In the spring of 2003 I decided to investigate putting a
sidecar onto my machine.
The reason for doing so was twofold: 1) Being 75 years I felt it
better to
look at it from the safety angle - better balance - as I have had
a problem
with my legs, and 2) my bike being a GS is a bit high on ground
clearance
and any conversion would eliminate the problem of balance.
After considerable research as to cost and qualified personal, I
found a guy
in Deroche to do the job.
I purchased a copy of a URAL side hack and commissioned the fellow
in
Deroche. I left the design up to him and he proceeded to built the
sub frame
and attached the hack to the basic bike without further
modification. In
other words he left my bike with regular front forks. He delivered
it in
late summer of '03 and I had a chance to try it out. It ran fine
at speed
but was hard to steer at low speed and on rough roads. Needless to
say, I
was disappointed. Winter was just around the corner and I would
not see my
bike until spring, 04, as we decided to do some more work on it.
The bike went back to the shop after deciding to change the front
forks and
add leading links. I also wanted a change to the rear brake setup
to be able
to use the bikes brake combined with the brake on the hack. This
was
achieved by attaching a second brake lever to the bikes rear brake
shaft. By
using the same fulcrum I now could apply equal pressure to both,
the bikes
rear brake as well as the hacks brake. The bike now handles and
brakes
better. The bike now has to train the operator, as it is a much
different
setup for steering and balancing.
You can imagine that this was not a cheap operation. The initial
outlay was
around $5000.00 (sidecar, sub frame and labor). The second change
an
additional $2200.00(leading link, stabilizer and brake setup). The
JPG's, as
attached, show the final product.
Sigi