Talking about sidecars..............

Seems to be more than a passing interest in chairs ....

This guy turned up at our Pig Roast in Saxony last year - only lives 2 villages away.

I'm stoked to make one for my brother to ride in. That's a great lookin sidecar (and I sure don't mind the bike either!)

It's wierd - back in the day in the mid 60's chairs became very popular - I'm talking Cafe Racer outfits here - not yer double Child adult Busmar.

Maybe prompted by the 50% insurance discount, but they certainly had a hardcore following equal to any Cafe Racer !

Hey TJ, have you any pictures of a cafe racer outfit?

They still do, but now they have these extra crazy designs, where they get rid of the front forks and employ the (not sure of the term) leading edge type front? It's pretty radical. And looks extremely expensive.

I'm looking at getting/building one so my daughter will ride with us. I think they look the biz. It's the training period of driving I'm more worried about.

Hey Bruno - that's "leading link" and actually not difficult to build - this guy has them. I'll see if I can find a better view.

Jay, not too difficult as long as you totally forget solo riding !

I've always wanted to put together a trials outfit, and if I could find some coherent plans I'd make one to bolt on to my 125.
There's such a glut of scrap bicycle frames with rear suspension, that I'm sure some of the old technical hurdles could be easily overcome.

Erskine,
I'll scan some pix in Cafe Racer books. There's an image of my pal John Barker's outfit. He went on to be a pretty fair racer.

Bruno, here's the business side of the leading link forks. They were stock on early BMW solos as well as outfits.

Erskine - just for you!

This was the outfit I used to "race" against in the early 60's. It's typical of a Cafe Racer outfit. Tribsa with Steib sports chair.

All the idents of a solo Cafe Racer - clip-ons, rear sets, 5 gall race tank, race seat, Goldie silencer - + square tread sidecar tyres and lowered as much as possible. Note the ingenious method of lowering the front forks ! Don't try this at home kids, unless you are a coded alloy welder ! Leading link forks were a better option as you could make them whatever height you wanted, and you could adjust the rake and trail accordingly. If you had a few bob to spare - then you'd have your hubs laced into 16" alloy rims and use ex-race tyres.

This was essentially the stance of my own various outfits. I had a Tribsa similar to this one, until I discovered the grunt of Constellation engines.

Strangely, although Brit bike prices have gone through the roof [ £5K+ for a solo like this one ], sidecars are still relatively cheap. Steibs hold their price, but the UK equivalent Garrard Grand Prix are still around for £200 - £300. The Garrard GP was seen as the poor man's Steib - needless to say in the day I had a Garrard.

There was the Watsonian Monza [ Hoof's ], the child adult version [ Monaco?] - They were seen as the Rolls Royce of chairs for quality. I suspect the Garrard GP was a copy of the Steib !

Holy Moly! That's insane. That fork lowering method is pretty damn radical, yeah, talk about having trust in your welder!
Did the passengers 'get involved' or were they just passive ballast?

That leading link is sweet. Saw one on a new KTM RC8? I think. Can't believe those were stock on that bad boy. And that Cafey outfit is sick.

Unlike solo pillion riders a chair passenger was usually a "regular" and was expected to perform pretty much as a race passenger would.

It was a matter of some pride to be able to give the solo boys a run for their money round the lanes and as previously - if there were roundabouts involved !

The more accomplished outfiteers could hold a 3 wheel drift on roundabouts with the passenger hanging over the back seat. Long left handers required the passenger to hang out as far as possible over the sidecar wheel. Nearly all our little crew of charioteers had the chair "lead" [ the amount the chair wheel was located forward of the rear wheel ] set up as circuit bikes which made the outfits much more nimble. Played havoc with tyre wear, but that was a small sacrifice for the better handling. The rider [ driver? ] also needed to be a bit athletic, moving his weight left or right as required.

I've located a few more CR outfits in old books, I'll scan and post if any interest

Cheers TJ, and yup, if you have the chance please put some more up!

