Sidecar Brake Again

Personaly in driving sidecars for 20 plus year I have never owned a rig with a sidecar brake. I have ridden them and helped install a few but never had one myself.Are they needed? Well if you don't have one on you can't use it. If you do have one on you can. On a heavy or heavily loaded rig they are kinda nice to have. Yes, I have had times where I wished I had a brake and on the rig now under construction plan to use one....BUT...in your case? I cannot disagree with Doug. But if it is something you want and if it is available go for it.
So..looks like I wrote a bunch of words and really said nothing. Maybe so, but the point is that it is ultimately going to be up to you to decide. Doug may be trying to save you a few dollars based on his experience.
Your call I guess. You could try it without the brake and add it later but in any case If you do go with the brake please let us know how you like it.
Hopefuly others will have a better response than mine 🙂

Like Claude, I am not a sidecar brake affecionado. With a light chair you can spend a lot of rubber just sliding the sidecar tire without much braking effect save a small jerk to the right before the sidecar tire starts to skid.
I have seen where the sidecar brake can be of service on a heavy loaded or very wide rig, but prefer an independent brake to the linked systems for better control if that were necessary.
Using the independent brake off road or in the gravel is a lot of fun to set up a drift or for playing in the dirt, but on the road I prefer good disc brakes and a little countersteering for braking control. it's just more consistant.
If you want to spend the several hundred bucks just for "Bling Bling" or to fulfill a childhood dream, by all means go for it. It probably won't add or detract that much from your sidecar experience, but as far as being a good investment, I don't think so.

Disclaimer: My personal opinion, others may differ.

My first sidecar was a 1970 Guzzi ambassador/velorex 562 sidecar.
I never hooked up the brake and had no problems.
As stated in the previous post, unless your carrying heavy loads or have
other concerns you don't need the brake.
Doug built the Harley rig Iam driving now and I would go with what he says
hands down.
Worse case scenario; Try it without the brake and see how it works. If you don't like it, put it on.
Don't forget by not telling you to buy the brake he his losing the chance to make a sale(profit).
He is doing the right thing & giving you sound advice.
Thats the great thing about alot of the people in this business, they do whats right for you vs what increases their profits 1st.

Okay, thanks all for the input. You've just about made up my mind to go sans brake. I'll check with Doug Bingham about the ability to rerofit before making the final decision. With the GPB running up around USD1.93 I guess that I'd better not dally too long or the sidecar without brake will be costing more than the present price with.

Martin
Parkton MD USA

Some liike 'em and some don't.
In the past 30+ years with hacks I finaly bought a car with a brake, an Escort for our GL-1800. However I chose not to hook it up to the bikes front hydraulics per Champions directions. Instead I built a custom Master Cylinder with Brakepedal mounted to the Hack frame. The pedal is mounted next to the bikes rear pedal which allows me to use either or both to whatever extent I choose.
This rig is fairly heavy with a light car and when lightly loaded the car brake isn't needed much. On the other hand when the car is loaded heavly or I have the trailer on the car brake is a must have.
If you choose a Hack with a brake you can elect not to connect it or try it to see if it helps. Later when & if you ever sell the car the brake option should help sell it with everything else being equal I would think.

After going through a number of rigs from 500cc to 1800cc with light cars to a custom heavyweight I built once I am in favor or having a brake now that I have one. I have to wonder how I got by without one for so long but then I realise that as I have gotten older I like the little extras more than I used to.

Jerry

The idea of hooking the sidecar brake up seperately is a good one for many folks. It allows it to be used sepreately getting into right handers and also used in conjunction with the main brake. Problem is that if a rider is not using both brakes together on a regular basis he or she will more than likely not use them both in a panic situation. This is the appeal of the lever device that connects both pedals as it does automatically unify them when in the right position. Don't get me wrong I am still a proponent of the seperate brake if a brake is installed on the chair.
There is discussion many times on where to plumb the brake if it is to be hooked directly into the bike..i.s.e. front or rear. Some, as mentioned , say to plumb it into the front. Some say into the rear. I suppose it is a personal choice and both sides have their own advantages. Personally I strongly prefer to plumb into the rear. By doing this you still have the full braking of the front brake but have the ability to control direction by relaeasing it is you get into a slide for any reason. Any tire has a contact patch. That smallish poinyt of the tire is what connects the tire to the road. That point of the tire only has so much traction and it can be compromised due to variations in the road condition. If the traction 'bank acount' is over drawn the tire will break traction and slide. A locked tire when it is skidding cannot be steered. It will follow the course the forces wrking on it dictate. We can lock a sidecar tire and/or a rear tire and still be under control if the front tire is rolling. If we lock a front tire we are not longer in control due to lack of steering. Yes, front wheel braking IS the most effective due to the weight tranfer etc. I am not saying at all to not use the front brake I anm just making some food for thought on which end of the bike to plumdb a sidecar brake into.
For what it's worth,

