Originally written by whitsundaytattoo on 3/23/2008 11:05 PM
Sure thing Bob and I hear what your saying. So what happens on a solo in the same situation???????. What if! What if ! What if. Perhaps we should all stay home or drive a car it would be safer. My point was that if the situation dictates that you have a pillion on the back they need to be aware that their shifting weight is important the same as a solo. A pillion could infact cause the chair to fly by shifting their weight in a corner to look at something. Its all about enjoying life I think and if that means the missus is on the back so be it.
Tim
Good post Tim and I agree.
People have ridden pillion on sidecar rigs around the world.
It can be done and has been done. It is not all that uncommon really as we have seen here.
I think what we need to emphasis here is the difference that a pillion passnger makes as far as weight distribution goes needs to understood. It is amazing to me how many that are new to the sport of sidecaring tend to miss the point that weight distribution on a sidecar outfit is a crtical thing. Weight distribution can be more critical th esmaller th erig and or sidecar are.
A few years ago a person new to sidecars got one put on his sportster. He got it home and then took it out and and got used to it a little. When he got home from this maiden voyage he got his wife and small child on board to go for a ride with him. Yep, he put his wife on the rear seat and the kid in the sidecar. Sadly this whole family perished together in the first right hand turn as they crossed the centerline into on coming traffic.
Graphic but true.
So, as I mentioned earlier:
>>If you are going to do this practice a lot maybe with no one in the sidecar and just weight added. If you can practice in a parking lot with no weight in the sidecar that may be good also.
....... Can the sidecar come up? Yes indeed it can.<>>Note that the passenger on the bike needs to be aware that they will tend to slide to the side on the seat in turns.<
Some seem to be pretty paranoid about this situation and some not. All need to be aware of it.
what Claude said is very true...one thing I'd like to add, that a passenger on a solo bike has far different weight distribution in turns,than a sidecar rig. when a solo bike turns left or right, the bike, rider, AND passenger will also be leaned, tilted to the direction of the turn.the forces willl tend to push the passenger down onto the seat, not like a SC rig, where the passenger and bike is set straight up in turns, making the unaware passenger slide left or right on the seat, like riding passenger in a car with no doors, and making a sharp left turn. hang on or you will slide right out of the car!
I have put over 100,000 miles on my BMW, solo, with passengers...my wife, also my young son [at that time] with no problems,traveling all over the USA,Even with my son dozing off behind me, with sleeping bags propped up on both sides of him.
the day I put a sidecar on it is the day my wife climbed OFF the pillion and into the SC...her choice and mine also. she, and me, feels much safer there in turns now.
last summer I followed a couple on a HD, on a local tour thru curvey parkways, with the wife riding pillion.
It was funny to watch them... [the wife]on every turn she had to shift to the inside of the turn, left or right. my wife was chuckling also as she sat nice and settled in the turns in her SC,and watched the other one shifting around all the time.the pillion passenger knew her weight made a difference...but......hit one on theose turns when she doesnt expect it, and WOOOO ! instant shorts changes!!
Originally written by claude #3563 on 3/23/2008 9:51 PM
A few years ago a person new to sidecars got one put on his sportster. He got it home and then took it out and and got used to it a little. When he got home from this maiden voyage he got his wife and small child on board to go for a ride with him. Yep, he put his wife on the rear seat and the kid in the sidecar. Sadly this whole family perished together in the first right hand turn as they crossed the centerline into on coming traffic.
Graphic but true.
So, as I mentioned earlier:
>>If you are going to do this practice a lot maybe with no one in the sidecar and just weight added. If you can practice in a parking lot with no weight in the sidecar that may be good also.
....... Can the sidecar come up? Yes indeed it can.<>>Note that the passenger on the bike needs to be aware that they will tend to slide to the side on the seat in turns.<
Some seem to be pretty paranoid about this situation and some not. All need to be aware of it.
The same thing happened here, but in our case the retired police officer, an experienced rider, was on the bike and his wife was alone in the sidecar. He didn't have a passenger on the pillion. Just the same, the sidecar came up on a right turn and they drifted into the path of an oncoming truck. In his case it was a Velorex on a BMW which, in my mind, is a borderline combination.
