Homicidal Sidecar
Years ago I built a sidecar that tried to kill me on any number of occasions. It all started when I traded a connecting rod bushing for the front wheel off a scrapped motorcycle. A retired motorcycle racer named Newt had an informal motorcycle shop (really more like a scrap yard) in Lubbock, when I was attending Texas Tech. Newt had an old 1950’s era 500 cc Indian single, similar to the one I had in high school, and he needed that bushing to get it running again. I don’t know why, but I just happened to have a brand new one that I had bought when I was in high school.
Using my old stick arc welder, I built a sidecar frame out of 1/2 NPT water pipe and bolted it to my 750cc Royal Enfield. This sidecar was really just an open frame with a sheetmetal floorboard pop-riveted to the bottom. It looked, more or less like the open frame sidecars commonly used on a motocross outfit. I mounted the wheel with a big ol’ grade 8 bolt and now I was ready to hit the road. This is when I quickly learned why a light weight sidecar is especially dangerous. I found that it was really easy to lift the sidecar. In fact, the sidecar would lift at about 15 mph in a typical right hand turn.
The first time that sidecar tried to kill me was on the rim of a cliff overlooking a canyon somewhere on the outskirts of Lubbock. I was riding with some guys and we rode right up to the edge of the cliff to enjoy the view. When we got ready to leave, we all pushed back from the edge to have enough room to turn around. They leaned their bikes over and turned away from the cliff. I should have pushed back farther because as soon as I started moving forward and turning, I saw that the edge of the cliff was a lot closer to the front of the bike than I would have liked. Foolishly, I had started turning to the right and it immediately occurred to me that the sidecar was going to lift up and throw me over the cliff. Luckily, I was able to grab the brakes and slow down enough to make the turn and live to ride another day.
It’s hard to tip the motorcycle over the sidecar but one night I did just that. The girl that I was dating at the time didn’t like to ride in the sidecar so she was sitting behind me on the bike. We were waiting in the street in front of a friend’s house while he tried to kick-start this old 80 cubic, flat-head Harley chopper. So, just to pass the time, I turned the handlebars full-lock away from the sidecar, let out the clutch, and started the bike going in circles. I never could control myself when the engine was running. I began going faster and faster until, all of a sudden, the bike tipped over and I fell off into the open floorboard of the sidecar. She fell over on top of me but I was laughing so hard I can’t remember if she was mad or just happy that we had stopped spinning around on that crazy motorcycle carrousel.
The last time that sidecar tried to kill me, I was making a right-hand turn into a two-lane side street. I had been riding for a while now and my confidence level was high. I had learned that hanging my butt off the motorcycle on the sidecar side would allow a slightly greater speed in the turn. But, as usual, the engine exhaust was sounding so nice that I kind of forgot to control my speed going into the turn. As I started my turn, two things happened simultaneously, I felt the sidecar starting to lift and I saw there was a car approaching in the oncoming lane. It was too late to slow down so I did the only thing I could. I turned the handlebars away from the sidecar and screwed on the throttle. I drove right in front of the oncoming car and into the parking lot across the street. I don’t know if the car would have hit me, but it was already through the intersection by the time I looked up. I knew homicidal sidecar was going to kill me. I sold it shortly thereafter.
