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I wish I still had my old outfit on the road in all this snow. The best vehicle I've ever driven in slippery conditions, bar none.
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An Ural with a powered chair would have got me to work today !
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I've never tried one of these they powered wheel outfits, nor one with a braked wheel, nither. Might be good, but it's great having "off centre" steering & brakes.. mind you, it's an odd feeling when you first try out an outfit!
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I had a chair on a Tger Cub in the midsixties when I was 'stepping out' with the current Mrs T. First bend I came to after fitting it, I leant and ended up on two wheels on the pavement. Soon got used to it and we went all over the place...slowly...until I went upmarket with a Bond 250 type F. Married her in 69, the day before they walked on the moon...often wish I'd been with them. ( don't really ). We had a proper car by then
Ted
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Didn't Ural/Dneipr have an outfit on sale in the 70s with two driven wheels, but it was withdrawn after the law changed about sidecars having to be on the left of the bike? That would have been fun in the snow.
I had one, brief, period of outfit ownership, an old AJS 650 G12 with a single seater sidecar, it might have been a Swallow. It felt weird to pull to one side when accelerating and another when slowing down, and it had a mechanical steering damper that had seen better days.
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An uncle of mine had an amusing weather-relarted experience with a combination a good few years ago.
He used one to commute from Essex to the Embankment in central London.
Coming home in real pea souper fog one evening, he got lost somewhere on Hackney marshes.
'I stopped to look for a signpost,' he told me. 'Found one a short walk away, turned round to go back and I couldn't see the combination because of the fog.
'I'd left it running, so I could hear the damn thing, but I couldn't see it.'
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I wish I still had my old outfit on the road in all this snow. The best vehicle I've ever driven in slippery conditions bar none.
Which would explain the obvious experience and wisdom in many of your postings (doesn't explain your patience though :). Shame it's not compulsory for youngsters to start off on two or three wheels these days. I'm sure we'd avoid the majority of the current wave of helpless and hopeless 'is snow slippery?' postings born out of an obvious lack of roadcraft or even common sense. Judging by insurance premiums at the time, outfits were reckoned as the safest vehicles on the road, and they were, once you got used to the assymetric cornering technique.
BB
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As LJK Setright put it, "the art of doing the impossible with the unrideable".
Wishful thinking though, Bill; you must be aware that Nanny State thinks that motorcycles are noisy, nasty and dangerous things and should not be encouraged. ;-)
I suspect there were probably just as many inept drivers in terms of percentage; since there was no internet in those days they either learned the hard way or gave up quick and took the bus instead.
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There was someone who modified an outfit so it could be steered and driven fron the sidecar;nearly caused a lot of accidents due to people expecting it to be out of control-no one on the bike.It was fully road-legal.
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Have never been able to see the sense in having a sidecar, it seems to give you all the disadvantages of a car coupled with the disadvantages of a motorbike. Perhaps someone can explain why ?
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They're great fun. The things are brilliant in snow and ice - one good twitch of yer 'arris & they shim-shammy about all over the place in a laughably controllable fashion (they "let go" all over the place anyway, which is hilarious and well worth experiencing - again, very controllable indeed[1][2]). You can whizz up the road, drop a gear, put on some right lock, give it beans, and twizzle around 180 degrees virtually on the spot[2] and head back in the direction you came. You can drive up the high street like a proper yobbo with the sidecar up at 45 degrees and waving about in the air. People are *interested* in them. They're rather unusual and unique. Lots of things, really. A bit like driving a road-going speedboat, if you know what I mean; the steering is more like a backwards rudder. You can tow broken-down motorbikes with them. Fun, fun, fun, if you're adaptable and like new and interesting things.
[1] Try one without sidecar wheel drive, without sidecar brake, for best effects.
[2] Can be very expensive on tyres if you get all excited & carried away.
Edited by FotheringtonThomas on 26/02/2009 at 22:59
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FT: In view of my previous comments regarding the wisdom in many of your postings, I do feel you let yourself down with this rather silly answer to a serious question. A well set up outfit with horses to spare is, as you say, great fun to drive, but you could have saved the rest.
Cris....... : After wet weather stability, the main advantage is luggage capacity and towing. Also, many WAGs prefer to sit in relative dry comfort (with their thighs together) whilst maintaining axial integrity. You're also much more free to experiment with engine swapping, and tuning generally if you're mechanically inclined.
Sidecar wheel drive and/or braking can be handy in the right circumstances, but need a lot of practice and are pretty useless under normal road conditions.
A sidecar outfit is unique, if only for its lack of symmetry, but a better comparison than a speedboat would be a snow scooter. Very similar, on right-handers at least.
BB
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Sorry BB - Cris_on_the_gas did mention "advantages of neither with disadvantages of both", or words to that effect - I just mentioned what you can do with an outfit that you can't with the others. Thank you for your previous comments, though, which I was loathe to mention, for fear of getting a swelled head.
I thought my reply was at least constructive - most of the things in it are enjoyable (not up the High Street "on edge", though, leave that for quieter places), and as just mentioned, you can't do them in other vehicles.
Regarding wet weather stability - cars are fairly stable. Passengers are more comfortable in them than they could be in a side-car. Engine tuning - limited opportunities on 'bikes or cars these days, unless electronics come into it.
I have never been on a "snow scooter". I wish I still had a working outfit, though. Maybe I could stretch to an old Russian or something in the next year or three.
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Thanks FT for this insight. I think I'll stick to my solo motorcycle although !
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