs) and twisted the ends and wrapped copper 12/2 wire around the ends . they look like giant tootsie rolls and the ends make nice handles. I do have one ballast bag right against the front of the seat and Aiden uses that as his foot rest . Aiden is 3 and has been riding for a year now , I found him a helmet at the local cycle shop that sells the little 50cc bikes and 4 wheelers. I also made him a "redneck HANNS device" I used helmet strap material , 2 snaps and a D-ring set ran the strap thru the car seat at the shoulder harness and snap it to the lower side snaps on the helmet. It keeps him in the seat and still allows him to look around. When he falls asleep the D-rings help me sinch his head back into the seat so he doesnt fall forward
My new setup is the best so far. I set the rear air shock at 57psi (max) and loaded the bike as if my wife and I were riding. Then I set the sidecar from that. I road it without passengers and lowered the rear air t0 20psi. With acceleration=0 the steering was neutral most of the time and pulled very little at expressway speeds. I will try riding with my wife and son soon, but we still won’t be going faster than 25mph. I set the toe-in at 1.25” and after reading the most recent post from Lonnie, that may be too much. If/when I adjust it again I may decrease the toe-in.
Thanks for the kind words from everyone.
.
Many different ideas about ballast.
I use 5 gallon collapsible water jugs I bought at Wal-Mart about $6.00 a piece.
Water is about 8 lbs. a gallon, 5 x 8 = 40 lbs.
I have found that around 100 lbs. works best for me solo.
If I ride solo to my grand kids house, I have the jugs filled.
After picking them up, I empty the jugs, and bring them and the kids with me.
I can have them with me, and ready to go solo in minutes.
Jay
