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Where have all the sidecars gone

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Have been traveling for hundreds of miles from Bandon Oregon to all over Montana and heading for Washington not one sidecar hundreds of bikes three wheelers what happened we are new to this hack thing but we love it. So what's up can't be three wheelers no comfort for passenger and still looking at the back of your head. Don't corner any better unless you have a can am. Not right

Well, if you come through the Spokane area maybe we can link up for a cup or something and at least you'll see one other rig in your travels!! Especially if you head west on 2. We live out here between Reardan and Davenport west of Spokane...

I don't understand the popularity of trikes after having piloted a sidecar rig. So many more options for who and what you can carry!!

Darn! If you'd come through Milwaukie (suburb of Portland) you might have seen me. Ride my rig on an almost daily basis. I've heard that we only make up about 1 1/2 % of the motorcyclists on the road so it only stands to reason that we don't see too many. Never fear. We're hear.

I have found trikes easier to handle, at least the one that I have owned. However the side car is far more functional for transporting people, groceries, overall shopping
trips, and more fun to operate. In my immediate area we have a major trike distributor so I see more trikes than you might see elsewhere. I have only seen two sidecars
in the three years that I have had mine. I plan to switch mine to a larger scooter, say a Yamaha Majesty 400, in the future. With a sidecar you do get all the functionality
of a trike plus more diverse uses.

A large portion of the trike community are empty nesters who had a step thru Honda or Yamaha years ago and want and can afford a big bike now with all the bells and whistles but don't have the ability to handle a large two wheeler. Also many are of the short sex who also have a problem reaching the ground on both sides of a big bike. Ergo, A trike. No balancing problems and the big bad*** look with minimal effort.

To be fair many have physical limitations that are overcome with a trike.

Lonnie

Just detour a little west to the northern end of the big island. You will probably see mine outside the coffee mill in Hawi

I just returned from a trip to Arkansas with side trips and I saw just one other rig the whole trip. Guess we are kind of exclusive. Stopped at CSM on the way home, great to Chat with Claude and Nick and see what they are up to.

Saw a bunch of hacks in Sturgis this year. More than ever before.

There was probably a much higher percentage of them in the 1950s.
We are sort of atavistic you know.

JWnWyoming - 8/15/2013 10:45 PM

Saw a bunch of hacks in Sturgis this year. More than ever before.

I was told the same thing; my friends just came back and were nudging me to get back into it. I told em that I was and to keep a look out next Spring.

Phelonius - 8/16/2013 12:48 AM

There was probably a much higher percentage of them in the 1950s.
We are sort of atavistic you know.

I beleave that would depend on what part of the country you lived in. In the 1970's and early 80's in New England you couldn't go out on a warm day and not see a sidecar. At Hampton Beach in New Hampshire it wasn't uncommon to see twenty five in the parking lot. In our local community where we were building them there would be dozens running up and down the road. At first everyone waved and over time it was old hat and sidecar riders just went about their buisness and didn't even bothering to acknowledge each other.
Today I live in the upstate of South Carolina and have been running one of my rigs for the last five or six weeks. Every place I stop at the new sidecar draws a crowd because this new generation have never seen a sidecar. They ask were I got it and when I tell them that I built it they look at me like I have two heads. The thought of someone building something is unheard of. This is our future with the population only knowing how to call 1(800) Ill buy it. If there were any Entrepreneur's out in the hinterland sidecar would be a good buisness to be in with the interest that I get every time I go out; just saying.

As usual Mr. Sweet, you are spot on. Due to neuropathy in my lower legs and feet I am one of those rare riders who have a scooter /sidecar rig. Had a friend who is a master machinist design a mounting plate
for my TGB Lazor R9 scoot (151cc, 10.2 hp). Ran it in Bryson City, NC a year ago and it was the only one that I saw up there. Does 45 on the hills, 50 on the flats. Eventually I would like to get it mounted on a
Piaggio 350 or a Yamaha Majesty 400. It is a Cozy side car and good for what I need it to do. The moral of this little story in: We do what we can with what we got!! At 77 I am just hitting my stride, gimpy but
striding. Keep writing Mr Sweet, and thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

Wolfhound - 8/16/2013 8:42 AM

Eventually I would like to get it mounted on a
Piaggio 350 or a Yamaha Majesty 400. It is a Cozy side car and good for what I need it to do.

We've mounted the Cozy on several KYMCO 500cc scooters, it makes for an excellent rig.

Attached files

Thanks, Mike, for that info. I had thought about the Kymco 500 as well. Any special mounting problems involved? The TGB was a chalange but, as we say here in the South, we 'got er dun!!'

One problem we have is all the horror stories about how dangerous a sidecar is, too much mis-information out there , how the car lifts in a rh turn. we need to do better advertising about sidecars. I tell people that when we put a sidecar on a bike you can have 3 people on board, 4 if they are small. Convert a bike to a trike and you still only can have 2 people on board. Here in Mesa AZ. I rarely see another sidecar except mine. One time I did count 5 at a Wed. night bike night but that was 4 years ago. ural is the most common one i see.

