Keep the thread open, Ill tell you later this week how an Austin Mini and bankrupt Erich Honecker contributed in turning me into a S/C Junkie.
Sven
i have a Yamaha vstar 1100 silverado with a bimmer sidecar.
Nice looking rig David..and thanks and congrats on your first post here...tell us how and why you got into bikes and sidecars.
ooops hit the wrong button ..empty post Hee HEE!
my first bike was a '58 HD 165 CC 2 stroke single,Called a "BT"
it was a hard tail and i made a dirt bike out of it. mayby thats what happened to my back!
needed to buy the HD to ride along with all my HD factory worker buddies here in Milwaukee area.
Originally written by Modelflyered on 2/11/2008 10:46 PM
Nice looking rig David..and thanks and congrats on your first post here...tell us how and why you got into bikes and sidecars.
Had my fist bike 23 years ago, took a break and got back into it. i like the sidecar because it extends my driving season and allows for a lot more cargo and passengers. my sidecar fits 2 adults in line. how about you, why did you get into it?
PS: took it out last saturday before it started to snow again! another 3" [10cm] tonight!
I guess i should have wrote better in first post... got into the sidecar world cause the wife an i wanted to be able to take our smaller kids with us on rides (max is 4 and sam is 1) so we started to look. We found a few rigs but not many that we would say yes to...I was leaning towards a honda 1800 but when the wife found our HD ultra for the right price down in Iowa. we took the short 3 1/2 hour trip to see it....fell in love...rode her home. I'ts funny cause now my 15 year old can't wait to get his drivers licence ....he wants a Ural Patrolman(the camo one) and has almost enough saved up to buy one. His 11 year old sister said she will ride with as long as she dosn't have to buy the gas. It's been great how the bike has brought us together more as a family. Ed
Ok, here how I came to Jolly Roger 1 back in 1986, when I didn't had a belly but was an allways hungry student.
I started 82 with an 1974 Honda CB125K up to Sweden, I was very skinny so number 2 became a CB650 (=RC03 German version) in 83 (Still I do not like heavy bikes). Made 18.000km between the russian border in Finland and Nessy in 3 month. Just for to get on time to National military service I made de the trip from North Yorkshire back to Ratzeburg near Lübeck of 1.645km in 21 hours including 2 1/2 hours strike of the dock workers in Dover and 3/4 hours pushing the bike close to the Holland/German border because I ran out of gas (Couldn't change money on the ferry because of the strike.) I made it to the caserns gate at 16:10, 16:30 was my very first appell.
A few weeks later on the day I seperated from my fioncey I fell asleep / scraped 8m along a wall, whacked off a brand new water hydrant, Had to throw my not any more fioncey off the bike, passed through a sandthorn bush wit 1 3/4" brittle thorns, and kepped 3 days pulling out pieces of thorn rests out of my face.... The knick glass googles (Climax?) I pulled down a few hundred meter earlier saved my eyes.
That bike went with me 5 years for 148.000km through whole Europe. (Except the east that was behind the iron fence 800m from my home. / I could visit my neigbour village the first time in my life until 1994)
In winter I allways got typical student's cars for a couple of hundred marks. The third was an Austin Mini (Mini Cooper) that was a hell of a blast and a hell of a pain. So after 7 weeks I had been lucky to find a study collegue who was hooked on these bummers (mine ran way over 170km/h... never got to top speed).
Loaded all the surpluss stuff, spares and tires into it and hit for the motorway to Hamburg. 3 km before the "Autobahn" suddenly the traction got lost... all gears , no traction... and WHACK the right front wheel got lost....A few minutes later and I couldn't tell it now.
This was THE INSPIRATION: No right front wheel. My father allways was saying that I was good in driveing bikes but he hated my way to drive cars.
(Who would, if I used them usually for spinning in the snow and my earlier beedle needed a 120km drive for to heat from -13ºC to -3ºC inside temperature. Dad was with me that day...)
Allready to that time I had met and participated on a few sidecar meetings where I met much nicer people then on ordanary biker meetings. One Hermann (my age 23) I will not forget, he had worse luck then I with my hand/arm paralysis: his arm was completlely thin as a mummy and he didn't have any muskles left from the sholder to the finger tips. He passed the brake and gas of his fathers BMW R60 rig to the left and had buttons in his glove to fix his arm...