I once had a frontal crash with my rig with two children in the sidecar.
It happened on a single lane road when a oncoming car drove way too fast
around a curve. I managed it to stop before the collision - but not the car.
No one injured but a huge damage at the rig - and a totalled cage.
I have a brake at the sidecar but it was too weak in that situation. The
mass/inertia of the sidecar rotated the rig to the left. The traces showed
that I had opened the front brake two times during braking to re-align the rig.
-> Although innocent at the accident I wasn't able to turn aside to right
cause of the weak sidecar brake.
-> When the chair - even a light one - is loaded I consider a break at the
sidewheel a good idea.
How to combine it with the tug's brakes is mainly a question of personal
preferences. But if you combine it with the front wheel you need a big lead
of the sidewheel in order to keep the rearwheel on the ground when breaking
in left-hand curves.
I operate it with the foot and have two independant pedals. The idea to operate
them independantly doesn't work according to my experiences. I like it to
initiate left curves with the frontbrake but I never managed the same with
the sidecar brake for right curves. It turns to the right - sure - but the
behavior when I open the brake is simply strange and results in restive
steering motions.
Besides this it is pretty hard to adjust both pedals for a common pressure
point. At my bike, with a mechanical drum brake at the rear, it is nearly
impossible. (That was my trouble in the above mentioned accident: The rearbrake
pedal didn't allow to raise the pressure to the sidebrake pedal. Since this day
I always adjust them for a good pressure to the sidebrake and neglect the rearbrake.)
I would prefer a solution that combines side- and rearwheel brake with a
common master cylinder. So the front brake is still available without
limitations for steering purposes and the sidebrake helps to keep the rig
straight in emergency situations.
A overbraking, blocking sidewheel at an empty chair is not much of a problem.
As soon as there's some ballast in the car or when the wheel load raises in
left-hand curves, the brake is a valuable aid.

Regards,

Clemens

Brackenheim, Germany

Clemens,
Using the front brake to initiate a left turn is foreign to me. The use of both front and rear brakes before the turn would be preferable, or using the rear bike brake a bit, to allow the car to drive around the bike to the left, aiding the turn. The use of the front brake in the turn causes the front end suspension of the bike to compress (with a telescopic front end) and the rear end to rise, dipping the nose of the chair into the pavement at times. I've also seen scraped noses on the leading link equipped rigs from left turn braking.
The problem that remains with linked brakes on lighter rigs remains the same. They are not always loaded the same, if at all. The sidecar brake and tire have a different coefficient of stopping ability due to differences in swept volume area of the three different brakes involved, different loading, tire sizes, tread patterns, road surfaces and direction of travel. These differences will help explain why the use of the sidecar brake seems erratic to you during right turns.
Most of these problems also affect the independently brake rigs, but they can be controlled somewhat by discriminate use of the three separate brake pedals/levers involved.
Muscle memory is one of the main factors involved in a panic stopping situation such as your crash. A common reaction is to brake hard and freeze on the brakes (Push and pray, as it were). This sounds like what may have occured in your situation. That may be why you were unable to control the rig and turn to the right. With an unloaded car and a strong sidecar brake the same thing could have occured due to the locked sidecar wheel simply skidding along the pavement with no braking effect.

Lonnie
Northwest Sidecar

Good post Clemens. I think the description you gave of your panic BRAKING situation was good. I hope that others will see the dynamics of what happens as brakes are applied.
You wrote:
>>I would prefer a solution that combines side- and rearwheel brake with a common master cylinder. So the front brake is still available without
limitations for steering purposes and the sidebrake helps to keep the rig
straight in emergency situations.<<

If brakes are to installed on the sidecar and integrated with the bike I TOTALLY AGREE! Some of the HPSidecars are using a double bajo bolt right off the rear bike caliper which simply feeds the sidecar brake. Seems to work well.

