Thanks to all the people who response to may answer.
Obrigado Rui
(must sorry my English)

Hi Rui

It will be possible to fit a sidecar, but you may need to adapt all fittings yourself. You will need welding equipment, and an angle grinder. (sorry I dont speak Portugese).

You may have to strengthen the frame of the bike because the sidecar puts stress on it which it is not designed for. This means increasing the thickness of the frame mounting points, by welding on a tube sleeve. Nordika make a neat, compact, fan cooled, up to 140 amps, electric welding machine for about 60 euros. If you cannot use such welding equipment then you will have to pay a lot of money to have a welder do it. Even then,be careful, many mechanics are NOT welders and will make a total mess of it. If you dont do this sleeving you risk snapping the frame because of metal fatigue on the mount\frame contact point. The action on the frame is in a direction which it is NOT designed for.

Good luck!

Obrigado!!!!

You really need to adapt the steering/forks also, which is expensive and you may not find the parts to fit your bike. And change the gearing by use of sprockets and a heavier chain. And change the tyres....it goes on and on.

Hey! Gois was really nice this year with lots of nice Portugese HUBBERS there!

My uncles outfit was built like a tank and never had any handling issues that I noticed while riding pillion or in the double chair (one behind the other). Old bikes seamed to lend themselves more to this conversion than more modern bikes. The Urals are most likely in the same mould.
Cheers
Ian

Hi Ian,as you say riding pillion you didnt notice any handling differences, the reason being, the skill of the rider!
The thing with a Chair on a bike, especially a heavy one like a double adult, is the bike wants to 'go round it' when you accelerate, so a little counter steering is called for, and on bends ( this is for a LH chair) accelerate hard for left handers, brake hard(ish) into right handers, then give it some gas coming out! on a left hander it is REALLY easy to lift the chair of the ground and make your girlfriend pee herself! DAMHIK. lol....then again, with practise you can with a blip of the gas and a tug on the bars, lift the chair on a straight road and ride it 2 wheels for as long as you like.... the sidecarists version of 'popping a wheelie'.

They are megga fun, not to be dismissed and believe it or not in the UK you can ride ANY size motorbike with a sidecar fitted ( as long as you display "L" plates) at 17 years old and without passing your test. 25 years ago 'tilting' sidecars called 'The Sidewinder' were used by lads with 250cc and up bikes when the Govt introduced the dreaded 125cc law.

Another bonus to fitting a chair is the reduction of your insurance premium! after all, sidecarists are all flat-capped, pipe smoking, handlebar moustached wearing, tweed jacket & waistcoat wearing 70 yr olds arent we? NOT! it is cheaper though. considerably. with the other added bonus of being able to carry SHEDLOADS of stuff and still ride a bike.

Martyn

Interesting Sidecar here ... If you check it out, you can mount it on a BMW GS bike too. Eliminates a lot of the standard complaints about steering.

ARMEC - SIDEWINDER SIDECAR - True Free Leaning Sidecar Setup

They don't have a pick of the GS version on the site that I saw. Maybe they believe ground clearance isn't an issue.

Martyn,
you described my uncle to a T, flat cap, pipe smoking, bloody great gauntlets etc. The bike was a BSA 500 Gold Flash ( I think ) with a big double chair, can't remember which make of chair but seemed to go well enough.
I havn't ridden an outfit on the road but used to ride motocross and once had a go piloting a combo along with passenger hanging off on bends, oooo too dodgey with all the other crazy riders on the track.
Complete different style of riding as with quad bikes ( I had a Suzuki 250 quad racer ) all different but great fun.
Here's one for you ( Brainiacs ).
If a quad is not a bike, which class does it enter on the Dakar ?
Cheers
Ian

It would have been a 650 Gold Flash .

Quads have their own class in the Dakar
http://www.dakar.com/2008/DAK/presen...if_moto_us.pdf
no brain required , just type into google .

I am looking to fit a sidecar on one of my old bikes just for a laugh .
The dog will apreciate the wind in her fur .
I will be tig welding the mounts though with my 1968 Lincoln SA200 engine driven welder .[ I appreciate the classics - don't cha know !]
If I get it wrong ,I can always say I meant it to be a leaning sidecar .

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

After receiving a complaint about this thread and reading it from start to finish, was originally tempted to delete the whole thread. However, there is useful content here, so have instead removed 66 posts, sent several infraction notices and banned one user for 3 months.


Please remember the terms of use for the HUBB, and try to keep from getting too emotional (whoever said men aren't as emotional as women has never been in a motorcycle equipment discussion!).

Happy holidays to all,
Susan and Grant

__________________
Susan Johnson

Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Susan,
You are so right and sometimes it is difficult to walk away.

Cheers
Ian

Susan, does that mean that we have to add Motorcycling Equiptment to the usual Taboo subjects of Politics, Religion & Football???

Martyn

There have been a lot of round-the-world trips with sidecars, including back in the day when the roads were MUCH worse and the equipment more primitive (or should I say, the equipment was more "end-user friendly" concerning repairs).

The first two wheel adventure around the world was in the 1880's when Thomas Stevens rode a bicycle around the world. It was in the early 1880's that sidecars were first invented (for bicycles). I can't find if his bike was equipped with a sidecar, which had been invented a couple years earlier.

On motorcycles, a couple of Hungarians took 7 years to do it, visiting 68 countries on 5 continents between 1926 and 1933. They used a Harley Davidson sidecar.

An American named Gabriel did it on an Indian Scout. He mounted a propeller on his sidecar which ran a generator to refresh his battery. circa 1928 or so.

A couple of Austrians did it in the 50's. Since then, it's not really a big deal, been done a bunch of times.

You can ride anything anywhere given patience, experience and a bit of luck.

Has anyone read Richard and Mopsa English's book Full circle about a RTW on an outfit?

__________________
'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

Can't say I have but these guys rode a chinese Chang Jiang outfit (Ural/Dnepr copy, which again are BMW R32 copies etc) RTW. Or rather: Their "dragon" went into a state of scrap metal after a while, being exchanged for a BMW outfit. But they did some 75000 km's covering fourty countries and four continents. And I think several have done something similar with Ural outfits.

__________________
HansP
All you wanted to know
about riding in Norway

Didn't that bloke Sanders do an RTW on a combo with his wife and son. The one who has done several record attempts and takes groups of riders long distance.
No grass in Saudi.

Cheers
Ian

I've been enjoying this for ages. Well worth a good look.

The Timeless Ride Hubert Kriegel BMW Motorcycle Raid World Travel Sidecar Adventure Gespann