To that time East Germany was allready bankrupt and made so called Compensation deals. They sold what ever they could way under cost price in the west for to get "Hard money" for urgently needed spares and tools.
And in that program Erich Honnecker sold the MZ ETZ 250 without side car in 2600 DM (West German marks) and with sidecar for 4300 DM.
That was what I barely still had on my account.
2 weeks later friday/saturday 13.12.86 I could pick up the bike in Kiel.
First corner first fuse for flash light, second corner second fuse. What the heck continue in the old stile waveing hand signs.
140km home 3 times I went straight into the field.
Next morning first snow, I visited Sherry one of my best friends who had hit a few days before a deer. Hey look you can even climb up the steep edge to the field on the left road side....no couldn't ...slipped down and the wooden road side post came up to me... Hit it with the front wheel or the brand new sidecar...no thanks...Took it with the middle, the mounting fist... What good are Anatomic motocross knee protectors!!! The hit right on the knee was hard at perhaps 50kmh, I didn't even feel much. What to do with it. We mounted it back into the grond...just a "little" shorter, but the cats eye was still visible ... at ground le
Holy Cow!!
I wish i had as good of a memory as Sven(peter pan). Heck I usually can't remember what i did yesterday and sometimes almost call my wife by my exwifes name(a sure way of not getting what you want for christmas)thanks Sven for the very interesting story. Ed.
Ed,
that's the reason I stay with my wife, it would be dangerous to mistake!
I have one scar in the right arm from a german woman, so I know what I am talking about.
Sven
That "Bimmer" Sidecar looks strangely like a Chang Jiang (Clone).
Lonnie
Isn't the camo version the "Gear-up" model?
As a gosling will follow the first thing that goes by, as a toddler I had a friend with a big sister who had a boyfriend who had an (what I much later figured out was) Indian Chief. It was much bigger than I was, and I was madly in love with whatever it was.
When I was old enough to realize that was a motorcycle, I fantasized about them much of the day.
A friend of my fathers gave me a ride at around 12 on a BMW and that experience narrowed my passion to one brand. As soon as I was able, I bought a used BMW 250.
Much later, in San Francisco, I was working part time at new little place called Bavarian Cycle Works. A true independant enthusiats shop, they were bring BMW's over from Germany to either restore or fix up a litle and sell.
One day the manager told me to take the shop sidecar home and practice with it because some high school kids had hired it to pick them up from the prom. So, my first trial by fire was on a 1952 R67/2 with factory Spezial still in original police green paint. yes- I almost killed myself.
For any Bay Area history buffs, BCW was bought, moved, and is now BMW San Fransico, an actual dealership. One of the mechanics now owns the dealership in MtView (Kari Prager). Sadly, Brian Hilton was a very young genious and he died before he was 30 of a brain tumor. Doug Mayer, who put up a sign inside the motor room that said, "Todays Work Is Tomorows Reputaion" died about 5 years ago of a heart attack after he moved to Montanna.
I deliverd that same rig to him out there (the best ride I EVER had), and I never had the guts to ask his widow whatever happened to that rig. I sure would love to have it...
Originally written by david lloyd on 2/13/2008 8:42 PM
Isn't the camo version the "Gear-up" model?
Yup..you right-- me wrong..but thats ok, my wife tells me im wrong most of the time...LOL.Ed
as a wrench twister,...those are words to live by,..."Today's work is tomorrow's reputation"...thanks for sharing uncle ernie,...wow, some great stories here,...crawf.
that is realy profound Todays work is tomorrows reputation. I thin that applies to everything.
Anyway probably started like everyone else. Built a minibike while still in school probably aged 13. That thing was great.Still got the scars to remind me where I came from. Have had lots of bikes since and now 40years later am trying an outfit because my missus wont hop on the back. Starting to enjoy this thing when discovered the cracks in the frame. No worries when its rpaired I will be giving it a hard time before I take her around the west coast and back down the center. Looking forward to a new era.
Mark