I think we all need to realize that the braking requirments of different rigs may vary somewhat. An 1800 Goldwing with a large Hannigan pulling a pop up campertrailer loaded for a week on the road with three passengers is quite a different animal than an XS650 TWIN/ Veleorx outfit.
Clemons spoke of unloading the rear bike wheel when braking in left handers. This can be a real issue. On a light outfit with a small amount of sidecar wheel lead it can be a real big issue. Proceed with caution you do not want to lift the rear bike wheel in a left hander!! When that wheel comes off the ground the rig is at the mercy of the forces that caused it to do so.The wheel will typically come up very quickly. The wheel will either come back down or try to go on over. There is not much that can be done by the rider when in this situation other than hang on. This maneuver can cost you a damaged sidecar nose , a trip to the crash house or worse. Raising the sidecar wheel in a RIGHT hander is controllable and becomes second nature to many who ride with aggression. Raising the rear wheel of the bike in left handers is not controllable and should be avoided.
Bottom line..practice..practice..practice..get to know your own rig and make the decisons on whether to add a brake to the sidecar from youR experiences. Think hard on which system seems to make sense to you..seperate, integrated to the rear or to the front etc.
Claude

Great post by everyone.This is how we all learn to be better sidecarist.
I just checked the yellow book and my 1988 USCA sidecar operator manual and had to double check on braking on turns(I did not want to be wrong on this one).Right turn front brake. Left turn rear brake.
Going into a left turn and applying the front brake too hard could cause the rear tire of the motorcyle to lift off the ground create an unstable situation(panic the driver) or worse yet flip the rig!!!!!
I understand that my reference is from 1988 but the physics haven't changed that much.
New technology and advances on how rigs are built do make rigs safer,faster and less prone to instability(flipping etc.).
I think you have to practice the fundamentals and learn what your rig can and can not do. I could be wrong just my opinion. Anyone new to this; Please get the yellow book and practice before you get on the road.
Experienced sidecarist can adjust to many scary situations because they have that experience. Even that does not assure avoiding an accident.
In the end its all about getting home safely.

Good post there too Lenny. Yes, these kind of discussions may bring out things some may disagee with from their own experiences but they are good fo all of us because it makes us think.
The basic idea going into a left turn is to brake late and hard before entering the turn.The sidecar with no brake will want to keep on going which can actually help in making the turn. You are right that the front brake being used in a left turn is a bad idea.
The idea in a righ tturn is to brake early and accelerate through the turn. If this is practiced you will rarely get in 'over your head' so to speak. Negotiation a right hander while accelerating give much more control back to the operator.
One thing I do not think Hough mentions in his book is lane , or road, position going into a turn. This is a huge factor that he has written about in other articles though. The idea is to be proactive in a smooth fashion to run at a goo dpace and stil be safe. It is a lot easier to be aggresive, AND GO FASTER OVERALL, on acceleration than on braking..LOL.
One of the keys to this is to take a 'late apex' in any given turn. What this means is to enter the actual turn late...this is done by staying out towards the centerline as long as possible before diving into the turn itself. This procedure allows a rider to see futher through the turn prior to entry, possibly use less brakes in the turn, and get off the turn much faster. No, we are not on a racetrack here but the principles do apply. Going into a turn too early negates a lot of the control we may have otherwise had over obstcles , decreasing radius situations etc..
A late apex also helps us to not swing wide coming out of the turn which is probably the one major thing that causes crashes on sidecar rigs especially to new peopel to the sport.
claude

Hi claude
Thanks for mentioning the importance of speed and positioning of the rig as you approach a turn or the twisties. Everything listed in your post is
paramount for safe driving(ride a motorcycle, drive a sidecar).
As you pointed out good position lets you be agressive yet safe.
With this being said, most sidecarist would prefer to be in the rear of a
group ride so that can be more aggressive, keep up with the group, and stay out of harms way.

replying to #5664

>> Using the front brake to initiate a left turn is foreign to me. <> The problem that remains with linked brakes on lighter rigs remains the same. They are not always loaded the same, if at all. <> Muscle memory is one of the main factors involved in a panic stopping situation such as your crash. A common reaction is to brake hard and freeze on the brakes (Push and
pray, as it were). This sounds like what may have occured in your situation. That may be why you were unable to control the rig and turn to the right. <> With an unloaded car and a strong sidecar brake the same thing could have occured due to the locked sidecar wheel simply skidding along the pavement with no braking effect. <<
A locked wheel offers always above 80% of the maximum possible brake power.
This is way above the average solo rider's capabilities if he want's to avoid locking.
The only disadvantage is: a locked tyre isn't steerable any longer and slides tangentially
to the actual direction vector.