Showing posts with label sidecar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sidecar. Show all posts

Monday 6 October 2014

Dream Stable (this week)

This changes on a moment to moment basis, but in this moment, here is what I wish was looking back at me when I opened the door to the iron horse stable:

1) An outfit fit for my son and I:  A Royal Enfield Bullet Classic with a Rocket Sidecar.

500cc Bullet Classic: $6350
Sportmax Rocket sidecar: $3500+~$1200 installation

The whole outfit would cost about ~$11,000 new... I found a used outfit for $8000, might find another for less.



2) A scooter for my wife: Vespa 946

It's a dream list so I'll go for the fantastically expensive Vespa, though Honda makes some mighty nice alternatives for one third the price.

The Vespa?  $9999 for a year old new one (!?!)

(the similarly spec-ed Honda PCX150 comes in at $3899).  I've found clean, used scooters for about $1000.





3) State of the art Hyper-bike:  

This has always been a Hayabusa, though I'd chuck it all in for the new Ninja H2R.

Hayabusa:  $14999

Ninja H2R:  ???



4) A Light Weight, Swiss-Army Knife dual purpose bike:

The Suzuki DR-Z400S: $7299

Over 100lbs lighter than a KLR, a super capable, light weight enduro machine that can manage weight, still has good power, but follows the Austin Vince minimalist ethos: nimble, efficient, ultra-capable off road.  Found a used one in good nick for about $4000.


5) A matching off-road bike for my son:

Not sure of the spec on this one.  It would have to be the one he feels most comfortable on because he's a cautious fellow.

~$2-3000 new - there seem to be a lot of used ones about for ~$1000



I'd be looking at about $50,000 in new (dream) gear.  On a budget I think I could pick up (used) the two dirt bikes for $5000, a hyperbike for $7000, a scooter for $1500 and an outfit for $3-5000.  So $16-18500 for a more realistic dream stable...

Inclusivity is what I'm aiming for with this collection.  We three could go for a putter on scooter and outfit.  My son and I could go off roading together.  Only the Hayabusa really smacks of selfishness.

Of course this will all change again next week, so I'm not holding my breath.

Thursday 10 October 2013

Sidecar for my Side Kick

Side cars are cool!
I've been thinking about getting a second bike, one that lets me do some distance with my son (and wife if I can convince her).  I'd initially wanted to get a Royal Enfield with a side car so we could Harry Potter it up.

Like a fish in water.
All together that's about a $12,000 new piece of kit.  I love the classic looks but with a 500cc engine, the RE wouldn't be brisk, though it would be frugal.

Something that might fit better happens to be for sale in Guelph just south of us with an asking price of $5000.  I didn't know anything about XS1100s, though the sidecar was done by Old Vintage Cranks so it'll be done properly.

Looking into the XS Eleven, I found some interesting history.  A monster bike in its day, it was known as a fast, heavy machine that you needed a sledge hammer to roll over in corners.  Since it's with sidecar I'm not so worried about laying it down.  It would certainly have the pickup needed to move a sidecar rig and would have enough grunt to manage all three of us.  At less than half the price of the Royal Enfield (though with less of the classic look I like and over 70k on it), it has some appeal.

As a second bike I'm hoping for something very different from the Ninja which I'd still like to hang on to because I'm not finished learning from it yet.  A big, classic Yamaha with side car is about as far from an '07 650r Ninja as you're going to get.

http://guelph.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-motorcycles-touring-xs1100-yamaha-special-with-sidecar-W0QQAdIdZ529601037

...bike is vintage & in great shape needs nothing for cert, sidecar is new cost $5500 to purchase & have installed by OVC the sidecar pros! comes with gel pak in newly recovered seat,, am/ fm/ USB for ipod or iphone cd sounds fine on the highway.

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Old Vintage Cranks: a hidden side to bike culture

Ural project: ready for combat!
I finally made some time to stop by OVC in Hillsburgh this week; it's everything I'd hoped it would be.  Only a few years ago this was a one man operation running out of his garage, but as the need grew he moved into a garage space and now has employees and is so busy that he is thinking about expanding again.

The shop was busy with sidecar projects as well as working on what they sell as a dealership (Urals and Royal Enfields mainly).  It was organized, but busy, and every inch of space was in use.  Out front they had sidecar rigs on a Royal Enfield 500cc and the fantastically Soviet styled Ural.
Royal Enfield & sidecar

I'd gone to see the Royal Enfield, I think the Bullet Classic is a fantastic looking classic bike.  With the modern engine and fuel system it's super dependable.  At 500cc I thought it would be much too small, but I (at 6'3") felt more comfortable on it than I do scrunched up on my Ninja, which has a lower seat and higher pegs.  The problem came when I saw the Ural.

The Soviet cool Ural
I was indifferent to it, though impressed by how tough it is from online writing like Hubert's Timeless Ride.  When I finally saw one in person it has a unique aesthetic that you don't find in any other bike.  The lights are blocky and purely functional where an Italian would have made them streamlined and an American would have drenched them in chrome.  There is nothing dainty about the Ural, it's a tough machine built by tough people for a tough environment.  If you dig Soyuz space capsules and the no-nonsense style of Russian technology, you'll totally dig the Ural.  It comes with a movable spotlight (standard), but machine gun mounts are an option... this is the bike that Russians manufacture for their own military, and it looks it.

Max digs that Bullet Classic
After looking at the Royal Enfield and the Ural, I wouldn't want to saddle the RE to a sidecar, it's such a pretty bike on its own, and without the extra weight, even with 500cc, it would move around in a spritely fashion.

