I was reading about the Elephant Treffen and how useful outfits were at this event, tho' in reducing numbers each year.

It's seems clear that outfits have few, if any, of the advantages of a car, and few, if any, of the advantages of a bike. In fact it appears that they have all of the disadvantages of both. Outfits seem to be adapted to one environment -snow and ice, but you might be better off with a 4X4 there anyway.

I've seen some beautifully engineered outfits on the European continent, tho' none in the UK. The tastiest outfits I've seen have been at the TeschTreffen, and they certainly looked the business in the niche they occupy. Even then they seem like bizarre machines, like some kind of evolutionary dead end.

Motorcycles are not in general designed to take a chair, and in the UK at least, outfits were a weird hybrid to enable working men to transport the family, despite the enormous unplanned stresses on the frame/chassis. As soon as they could afford cars, the outfits were sent to the scrapheap. Yet, like ancient m/cycle clothing, they linger on. In a way this is a good thing, because m/cycling has always always harboured eccentrics, and that is valuable in an increasingly conformist society. A society without oddballs is an unhealthy place to be , IMO. Singapore is one example: look at their bike legislation.

When we think of sidecars, we may think of the old C/Western song , "I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy"....that is, a cowboy is someone on the edge of society, out of the mainstream. Of course, even to ride a moto is a minority thing.

I don't know if anyone can explain the benefits of a sidecar, apart from "You can carry more stuff" .