For those of you needing some reading here is a very interesting site on motorcycle design. I have seen this site before but it has been a while and I just ran across it again so if nothing else I will put it here where I can hopefully find it again. The article on "funny handlebars" is really entertaining. http://www.tonyfoale.com/ And if you want some HP sidecar fun try this one. The articles are definitly interesting. http://www.hpsidecar.com/home/
Very sharp Guy no doubt. Also into sidecars. He contacted us a couple years back to do a roll cage job. Tony got invloved with the sedgeway (spelling?) people and still may be. Good friend Bill Ballou began the HP Sidecar site a few years back. Great guys there. Everyone here may be interested in the download of how Bill does an antiswaybar. As far as I know Bill, Hannigan and us are the only ones doing them in this country today. Gary Haynes did quite a few but he has backed off from mounting sidecars very often any more. All of us do them differently. Click here: http://www.hpsidecar.com/sidecararticles/swaybar/Page31.html
I thought the article Bill Ballou did on the sway bar was really good. It explains the way they work really well. The videos don't hurt either.
OK, it's Sunday night and I'm pretty deep in the rye after the Seahawks 3rd big win in a row , so forgive me for my ignorance, but I thought I'd weigh in for the 1st time on the swaybar question. I know there's lots of guys here who are high on swaybars, but I never saw what's the fuss. Now, I'm not a suspension guy. Not by any means. Suspensions I find to be pretty confusing. But Dirty's recommendation to read this article by Bill Ballou and to watch the vids (here) sounded reasonable to me. So I did. I do think that I understand the swaybar thing better now. And that's not saying I didn't look into it before. I've read about them before, seen many of Claude's posts, and even examined up close a swaybar sidecar setup that Claude had done-- Anyway, I guess now I can see how on hard sweepers the swaybar would help to distribute the downward pressure between the rear bike wheel and the sidecar wheel and give me better control and maybe let me take those sweepers a little faster than I already do. (Of course, according to my monkee, I already take sweepers too fast, and my standard response is still the same--"Ride monkee with Boxertwin, Queen Bee, then tell me how fast I'm going!") . :eek1 But for the nasty, rocky, rutty, potholed, washboarded dirt and gravel roads that attract me like blowflies to a salmon carcass, I don't want those bumps and knocks transferred from one wheel to the other. The way I ride, I try to straddle the worst of the stuff, but that's often impossible, so I let the sidecar wheel take the abuse, while I try to find a line that will leave the bike suspension remains relatively unperturbed. After watching those two little vids (which are really gif's but only a nerd would care about the difference), it seems like when I hit a big hole or rock with the sidecar wheel, a swaybar would transfer part of that suspension action to the bike, which is not desirable. At least to me. Am I missing something, or is a swaybar essentially a good thing on paved roads and a negative for us guys who like to get out into the backcountry and explore dirt roads? Picture whores, I have not forgotten you--
Hey Drone, For what it is worth I am not now and never have been much for sway bars or electric trim on sidecars but the article is very well done and is a great explanation of the functionality of the sway bars. I am 200 miles short of 100,000 on my GS and I still run the factory shocks it came with and they still seem fine to me so I am not one to discuss the finer attributes of motorcycle suspensions. As far as the .gif I am an IT guy also but it is much easier just to say video.
I have the electric trim on my rig,its ok.But after talking to Peter(aka Boondox) about his new rig that Claude built.He had nothing but praise for the swaybar setup on his rig....Has made me a believer.. And replacing my suspenion on my rig that made a hell of a difference.And to Drone I feel your pain this morning way to much Bourbon...
I am not saying anything bad about electric trim or swaybars only that they are not for me. I do not want to lose the ground clearance that a sway bar takes up since I need all I can get. I know that Claude has made them easily removable but I do not want to mess with it and if it has to be removable to get where I go I do not want it. As far as the electric trim it would have come in handy a few times but it is one more thing to fail when I am a hundred miles from nowhere and it is not something I feel is neccesary on my current rigs. My next rig will be a high performance rig with center hub steering and all of the bells and whistles but this will be a dedicated road rig and that will be a whole other animal. I am still trying to talk myself in to buying this one.