Doug Hasert - 8/16/2013 2:38 PM

One problem we have is all the horror stories about how dangerous a sidecar is, too much mis-information out there , how the car lifts in a rh turn. we need to do better advertising about sidecars.

Your correct about the horror stories and possibly more should be done to advertise about sidecars as to what they can and can not do but in the end if a person is not interested in a sidecar all the advertising and information will never change their minds.
I think it all boils down to availability. If the only sidecar that is available in a given area of the country is a Ural and the people like myself would never have one then they are out of luck and will move on to something else like a new boat for instance. Peoples attention spans are short and if what they are looking for is not available then they find the next toy to go and play with.

Back in the 70's when I started building sidecar there was a dealer in Boston that sold sidecar and at best he may have moved four or five units a year. His buisness was selling European motorcycles and the sidecars were a sideline with not a hole lot of mark up. He had a potential market of two million people to sell to but never spent one cent advertising sidecars. As for me I spent very little but for the money I reached a lot of people and they would come to me without any preconceived notions as to what sidecars were all about. So it was up to me as a manufacturer to educate them and in reality it was easy. I submit that almost any part of the country the same thing could be done again. The seventy's weren't the best economic times but it never seemed to slow us down sale wise. Granted today it is a lot worse than back then but more people are retiring especially the "Baby Boomers" and many could be potential customers.
As an example I bet the area around Washington DC for one hundred miles would be a hot bed for sidecars if they were made available and some time and a little money spent advertising them. The advertising could stress a "new adventure". Then up toward Philly and the new Jersey shore. I have a buddy in Chicago that was telling me that he sells bike parts and a few sidecar, he doesn't manufacture sidecars on ten or twelve different Craigslist's. You need a population and a way to reach the people with something different. I'm convinced if you tried to go threw motorcycle dealerships that would be a disaster. I've looked at the Southeast and from Knoxville Tennessee to the coast and from Charlotte to Atlanta is wide open with millions of people. The thing is you need the correct widget to fill the spot. In the 90's when I was selling only my Liberty sidecar I would sell up to five sidecars at a show and this was only around the Charlotte area within one hundred miles. At that time there was no Ebay, Craigslist, or internet to help improve sale and to help reach more people. I'm not saying that any for these is the best way to generate sale just saying that they weren't around and we still sold a particular type of sidecar. It was part time for me but with a little advertising and more shows it could have been full time but I couldn't have afforded the pay reduction. Since my health has improved and I'm a hundred percent I'm looking at bringing a new sidecar to the Southeast market and possibly selling world wide with the new inland port that they are building twelve miles form me. I've done a business model and the numbers seem to work.

Well I thought I would through my two cents in but I don't see the sidecar numbers growing by any large amount in the near future and we as sidecar people will still go about our lives being one per-centers but in a different way than what the progressives mean by the phrase. In the end it's not a bad thing because every time you pull in some place with your sidecar rig you most likely will be the only sidecar.

Hey, Johnny, looks like one of yours.....
http://nh.craigslist.org/mcy/3988534172.html

Ran across it looking for a car for my Norton......

Mr. Sweet, as usual another excellent article. Metropolitan Atlanta covers 15 counties and has 5.5 million population. Looking forward to see how your business plan unfolds.

Marcus - 8/16/2013 5:32 PM

Hey, Johnny, looks like one of yours.....
http://nh.craigslist.org/mcy/3988534172.html

Ran across it looking for a car for my Norton......

Yes it's what we called the SL-220 model but someone had cut the back of the midget back off to make room for two small kids. I remember this sidecar back in the 1970 after I built it for a fellow. He sold it and someone chopped it up. I received an email this week and a guy is looking to pick it up and restore it. I have some back ends left over from when I install my whale tail and offered the missing piece as a gift if he picks it up.Marcus if you pick it up the missing piece is yours if you need it and I can help with mounting it on a Norton provided that you or a friend can weld and fabricate, Ill walk you through it like I did for Roman and a few others.

I've been stitching up around one upholstery a month for guy's restoring my old sidecars. Some of the work that they are doing to them is outstanding and it makes and old man proud.

So when it's asked where have all the sidecar gone; some are being found every day and being restored to better than new condition. I was sent pictures of one of my sidecars that sits on a front lawn in Lynn Massachusetts that someone turned into a planter and is full of flowers. The sender of the email was concerned that I might be upset seeing the sidecar as a planter. I could care less after all, it is, what it is.

This is one of the upholstery's that I stitched up. I used a sidecar body that I had in the shop and custom fit it. All Joe had to do was install it with my instructions and it looks like he did a great job.

 photo 20130728_160100_zps88f11a5a.jpg

This is the body after it was painted with the new base coat clear coat. The sidecar with the back cut off could look just as good and I beleave it will when they are finished with it.

 photo 20130714_172809_zps1741ea34.jpg

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