Just have found this very interesting video on the Web.
Scary takeoff and fortunately the landing looks OK for both, rider and passenger. I wondering if other had experienced this kind of uncomfortable position. What are the warnings that lead to the roll over, and how to avoid it
No I have not had that happen but it looked like they had a lot # forward in the hack.
Didier,
Getting into a left hander over your head can put you on your head. Lefties can bite and bite quick when the boundaries of saftey are crossed. This is why we warn newbies so many times not to get overconfident on left handers.
Light bike and heavy sidecars are worst. Rigs with a lot of ground clearance( high center of gravity) and a lot of suspension travel such as many dual sport rigs can be succeptable to this too.
You rememebr your rig and how it was in the pre swaybar mode? Big difference now right? The swaybar levels out the suspension travel and allows flatter cornering. In essence the weight transfer is happening on a differnt plan and helps to promote more stabilty.
Think of 'tip over lines ' and where they are drawn. Think of weight distribution too..weight forward in sidecar nose or on a nose mounted rack is a bad thing and can inhance the chances of a rig doing this tip over routine. Richard was right about that. Watch the racers sometimes and see what the passenger does in turns away from the sidecar. He or she gets as much weight as possible over the rear of the bike which helps to hold it down .
The bad deal about lifing the rear wheel in left handers is that it happens really quick and there is little one can do to help the outcome. You are at the mercy of the forces that got you there to begin with. The idea of hanging off the left side of the bike is not a bad one but all that does is shift ballast to the left. What does this mean? It will give more stability but you may just get braver at a higher speed and have a more sectacular crash.
I have never gone all the way over but have run the sidecar nose into the ground a few times. It is very hard on driving lights that are mounted low. It also is very hard to stay on the seat and not get pitched off the right side. Hanging off would help this not to happen. I hit a deer once on our old wing/palma rig and the rig did almost a 90 degree left turn instanly. I fell off the seay and in between the sidecar and bike. The rear brake was locked and later when looking at the skid marks there was about a 5 0r 6 fppt place where no skid mark was on the road. That was when my rear wheel was off the ground...It never went over but again it was a heavy rig and had a stiff suspension. Some one was no doubt looking out for me too 🙂 Yes, the deer ended up in our freezer.
Spinning around even on dirt can get you in trouble especially if you hit a hole on a soflty sprung rig. Yes, most of us do it but that doesn't make it right.
More lead helps as it moves the tip over line more towards the front wheel.
Roger's site has video of a goldwing with moturist sidecar doing a 180 degree spin at 30 miles per hour. That rig had 15" of lead on it. The same manuever with a light bike running .say. 9 inches of lead could have been a mess.
Learn your rigs limits gradually. If you hop on someone elses rig take time to learn it some too.
Left handers induce confidence but there are limits. Right handers are scary to many new sidecarists but after a while as skill increases and a rig gets dialed in many will say they prefer right handers to left turns. This seems so foreign to new riders but is very common.
Good comments Claude. As I mentioned when we talked last week,my Ural "feels" like it would go over in a hard left. Haven't done it (or even gotten the drive wheel up) but the feel is there.
What was most instructional in the video was how quick it all happened.
greg
Greg,
How quick it can happen is the bad side of it. It comes as a surprise as I am sure it did with the guys in the video. I know the first time I had it happen was showing off with a passenger in doing a 180 spin around on a back street. Had done it before with no problem but this time we lost a driving light and crunched the sidecar nose some. Pretty embarrasing but at speed it could have been a bad deal. The passenger said " do it again"...I said no and tried to look cool...lol.
At Uralfest 02 at Weaves, one of the field events was a slalom course to be run in reverse. One of the rigs aptly demonstrated just how unstable a rig is going backwards. Only superficial damage, we had him upright in seconds.
Turkshead
At a URAL Homecoming several years ago some unnamed pilots (now well known in the Sidecar industry) were trying to see who could fly the chairs in reverse. Needless to say turning turtle came very fast. No harm done (Demo rigs).
Lonnie
I have done readng about tip over lines and I'm going to be very cautious on left turns too, especially after watching that video. There was no warning. It also looks to me like there was very little or no lead on that combo.
Some one mentioned a stabilizer bar. tha's new to me. How does that work?
It looks like they had too much of that French wine. If they were not trying to show off, they wouldn't have crashed.
Originally written by gnm109 on 10/19/2006 5:05 PM
It looks like they had too much of that French wine. If they were not trying to show off, they wouldn't have crashed.
Good possibility that one. Piloting a rig when it is drunk out is tempting fate beyond it's ability ro resist haveing a go at you.
Turkshead
