today i had to run up to North Jersey to visit a friend.on the way i stopped at a Harley dealer to see if they would service my bike without taking the sidecar off [they will] .i was talking to the service guy and he said they see very few sidecars anymore.i see very few sidecars on the road .i wonder what is the percentage of bikes with sidecars compared to 2 wheel bikes.you would think there would be a lot of them just because there are a lot of older riders .plus people with kids who want to let them enjoy motorcycles.and they are just so much fun.
Maybe 1% or less. The trend now for the Baby Boomers getting back into riding is toward trikes for stability with a large displacement motorcycle base. Harley Davidson went the trike route due to lack of sales of their obsolescent sidecars. The trikes and trike conversions allow persons of limited capabilities to control a large motorcycle without fear of dropping it. Passenger and cargo capacity are less than with a sidecar rig and ride quality suffers with two car tires under one's butt, but they still outsell sidecars (?). It may be due to the fact that an asymetrical sidehack rig requires a bit more finesse to pilot effectively.
Many a fine motorcycle has been chopped up to convert it into a trike and many sidehackers can drop the car off and go for a solo ride when they wish without having to own two motorcycles.
Lonnie
I know when i got my first sidecar in the late 80s there seem to be more sidecars around.but then it is more than likely because i rode places where they showed up. at the HD dealer they had a few trikes but i am not spending 35 grand .
horrorguy - 1/20/2012 5:11 PM
I know when i got my first sidecar in the late 80s there seem to be more sidecars around.but then it is more than likely because i rode places where they showed up. at the HD dealer they had a few trikes but i am not spending 35 grand .
As mentioned above, it's got to be less than 1%. They haven't been popular with the younger set. The trikes are selling as I seem to see them around but as you say, for $35K, you'd have to hesitate. I'd probably buy a car instead. LOL.
I have an old photo somewhere of this dashing young guy in lace up riding boots, scarf and leather jacket leaning against his rig. I've often wondered if my grandfather could have imagined that what was cool in 1930 would still be cool today. I love sidecars!
for 35 grand i could pick up a nice used sidecar set up and still have a lot of money in my pocket .as far as trikes i would like an old servi car but that is for a fun old toy [since they really are only geared for 45 mph] .but sidecars do have that cool factor that the new trikes dont have.
and how the heck can you take a dog for a ride on a new trike...duct tape ?. sidecars win in so many areas compared to trikes.
when i used to go to Marcus Dairy for sunday breakfast i used to see sidecars on a regular basis.people would walk right around the custom bike with thousands of dollars of chrome and paint to look at a sidecar.sadly Marcus Dairy is now the location of another strip mall instead of a nice spot for hundreds of motorcyclists to meet on a sunday morning.
My first ride on a motorcycle was when I was a little kid in Houston (1957) and a cop gave me spin on his Servi-Car. I'd love to have one set up for the highway...Just think, they'd fire a cop today for doing what they now call "Community Policing". Sad...
Rode my rig to a Tuesday nite bike nite at a Hooters, did seem to get more attention than the 3 or 4 custom bikes there.
If you go on a "run" that has a prize for sidecars you're almost assured of winning, 'cause you'll be the only one there!
the sidecar was always more fun.one Christmas my friend dressed as Santa and we rode around town giving candy canes to children.the kids got a kick out of it.we froze because it was 10 deg out but it was well worth it.hopefully some people will have that as a sidecar memory.
One Christmas, a local group needed a Santa, but they wanted him to show up in a sidecar. I got a "portly" friend of mine into a Santa suit and into the sidecar. Problem was, we could not get him out when we drove into the ballroom! I hope that we didn't damage the memory of Christmas for any little ones who saw us "wrestling" Santa out of the sidecar!
One has to chuckle... At the expense of Santa - but hey, they say he is a jolly old soul.
One of the reasons I no longer have an older Velorex.. Hard to get the "huskys" out. 🙂
g
I've been on both sides over a life time, sidecars, and trikes. My Dad who raced for the Indian Motorcycles factory in the 1930's courted my Mom with a sidecar. When they went on there honey moon it was with a sidecar and bike. A generation later I designed and built my Sweet SL-110 sidecar, and brought it to the market place. It's been written that possibly 1% are sidecars. I wouldn't think that it's 1/100 of 1%. The numbers today are small compared to regular motorcycles, and trikes.
