Who's gonna ride in the sidecar?

After 3 very hot, windy and desert-landscaped days I pulled into my driveway in Nampa, Idaho. I had covered 1600 miles on a bike that I had only begun a relationship with a few days earlier, and now I felt a connection with my machine. As ugly and noisy and smelly as it was, I had accomplished a great feat in getting that thing home. I noticed a couple of things though.

One thing I noticed is that I seem to be attracted to head winds. I think that most of the time I had 20-30 mile an hour head winds pushing against me. With the bulk of the ol' beast and the bulk of my hulk, it was a battle at times to keep it between the lines. I noticed the same thing on a ride to Sturgis with my friend Thom.

We rode into, what seemed to be, a perpetual head wind the whole way, jealously glaring at the other bikers coming from Sturgis. Then when we turned around to head home, and you guessed it, the wind shifted and once again, we headed West into the wind! If you're riding a sidecar outfit and facing a headwind, my recommendation is to get low, drop the car's windshield, tuck your knees in tight to the tank and let er' go...you can't stop the wind.

The other thing I noticed is that a sidecar outfit is great to ride if you, like me, are a gawker. You know what a gawker is don't you? You're walking with your family and all of a sudden they notice you're not with them and you haven't noticed that they left...you're just fascinated by something or someone and you're staring at it. Can you relate? If you look up A-D-D in the Medical Journal, you'll find my pictur...oh look, something shiny!

Sorry, I'm back. I'm a gawker, a people watcher, and a "thing-noticer". I heard one time that Medical Doctors who have A-D-D or A-D-H-D tend to detect more cases of cancer in X-rays than those who don't suffer with this dreaded um...uh...oh yeah, disease. That means that when the "focused" doctors are looking for something specific, the ADD doctor is making designs with the persons veins and is looking all over the place and tends to see things because of their "inattentiveness". Now I don't know what this says about their bed-side manner, but that has nothing to do with motorcycles and how did we start talking about this any way?

Well a three wheeled bike enables you to gawk. You can check out the scenery, make eye-contact with the deer standing on the white line, check your watch, take a nap...whatever. And those cool little grooves they grind into the road on the yellow and white lines remind you that it time to check back in. The stability of the sidecar also allows you to not panic when a rabbit runs out in front of you because you know that you are most likely going to stay upright. I like that as a gawker. In fact, though I miss my cruiser, I would miss my hack even more. So if you're a gawker, buy a sidecar...you'll thank me.

So I arrived home and one of the first things I did was to get Ollie to see if he would ride in the sidecar. He wasn't real impressed with the straight-pipe noise, but being the fat little guy that he is, he was too afraid to jump out once I put him, so he endured it.

Ollie is the Scottie and Daisy is the mix terrier. Once Daisy saw Ollie getting to go for a ride, she hopped right in too. With Ollie's heft though, and the fact that he is the alpha male and naturally deserves to sit in the seat, Daisy was assigned to the floor. So we rode slowly through the neighborhood several times until they figured out what was going on.

Later we ventured into country roads near us where I could watch them carefully and ride rather slowly. Ollie likes the wind, but seems convinced now that when the motor shuts off, he's free to dismount and go exploring. This is not good if he is not attached somehow to the rig. Daisy, on the other hand is to afraid to get out until I say so. Here's why.

She was riding on the floor and leaning her head out right above the step of the sidecar. Little by little she trusted me and the bike more so one leg came out and then another. I realized that her invincible spirit needed a bit of adjustment if we were going to have any long term, highway speed rides so I thought I would help her understand the nature of sidecars and gravity.

At a very slow speed, I made a quick left turn, whereupon she proceeded to leave the car with very little grace and agility. She rolled in the dirt a couple of times (please don't write me any letters...no terriers were seriously hurt in this stunt...it was VERY slow) stood up, shook off, cussed me out in doggy language and then, true to her stubborn nature, refused to get back into the car. When I caught my breath from laughing, I got off the bike, picked her up and put her back in. Now she rides in the seat, spread eagle and keeps her eye on me. I've tried rolling her a few more times since, but now she sticks like glue...she may prove to be the best riding partner yet (besides my wife I mean, who by the way, never falls out even in sharp left turns).

Somehow copying the idea of the John Steinbeck book Travels with Charlie, won't be the same with a dog named Daisy...but she'll do better than Ollie (maybe I could switch their names). I'll ride until fall, but then I'm gonna pull this thing a part to see what makes it tick and while I'm at it, I'll give it a paint job. But what do I want it to look like? Stay tuned.