Bikes towing, towing bikes, towing sidecars, sidecars towing bikes, towing pictures

[greg_in_london]

Well these aren'tthe best pictures in the world, but I thought some might be interesting.

 

This bike was my first experience of towing. I was a mobile motorcycle mechanic, specialising in fixing punctures on couriers' bikes around London. The trailer had fifty or sixty inner tubes, a tool box and axle stands etc with half a dozen tyres on top. The bike carried two or three more tyres, a CO2 bottle for tyre inflation, a radio, spare cable and assorted other stuff. At 40mph-ish the bike went into a violent weave, but with experience and a strong upper body you could keep control. At the time we just thought that was what you had to accept pulling a trailer. The biggest hazard was climbing a kerb, when one trailer would hit before another, jerking the back of the bike to one side.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/venture/cx500andtrailer.jpg

Later I picked up a trailer to pull behind a Suzuki GT550 bike and sidecar. I haven't found a picture yet, but I'll keep looking. I later fitted over-run brakes because I began to pull a lot of weight. After the GT (which I still have and is for sale..) I began using an XJ750 and also had use of a motorcycle trailer, so in answer to the thread about whether you can tow a bike with a bike, here are a couple of pictures of just that - a GT550 and a ZZR250:

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/venture/towinggt550.jpg

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/venture/zzrontrailer.jpg

And here is a picture of a sidecar body on a trailer:

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/venture/towingsidecar.jpg

This was the only time that I ever got pulled by the police about towing. It was actually after I had dropped off the sidecar body and was returning the trailer (mine was possibly too small for the sidecar body).

:cop:He was a young bloke and walked around the trailer, saying, 'You can't pull that trailer, it's too long, no it's too wide, no it's too heavy, er..'

'No it's not,' I said as I picked up a corner and put it down again.

It was probably difficult to tell me that something was too heavy if I could pick it up with one hand, so he muttered something about a public weighbridge and went to consult some booklet he had on his bike.

He then came back saying that the trailer couldn't be wider than 1m, max weight dada, max length dadada and that I really should check these sort of things. I apologised, but said that people in the sidecar federation had checked them and that the title on his page clearly said the regs applied to solo motorcycles.

He went on for a bit longer, calling his desk sergeant, telling me it was a grey area, saying that I was doing something wrong and that he'd have taken me to the weighbridge (although he didn't know the weight regs..) if thetraffic weren't so heavy.

I avoided saying that Construction and Use Regs, section (then) 81a (later 83a, maybe in the nineties by now), subsection one paragraph C says that a sidecar may pull a trailer, not being a broken down vehicle, which has an unladen weight of not more than 254kg, as that would have made me sound like a smartarse and nobody likes them...

 

I'm sure there must be more pictures of us with a trailer on our travels, but this is a recent one of us after camping with the trailer tent hitched up.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/sidecar%20rally/DSCF2071.jpg

And again while the tent was erected.

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh10/greg_in_london/sidecar%20rally/DSCF2011.jpg

 

No particualar purpose to posting these, except I said I would in the 'can a bike tow a bike' thread. Hope they're of some interest.

[gunboat]

hi greg

holly cow those are some great pictures. gives me some ides.

 

best reguards

don c.

[mantree91]

I have a venture with a California friendship 1 sidecar and love it. What did you do about your front upper mount? Mine is constantly coming loose.

[mantree91]

I ended up finding a solution for the upper mount issue I was having

 

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