Not so ADV, but very hack, so I'll ask away. I want to put together an outfit to see how much I like this whole sidecar thing before I start spending money. The hassle of freeing up the toy money is pretty intense around this home, so I'd rather save that fight for when I know what I want. I have a small scrambler/bobber I put together out of an old Kawasaki KZ440 LTD, and I'm thinking of assembling a simple hack for it and riding it for several months, just to figure things out. I'd like to keep things simple but adjustable, so no sidecar suspension. Just a rigid outrigger with a platform for some ballast. I'd allow for adjustment at the wheel end. The KZ is currently under-suspended at the rear, so I'd temporarily make up some struts to replace the shocks. Not comfy, but should allow me to learn a bunch. Questions: 1) is this a fool's errand? Will the lack of suspension mask what I might learn? 2) Does the no-suspension thing scale up to a full size bike? By that I mean, is the Harley approach really so bad for road use? 3) If I were Austrailian would I have just built this thing in the time it took me to write this out? Thanks, Dennis
Questions: 1) is this a fool's errand? Will the lack of suspension mask what I might learn? No not really. You will learn a lot some good and some not so good. You may find that lean in is better than what you hear on these forums. Play with it. You will need to have very beefy attachments etc as well as sufficient frame bracing on the bike to keep things in order. 2) Does the no-suspension thing scale up to a full size bike? By that I mean, is the Harley approach really so bad for road use? harley sidecars do handle quite well when setup properly. Left handers are a breeze . Right handers are okay although getting the sidecar wheel up is quite easy especially when you hit a pot hole or whatever. 3) If I were Austrailian would I have just built this thing in the time it took me to write this out? No comment ...lol
Thanks, Claude. Your input means a lot. I'll start collecting materials to get this thing off the ground.
Hi Dennis What Claude said. As for number 3. Fair dinkum mate. We're good but not that good. Have to allow some time to buy the beer first. 3legs Ps. I actually had a hardtail outfit without any suspension on the sidecar (show bike) as well and believe it or not it handled quite well. Mind you I would not have gone off the bitumen with it. Bloody sore arse.
Unfortunately, as I found when I had my Ducati E900, one has to travel some long distance to find an unimproved road near the middle of Ohio. I think there's a quarter mile of gravel road in my rural county, for example. Badly maintained paved roads we have, though likely not in a global context.
If you look at pre war motorcycles with sidecars most of them did not rear suspension. Here is something I started to build until a better bike came a long.
