This description is based on a UK style left hand sidecar. For right hand sidecars you will need to reverse the left/right instructions.

 

There are other places on the internet that will tell you how to ride a sidecar outfit. They are better and more detailed, but here’s my pennyworth. 

 

First a warning. SIDECAR OUTFITS CAN BE DANGEROUS. RIDE THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK. I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TROUBLE YOU MIGHT GET INTO AS A RESULT OF FOLLOWING, OR NOT FOLLOWING MY ADVICE. 

 

The first thing you should do is take your outfit to a large empty space where you can practice. There should be no obstacles in it. Sod’s Law is, that if there is any object that you can hit, you will hit it. 

 

As a complete beginner, load some heavy stuff into the sidecar. Toolboxes, sash weights, whatever. You can take those out when you are a bit more experienced. 

 

Remind yourself where the brakes are. 

 

Then take a very firm grip on the handlebars and try to get going in a straight line. If you get scared, stop. 

 

You will find to your horror that as you accelerate the thing pulls to the left. Then when you shut off or brake it swings round and sends you off to the right. Whoah. 

 

They all do that, sir. 

 

Keep fighting with the steering until you can get it to stay roughly in a straight line. 

 

You will remember that if you go up through the gearbox on a motorcycle, this translates into accelerate - pull in clutch - close throttle - change gear - let out clutch - accelerate again. 

 

When it comes to a sidecar, this translates into: it pulls to the left, then it pulls to the right, then it pulls to the left again. You will have to learn to predict this and stiffen your arm muscles, at the same time as you are working the gear change and throttle. 

 

Experienced sidecar riders look as if the machine is heading in a straight line with no effort. This is an illusion. If you could attach sensor wires to their arm muscles they would be constantly tensing one way then the other. 

 

Once you think you have got the hang of this accelerating thing, try braking a bit harder, still in a straight line. 

 

You will then discover just how much effort you need to put into the steering just to get it to brake in a straight line. Don’t try maximum braking force at this stage. Please don’t. This is why I said give yourself plenty of space. 

 

Next thing is to practice a right curve. This is not too hard. As you go into the curve, shut off the throttle and even gently touch the brakes. You will be surprised at how much it helps if you use the shut off and the brakes at the same time as steering. 

 

Next thing is to practice a left curve. This is the most dangerous manoeuvre in sidecar driving. IF YOU GET IT WRONG THE OUTFIT WILL TURN OVER. Allow yourself plenty of space on the right hand side for you to give up on the idea of turning left and carry on in a straight line if it won’t go round. 

 

Go round in circles turning left until you feel the sidecar wheel coming up, and then swerve right to get it down again. Be ready to swerve right, don’t lock up in panic, and above all DON’T BRAKE until you’re veering right. Braking only makes it worse. 

 

This will give you a feel of just how easy it is to get the sidecar wheel to come up. Very easy. How on earth are you going to take any left hand bend?

 

Now try another experiment. As you go round in your curve, at a steady speed, just as you feel the wheel coming up, ACCELERATE. Just for a bit, then give up and veer right and slow down. You will feel the most bizarre result: it’s as if a giant hand has reached out and pushed the sidecar wheel down again. 

 

This gives you the answer. The only way to take a left hand bend, at any speed above a dead crawl, is to accelerate through it. And you can of course only do this for a bit, as in the end you will be going too damn fast. If you are going to accelerate through a long bend, you need to start dead slow so that you have enough steady acceleration to take you round. If you bottle out and stop accelerating the wheel will come up. If you panic even more and brake, the wheel will come up even faster! 

 

On a sidecar outfit, you CANNOT brake and turn left at the same time. 

 

(Remember this when you are zigzagging down a hill and you come across unexpected roadworks.)

 

Anyway, you have now worked out that you must brake for right hand curves and accelerate for left hand ones. 

 

If you get it wrong and accelerate in a right hander, it’s not a disaster. Your front tyre won’t like it as it will be pushed crabwise across the road, and your forks will warp and twist, but you won’t crash. 

 

However if you shut off or (worse still) brake in a left-hander, you will get into all sorts of trouble. You may roll over, or you may run wide and crash into anything coming the other way. 

 

How do you solve this? Here’s how. 

 

When riding along, you see a left hand bend approaching. While still ON THE STRAIGHT, before the bend, lose your speed, or brake. You will then be fighting with the steering in a straight line. You will reach the bend far more slowly than on a normal bike, and slowly enough to annoy the car behind you. Then as you reach the bend, wind the throttle open so that you are accelerating steadily through it. 

 

If you can’t see the exit of the left hand bend, you are going to need to enter it at an absolute crawl, then accelerate gently, in the hope that you won’t be going at an absolutely manic rate on the way out. 

 

If the left hander is downhill, as on some country roads, your only option is to go round it VERY slowly as you will be breaking the rule about never turning left while using the brakes. 

 

(There are some downhill hairpin bends in which your outfit could tip over from a standing-still position. The only solution here is to wait till the road is clear then use the opposite lane.) 

 

Once you get the hang of this you will start to enjoy the complex series of changes it takes to get an outfit through a series of bends. For example, imagine crossing a roundabout and going straight on. This is in fact three bends, left-right-left. So in the approach to the roundabout you will be BRAKING on the straight - never on the bend itself. Then as you reach the roundabout at low speed, you will ACCELERATE into the first lefthand curve. As soon as you are pointing in the right direction on the roundabout itself, you will be SHUTTING OFF again to lose speed on the right hand curve. Then when you reach the exit you will ACCELERATE again to swing the machine around and take the exit. 

 

Left had bends are the most dangerous manoeuvre in an outfit. Get them wrong and the outfit will roll, with the sidecar coming up over the bike. 

 

But there is another unexpectedly dangerous manoeuvre - a right hand

curve while braking sharply. This seems technically correct, as it is correct

to brake in a right hand curve. However if the brakes or the curve are

taken too sharply, and especially if there is a passenger in the sidecar,

the rear wheel of the bike will lift, the nose of the sidecar will dig

into the ground and then the whole plot will roll over forwards,

and crash upside-down.

 

The solution to this is not to have a ‘death grip’ on the front brake,

but to stand hard on the back brake as well. This is automatically

self-regulating. As the back wheel starts to lift off the road it will lock up

and lose braking force. If your are mostly using the back brake it is

physically impossible to brake so hard that the machine rolls over. You

will also impress your passenger with an alarming amount of tyre

squealing with no real risk.

 

                                                                     [Picture borrowed from Motorrad Online, the German on-line motorcycle magazine.] 

 

BODY WEIGHT SHIFTING

 

On a light sidecar outfit like the MZ, there is something to be added about shifting body weight. On the whole, it is uncool for the driver to be hanging off all over the place, and on a big outfit it makes little difference. However with light outfits it can be used up to a point. 

 

The key thing about shifting body weight is that it must be done BEFORE the bend. NOT in it. Newton’s laws of motion explain that if you shift your weight in the middle of the bend you will have the opposite effect to the one you intend. If, in a left hander, you feel the wheel coming up and try to lean over the sidecar at that point, it will in fact INCREASE the tendency to roll. So as with braking, you need to get into position on the straight before the bend. 

 

So in the example of the roundabout given above, you will swing yourself over the sidecar in the straight before the bend. Then as you take the left hander you will be swinging over to the side away from the sidecar, on the right and curve you will be swinging back over the chair, finishing that move before you start the left hand exit off the roundabout. Good luck with that.