Drone wrote: >>But for the nasty, rocky, rutty, potholed, washboarded dirt and gravel roads that attract me like blowflies to a salmon carcass, I don't want those bumps and knocks transferred from one wheel to the other. The way I ride, I try to straddle the worst of the stuff, but that's often impossible, so I let the sidecar wheel take the abuse, while I try to find a line that will leave the bike suspension remains relatively unperturbed.<< Yes under conditions that are really Gnarly a swaybar is not the best idea. However, on most roads, dirt or paved as well as many places most folks go they can still make a world of difference. How much they transfer suspension movement is directly related to how much effective spring rate is stored within the swaybar and how it is transmited side to side. A bar that is so stiff that it would not twist would be awful. A bar that is too light will do little. If th egouing is really rough and one wants to regain ALL of the indep[endant qualities suspension wiseit is easy to deactivate the swaybar. in our system itrequires the removal of one bolt in most cases. Hannigan has a quick disconnect in which you pull a pin. Not a big deal. In fact we and Hannigan feel that on the high center of gravity type adventure bikes a swaybar is actually a good safety device. They come into their own on turns away from th esidecar if you are an agressive rider. Yes, you can flip the bike over the sidecar. Been there done that and it really isn't good for th eol fun meter. The use of a swaybar helps the stability a ton in most cases when turning away from the sidecar. Those who know me know that I love to ride on dirt roads and such. I do a fair amount of true off road riding but not all that much. In most cases the swaybar is still okay hooked up. Short of mini rock crawling it does fine and is a huge asset. We have had a few of our outfits out doing world tours with I think three are out there now. All have swaybars. All have been shown how to disconnect them and as far as I know none have so far. I would love to ride with some of you guys who post here a lot some day and see how things go. Everything is a compromise. Where that compromise, suspension wise, is met will means different things to different people.
DRONE: I seem to recognize that yellow & red rig with the sway bar. I haven't had any issues on the dirt roads we have around here - at least the ones I've been on. I really like the way it performs on the street. DirtyDR: I've been drooling over that K1200S rig too - but my back would not deal well with the riding position. I seriously considered buying it but couldn't figure out how to modify the handlebars and footpegs and such. Now if it were a K13GT or K16GT set-up . . . Duncan
I would love the sway bar for the highway miles and twisty mountain roads I do but I drag the skid plates on rocks regularly on the sidecar and the bike so I really do not think it would last very long under my rig. I had two reasons for putting the steel plate on the sidecar frame one was ballast and the other was to protect the passenger tub because I hept scraping the fiberglass on rocks while off roading. You can get bar backs and foot peg relocation kits for the K1200S and I keep looking at the ad thinking about it but I really want a K1200GT. There was a K1200RS rig a year or so ago that was on ebay that I was bidding on but it got to be more than I was willing to spend. Too bad because I guess it was one of three that a guy named Sheldon built in Canada as I recall. Claude was telling me about it at the time.
Loss of ground clearance could be an issue. As far as off-road and long travel with swaybars, some of the longest travel off road racer use swaybars: The swaybars we use on Trophy Trucks are mounted upside down from what I've seen on most sidecars. The rear swaybar on the the #49 Herbst truck is mounted almost at the top of the "bed". It could be done the same on a sidecar too, but the bar would need to go through the trunk.
Agreed. Could be done to gain ground clearance. There could be a cut out in bottom of trunk area similar to what the ural bodies have for the 'snowmen'. . Could also run the bar under the seat area in some cases. Is it worth it for most folks ? Hard to say.
You guys using sway bars are crazy. Daredevils I say! I wouldn't dare run a sway bar but I do use an anti-sway bar in the V Strom Thingmobile and it's the cat's pajamas. The rig corners much flatter with the anti sway system compared to when it is disconnected. I have found on washboard gravel and dirt roads it works best to keep the linkage connected and intact. If the road gets really rough I disconnect it and let the two sides articulate independently. Claude gave me quite a bit of inspiration in building my anti-sway system. I'm really glad I heeded his advice. Claude, as always thank you four your counsel! Dana, Mine does not do anything to limit ground clearance as my bar travels through the main frame and is isolated with flange bushings.
I am not saying they do not work and they do serve a definite purpose. In order to put one on mine that did not interfere with my ground clearance I would have to scrap the current frame and build a new one and it is not worth it on the rig I have. I have less than $2,000.00 in the whole sidecar including the subframe from Dauntless and it is just not worth it to me to rebuild the whole thing just to add something that I do not need. My GS rig is like my Ural it is akin to putting makeup and a prom dress on a pig, it may look pretty but in the end it is still a pig. Now that nice HP rig is another story.....
LOL.... Dana gotta admit you made me laugh out loud with that post. The cool thing is that you have put a lot of miles on your outfit and a lot of smiles were made along the way. THAT is what sidecars are all about.
Good picture that I haven't see in quite a while Dana. Brings back alot of memories of a lot of great folks. Jim Dodson is missed but is in a better place. Hack'd Magazine is surely missed although Chris and Gary are doing well now.They were married this year. .