Bob's complaint about inattentive passengers or riders for that matter, cause problems whether you're on 2, 3, or 4 wheels.
it seams new drivers forget when the car flys you are a 2 wheeler aqain remeber counter steering ? I put in alot of time in a parking lot working on this ! I placed aweight on the frame behind the sidecar wheel works great with the car empty or full
Harley-Davidson has a stern warning in the sidecar owner's handbook against permitting a passenger to ride on the bike when a sidecar is fitted. They consider it a dangerous practice due to the potential for the sidecar wheel coming up.
Yes, I'm aware that safety programs teach new riders to "fly the chair". It's a fine idea for training. I've done it, but only for practice. I studiously avoid it when running my rig on the road.
When a passener is behind the rider, it tends to counteract the weight of the sidecar. The sidecar wheel is much more likely to come off the ground in such a circumstance. If the rig is in a right-hand corner or coming up to an off-camber situation and the wheel gets light or actually comes up, you may easily lose control.
My two cents.
Originally written by gnm109 on 3/24/2008 11:52 AM
Harley-Davidson has a stern warning in the sidecar owner's handbook against permitting a passenger to ride on the bike when a sidecar is fitted. They consider it a dangerous practice due to the potential for the sidecar wheel coming up.
And yet one of their TV commercials just last year showed a happy family with mom and dad on the bike and two small kids waving from the sidecar.
Originally written by SidecarMike on 3/24/2008 11:03 AM
Originally written by gnm109 on 3/24/2008 11:52 AM
Harley-Davidson has a stern warning in the sidecar owner's handbook against permitting a passenger to ride on the bike when a sidecar is fitted. They consider it a dangerous practice due to the potential for the sidecar wheel coming up.
And yet one of their TV commercials just last year showed a happy family with mom and dad on the bike and two small kids waving from the sidecar.
I never saw that. The warning stands. If there were such an ad, the people who may have written the copy for it were not very knowledgable, were they? They were obviously not the people who wrote the warning.
Harley also had an ad for the Bad Boy Softail parked out in front of a prison. That was in American Iron and Cycle World, Did that make you want to commit a felony?
We should further the safety message, not the exception......assuming that you really saw it.......you say you did.....did you? And if you did, can you tell us for sure that it was an advertisement produced for Harley-Davidson? If it was, it's the first ad I've heard of from Harley specifically on sidecars in the past 50 years.
I'm getting thirsty. Gotta go. Gonna get a couple of beers at the local watering hole and then ride my sotfail over to Folsom prison and park it for a while. LOL
Originally written by gnm109 on 3/24/2008 2:21 PM
Harley also had an ad for the Bad Boy Softail parked out in front of a prison. That was in American Iron and Cycle World, Did that make you want to commit a felony?
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. And your comment about the people who wrote the warning reminds me of the sticker on the Urals advising against right or left turns at any time.
The ad we saw was last year about this time. We had just gotten the "Expanded" channel offering from Charter Cable. Though I had heard of it, I had never seen the Speed channel. When I turned it on, the first thing I saw was a commercial for the 2007 Harleys showing a group of riders on various models. Everything from a pink jacketed teenaged girl on a Sportster, an older couple on an Ultra, guys on a Vrods and various other models. The last scene was a couple passing on a Glide with two kids in the sidecar looking back and waving.
For many years, Harley and most of the other sidecar manufacturers have pushed the sidecar as a means of including the whole family in the sport. Heck, that's what convinced me and I'm sure a great deal of other cyclists to try sidecaring in the first place. Not everyone out there can afford thousands of dollars for a glorified pet hauler and not everyone feels it's right to pack the kids off to the sitter each time the sun shines.
I'm not saying we all have to carry passengers, I normally travel alone. I'm just saying that we have no business trying to scare everybody into following our individual way of thinking.
Earlier, SidecarMike said:
Although I don't agree with the people who will soon jump in to lecture you about two up with a sidecar, in this case I must say that you need to be in the sidecar with your child.
It looks like we agree, after all.
Earlier, SidecarMike said:
Although I don't agree with the people who will soon jump in to lecture you about two up with a sidecar, in this case I must say that you need to be in the sidecar with your child.
It looks like we agree, after all.
Only when talking about two adults on the bike and a small child in the sidecar. Read the entire post. This whole topic has nothing to do with inattentive passengers. It has only to do with keeping the rig properly balanced. If not, you should be lobbying to keep passengers off of motorcycles entirely, not just sidecar rigs. And off of snowmobiles, atv's, trikes, jet ski's, golf carts, farm tractors, and anything else that doesn't have doors and seat belts.
