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Combinations, Sidecar outfits, Chairs etc


Asimo

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10 hours ago, vulgalour said:

That DKW is astonishing!  You could park that in your living room and just look at it all day long.

How about it's kid brother? Also astonishing you could look at this all day long, and wonder what was missing; mind the gap, mind the gap.

Hercules W2000

Later models had slightly unwieldy covers added fill a bit of the hole in.

Wurst To First: 1976 Hercules W-2000 Wankel

PS I prefer the Van Veen over either myself...

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I rode a Moto Guzzi 1000 with a "Unit" sidecar  fitted, along with leadi g link forks. Unit was a very well renowned manafacturer of outfits that handled well. I managed about 200 yards down the country lane where their workshop was, before I got off. It was bloody dangerous (I never knew then that you had to "drive" the bike around the chair on left handers, and vice versa on right handers).

A few years later my brother put a Suzuki GS750 engine into a WASP scramble (pre MotoX) outfit, put some lights on it and got it registered. Now that was fairly easy to ride, and had loads of power. It was fun but he kept getting stopped by police (he would have been about 19 then). Sold it locally, but I never saw it again.

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When my Triumph Herald's brazed chassis outriggers pulled off during emergency braking (the rear radius rods are attached to them), a repair was beyond my means. A friend's dad had a little used Jawa 350 combo up in Chester and it was offered to me for a reasonable price. I lived in Aylesbury back then.  Although I had had many thousands of miles experience on two and four wheels, collecting the Jawa outfit on a cold, foggy autumn day quickly brought me out in a cold sweat. I had expected asymmetry in the handling but not the murderous tendency to aim for HGVs coming in the other direction if I had to slow down, Similarly, its ditch seeking characteristics when power* was applied were alarming. This was with 16bhp. I stopped with friends near Stafford to see if my brain would absorb the weirdness overnight. It must have worked because the  next day's trip home to Aylesbury was almost enjoyable.

A year later, my brother needed a lift to a motorcycle repair shop somewhere west of Banbury. He climbed in the chair and nursed a big lump of BSA 650 A10 engine in the footwell. There was a left hand downhill hairpin bend on the route to the shop. Despite slowing down prior to the bend, I needed to shed more speed when I saw how sharp it was. The loaded unbraked sidecar gave the outfit chronic understeer and I used the whole width of the road to get round. Fortunately, there was nothing coming the other way.

I used the outfit for about 18 months for commuting 26 miles each way, During this time the bike needed at least 20 new spokes in the back wheel. They snapped frequently until a chap at work made some stronger ones - I still have a few spares in the garage. The Jawa outfit was not particularly reliable or fast. It struggled to exceed 50mph. It was nevertheless an enjoyably eccentric way of getting around. 

 

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I used to ride my dads 1959 A10 Gold Flash with a single seat Busmar.

Had to tighten the fork shocker up hard to prevent shake on the bars.

Takes a bit of getting used to without a brake on the chair, just pull left on the bars when stopping.

 Accelerate on RH bends, shut off and be very careful on LH bends. Push and pull the bars, totally different to solo.

Have mentioned before I turned it over once, hit a milestone with the sidecar mudguard on a LH bend single track road.

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