Back in the 70's when I was manufacturing my Sweet SL-110 sidecar they became so popular around the New England area that you couldn't go out on a warm Summer day without seeing a sidecar. In some places there could be as many as twenty five bikes with sidecars showing up. The beach areas of the twelve miles of the New Hampshire coast was a popular place to see sidecars on any Summer weekend. We found that New England was a unique place in that two million people where within a hundred miles, and the New England people where always looking for something different to make them stand out from the rest of the crowd. In all I built 450 units and most where in the greater Boston area. I was also told that the few dealers that sold sidecars in New England at the time sold more because of my company making sidecars affordable, and more visible out on the road.
Years later after I had moves South and later retired I was commissioned to design the Victory Crossbow trike for Lehman Trike out of Spearfish South Dakota. I new nothing about trikes and didn't want to know anything about them. For years as I built and owned sidecars if a person attempted to enter into a conversation about trikes, I would cut them off at the knees. I wasn't interested and that was that. So when all of a sudden I was trusted into a trike world it was a culture shock. Different people, different interests.
Trikes are so much bigger in sales and numbers than sidecars it's mind boggling. I never new there was so much money in the trike industry, or that it was so large. If I had known this earlier I may have looked into trikes years ago.
A little side story:
In 2008 when I was at the Lehman R&D facility in South Dakota in preparation to the designing of the Victory Crossbow trike I was told that the project was top secret. They had a "Skunk Room" just for the project. As it turned out at the same time that we where planning the design of the Crossbow trike the Harley people where designing the new Harley trike. Lehman was selected as the company that would produce the first Harley trikes until the new plant in Pennsylvania was built. Victory being a competitor of Harley couldn't let any information out about the new Crossbow project. Any information about the Crossbow was top secret. The Harley engineers and designers where in the building and walking around all the time. In the end they never new what we where up to. We had a famous bike designer Michael Prugh do the artist renderings. To make things easier for all concerned we moved the project from the R& D center in South Dakota to my shop in South Carolina so that no one would see it under development. In the end the Harley group never new what was going on and Lehman ended up building thousands of Harley trikes before the operation was moved to it's new location in Pennsylvanian.
It took twenty eight weeks for me to design and sculpture the original Crossbow body, and make two prototypes. Once I was finished with my design work the entire project was delivered back to the Lehman R&D facility and placed on what's called a shaker machine. The shaker machine can duplicate 200,000 miles of highway miles in a short time.
The Victory Crossbow Trike was released at the Sturgis Bike Rally in 2009 representing the 2010 model year. Sales where beyond Lehmans expectations and the Crossbow was well excepted. The selling price was $34,000.
Like I wrote earlier I've been on both sides. I love sidecars, and as I write this I have five units in my shop. I always find it interesting as to what people have to say about one or the other. Sidecar people will seldom like trikes, and the same can be said for trike people liking sidecars. It really comes down to what a person prefers, or the environment they come from. If I hadn't been born into sidecars, and hadn't become an automotive design engineer I would have never designed my Sweet LS-110 sidecar. Also If I wasn't a Master Modeler/Sculptor I would have never been asked to design the Crossbow trike, and would never have been interested in trikes.
Some of the information that people have about both sidecars and trikes is so misleading that over time it becomes a wives tale. People with limited knowledge about some things can be more damaging than some will ever know. I don't confess to know everything about either subject, but I do have first hand knowledge about both, and find it interesting as to the comments some will make without ever having any first hand experience on the subjects. I will say this, the information on sidecars on this site is first class. the guys with experience are willing to hand it down to those that are new to the hobby/sport. I hope the new inexperienced people understand, and appreciate this. It's so easy for some to head a new guy in the wrong direction, and make his sidecar adventure a miserable one. You new people are lucky you have a place to go when in doubt about something sidecar related.
What's the economic condition of both sidecars and trikes? That would be great a subject for a future writing!
Thanks for reading, Johnny Sweet jsweet450@yahoo.com
Johnny, I am one of the new guys you refer to, a new old guy that is. I have read and studied everything I could find on side cars which isn't a lot. You are one of the resources i will use. I really appreciate your history and experience with sidecars and appreciate the wealth of knowledge people like you have and are willing to share. I have only driven a sidecar a few times , an 83 Harley that my brother owned in Minnesota many years ago. I just purchased the 03 venture/ escort hack that was for sale on this forum and it should arrive in alaska next week. I am borrowing a snow machine trailer to pick up the fully crated unit in anchorage . I have no clue how I will get it off loaded once I get home!! Thanks for the interesting post, Charlie in the frozen north.