Yes it still comes down to weight distribution and a passenger being able to kno wwhat to expect. Liability can be high if we just ,across the board, say "sure put your passenger anywhere you want to and all will be well". THAT is a totally wrong statement and shoudl never be taken as truth. I am quite sure that is why Harley says what they say and that is understandable.
Lets ask ourselves a couple of simple questions.
Can a 250 pound person operate a sidecar rig safely?
Yes or no.
I think we will all say yes. Right?
If so can a 150 pound rider operate a rig safley with a 100 pound passenger behind him?
The answer is yes if that passenger is capable of staying put in theior seat. In fact that scenario with an active passenger has the potential to make for better cornering than can be had with the 250 pound single rider.
The quick and all around safer answer to the question if two up can work on a sidecar rig is 'no'. But with some explaination and a little education the answer can be different.
The all around safer way is to just keep the pillion open and enjoy the ride.
As far as cornering with the sidecar wheel up there is noting odd about it if a rider is a spirited type who pushes a little hard in the twisities.This has zero to do with lifting the sidecar and ridng around with it in the air to show off or whatever(flying the sidecar). But that subjest has been beat to death so many times it is ridiculous.
Originally written by SidecarMike on 3/24/2008 5:53 PM
Only when talking about two adults on the bike and a small child in the sidecar. Read the entire post. This whole topic has nothing to do with inattentive passengers. It has only to do with keeping the rig properly balanced. If not, you should be lobbying to keep passengers off of motorcycles entirely, not just sidecar rigs. And off of snowmobiles, atv's, trikes, jet ski's, golf carts, farm tractors, and anything else that doesn't have doors and seat belts.
And maybe Jeeps? Is that spanish for heaps?
Originally written by SidecarMike on 3/24/2008 5:53 PM
Only when talking about two adults on the bike and a small child in the sidecar. Read the entire post. This whole topic has nothing to do with inattentive passengers. It has only to do with keeping the rig properly balanced. If not, you should be lobbying to keep passengers off of motorcycles entirely, not just sidecar rigs. And off of snowmobiles, atv's, trikes, jet ski's, golf carts, farm tractors, and anything else that doesn't have doors and seat belts.
my post had everything to do with keeping the rig properly balanced, which it will not do if the passenger is hanging off the wrong side in an emergency manuever. It really needs attentive passengers to keep the rig balanced properly.
If you read my reply, you would see I am referring to an emergency manuever, where the passenger IS NOT paying attention.
You cant tell me , in all the years you have been riding, this situation has not come up..also known as the "Pucker Factor"
funny you should mention golf carts..I have 2 at my old place, and at a party I let a couple friends drive and ride in it. they took off, and at the first left hand turn the passenger slid out onto the grass, and rolled a few times. luckily they were only going about 20MPH at the time and were on grass.
I am not "lobbying" to keep passengers off the pillion. I just want them and the uninformed operators to know the downsides of having a passenger on the pillion, in regards to the bike being balanced correctly. [and easily thrown OFF balance]
It 's all up to the idividuals....if they want to push thier luck more than necessary.
Originally written by Bob in Wis on 3/25/2008 9:08 AM
my post had everything to do with keeping the rig properly balanced, which it will not do if the passenger is hanging off the wrong side in an emergency manuever. It really needs attentive passengers to keep the rig balanced properly.
If you read my reply, you would see I am referring to an emergency manuever, where the passenger IS NOT paying attention.
You cant tell me , in all the years you have been riding, this situation has not come up..also known as the "Pucker Factor"funny you should mention golf carts..I have 2 at my old place, and at a party I let a couple friends drive and ride in it. they took off, and at the first left hand turn the passenger slid out onto the grass, and rolled a few times. luckily they were only going about 20MPH at the time and were on grass.
I am not "lobbying" to keep passengers off the pillion. I just want them and the uninformed operators to know the downsides of having a passenger on the pillion, in regards to the bike being balanced correctly. [and easily thrown OFF balance]
It 's all up to the idividuals....if they want to push thier luck more than necessary.
I've had to make corrections dozens of times over the years to avoid dogs, balls, deer, and cinder blocks falling off of a pickup truck. I've never lost a passenger off a sidecar rig, though I've woken a few passengers up when it happened.
I did once lose one off a 650 Triumph at a stop sign. The light turned green, I took off, and she ended up sitting on the pavement. But we were on two wheels.