OK guys, another couple of outfits coming up - just to show that charioteers were no less resourceful than the 2 wheeler Cafe Racers. You'll also see that the chair guys were equally serious about the CR image.

ALL B & W pix credit to Mike Clay's "Cafe Racers" book.

This first one is a bit unusual in as much that you wouldn't normally pick a Featherbed as a basis for a chair. Not that there was anything wrong with that - in fact many FB based outfits were raced - but a Featherbed was probably twice the cost of a BSA frame [ single or twin ] and 4 times as much [ at least! ] for a Triumph, AJS, etc. In fact MOST Triumph frames were simply thrown away when the engine / box was liberated for a Tribsa / Triton .......... However, sidecar performance was not so dependant on having a stiff frame [ as the FB ] - more on geometry and a well attached third wheel. I suspect this one started out as a solo - a Norbsa. However, it has all the "good" chair bits - low, 16" alloy rims - and note the passenger [ sidecar ] grab handle behind the seat. That gave the passenger a good hand hold when attacking right hand bends / roundabouts. The passenger would lean as far out of the chair over the rider's seat, with probably just his feet keeping a purchase with the sidecar and get as much of his bodyweight to the right hand side of the outfit. You can also bet those meggas were straight through! This is one serious chair

Final one for the time being.

This outfit is truly off the wall and a good example of using what happened to be lying around at the time ! Ingenuity at it's best.

For a start - after you get over the fact there's TWO engines in there - look closely and you'll see the front motor is an Ariel 650 and the rear a BSA 650 ! Check out the Siamesed exhuast system.

Looks like GRP repair skills weren't at the top of our man's list - see the tailored cloth tank cover ! Probably run up by his Mum or girlfriend on her sewing machine. He had obviously decided that after stretching the frame the tank looked too short and set about lengthening that as well.

He's also got back to back brake drums on the front giving effectively a a twin drum system.

Note also the rev counter cable coming from the BSA lump and the specially extended cable. Back in the day that was NOT a simple task. The reason? Ariel's didn't have a rev. counter take off!

Finally check out the leading link forks - they look a bit BMW 'ish to me.

Criticisms? Not really, but I think the oil tank capacity would have been extremely marginal for 2 engines !

Thanks for those TJ. That Norbsa must have at least 2" of front suspension travel! Very good looking outfit, I like the 16" wheels.
Some mad engineering going on,I suppose it was a case of 'necessity is the mother of invention'.
They all seem to use the same chair?

Erskine said:

Thanks for those TJ. That Norbsa must have at least 2" of front suspension travel! Very good looking outfit, I like the 16" wheels.
Some mad engineering going on,I suppose it was a case of 'necessity is the mother of invention'.
They all seem to use the same chair?

Click to expand...

Yes all these chairs are Steibs - German and beloved of BMW charioteers. They were percieved to be better quality than our Brit Garrard GP - which was basically a copy.
In reality, it was much more a matter of how the outfit was set up.

I benefited from some first hand advice from Chris Vincent [ BSA ] on my regular visits to Tom Kirby's race emporium in Romford. In fact I used to buy their old race tyres with maybe 500 miles of road use left in them for five bob a pair. That's 5 shillings, or 25p. or around 45 cents !

It was Vincent who advised me on the demon sidecar wheel lead tip, which really did give my outfit an edge in handling.

Yes ingenuity was the name of the game - don't forget in the early '60's there was no Dunstall, Degens or Unity - Other than tanks, seats and clip-ons -you made stuff yourself or got a pal to make it.

BTW - and apropos of nothing at all - another regular visitor at the shop [ and Kirby rider ] was Bill Ivy.

Hoof, you're the Watsonian guru ...........Palma or Monaco ??

Either way it's £150 on e-bay and only 30 miles from my door !!!!! Unfortunately the canopy top is gone. That was a soft top ??

Even a glass top would be easy to make.