The Ural is a beast, and with the sidecar it looks like it could come thundering out of Moscow to chase the Nazis back to Germany (the bike itself is copied from German designs).

OVC's busy show room
If you have the time to drop by Old Vintage Cranks in Hillsburgh, it'll show you another side of motorcycling culture about as far away from the big manufacturer's aesthetics as you can get.  With no American=too much, German detailism or Japanese techno-crush, the bikes at OVC offer you another
avenue into biking that's so not mainstream that it's shocking.  That it's a tiny, independent, busy, working shop packed to the gills just adds to the flavor.

It's only a matter of time before my son and I are on a Ural pounding through the woods, or I'm on a Royal Enfield weaving along back roads, enjoying a bike that's as much a part of the scenery as the scenery is.

If you're heading out of the GTA, I have a suggestion, head north on the 410 out of Brampton (it turns into Highway 10) and hang a left onto Forks of the Credit Road (about 10 minutes up the road after the 410), enjoy that, grab an ice cream or coffee in Belfountain.  Hang a right onto Bush Street/Wellington Rd 52 until it Ts in Erin, go right to the light, left to the next light and you're at Trafalgar Road North.  Hang a right there and OVC is on your left about five minutes up the road as you ride into Hillsburgh.

There are lots of nice riding roads around there if you've never been up that way before.

https://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?msid=205122563591402305709.0004e2439c2d8f15b9ee9&msa=0&ll=43.802819,-80.021324&spn=0.137025,0.338173
Forks of The Credit to Old Vintage Cranks, a nice ride out of the GTA for an afternoon
link to GOOGLE MAP


Saturday 8 June 2013

Max & Tim's Around The World Expedition

Everyone gets all kitted out with monster adventure bikes to travel around the world.  A monkey could get a big KTM or BMW around the world, and they're all adults with giant production budgets and crews!

I want a challenge!



Max & Tim Around the World Expedition!

My eight year old and I do the long way around from Ontario, across the Atlantic, through Ireland and the U.K., across Europe and Asia, through Japan and back through San Francisco and the Western U.S. to Canada.

The Over Map, you can click on pieces to get a breakdown of each leg

MAPS

1. Canada East    3223kms
2. Europe           4377kms
3. Russia            4300kms
4. Mongolia        2272kms
5. China             1925kms
6. Japan             1503kms
7. America West 2619kms
TOTAL:             20,219kms on the ground, plus trips across the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Leave Ontario April 1st and put up with some dodgy weather in Canada before making our way to Ireland in May and out of Europe.  Across Russia and Siberia in early summer, and then south through Mongolia into China in later summer.  End summer across Japan and then do a fall drive through the Western U.S. back to Ontario, returning before Hallow e'en.  214 days, 10 days crossing the Atlantic, 20 days crossing the Pacific, so 184 days on the road, which makes for an average of about 110kms/day, which should be more than possible (with some days off too!).  It'll be slower in some places, but easily doable in developed areas.  400kms/day would be a comfortable five hours of riding in Canada, Europe and the States, as well as Japan and most of China.

So it's a big impressive map, but we aren't doing it on a giant adventure bike, we're doing it on what has always been in my mind the toughest looking motorbike there is!

A Classically Styled Bike & Sidecar!

The bike and sidecar has faded into history as a cool means of getting through anything, but I still have memories of seeing them in action on the roads of England in the '70s, and a chance to resurrect the awesome cool of a bike and sidecar on a modern adventure ride is too much to resist.  That it allows my son to enjoy biking without being perched on a saddle is also nice.  I haven't seen too many options for adventure touring with a bike and sidecar so we'd get to explore some interesting new ways of loading up a three wheeler for an expedition!

Engines of the Red Army! The 
classic sidecar and bike!
My weapon of choice would be a Royal Enfield Classic with a matching sidecar.  The Classic is modeled on the old Royal Enfield bikes but with modern technology.  They are easy to get into and take care of, and the modern touches make it a dependable, tough piece of kit.  Besides, everyone and their dog has gone around the world on a BMW, or other big adventure bike.  The Classic with a sidecar would bring an entirely different vibe to the macho around the world trek.

With the bike itself and the sidecar capable of carrying gear we could make some interesting choices for building an expedition ready motorbike.  I imagine a bike that is capable of carrying spares, as well as camping gear and all our kit in a more elegant way than the typically overloaded adventure two wheeler.

If they can hold machine guns and ammo, they can certainly carry what we need for our expedition!  Once we've got our kit worked out and our aesthetic set, we need to work out...

Logistics!

The bike will be kitted out with Gopros and we'll have a video/still camera on hand for video diaries.  The trick will be to create a narrative from the media we create.  As we collect footage from each leg we'll hand off the media to our Production Manager (Alanna) and take a few days with her in each place before loading up for another leg.  Some ideas for narrative might be an ASD father/son relationship as we cross the planet or a look at the history of motorbikes around the world.  No matter what, I'd want to film it pushing what technology can do to capture a live experience.  To that end, I'd like to create a videoblog of the trip as it happens, as well as a travel documentary when we're home.

April to October would be travelling, then the winter would be resolving the footage into a story in post-production.


PITSTOPS (where we meet up with our production team)
  1. Quebec City
  2. St. John's 
  3. Dublin
  4. Norwich
  5. Brugges
  6. Warsaw
  7. Minsk
  8. Moscow
  9. Novosibirsk
  10. Ulaanbaatar
  11. Beijing
  12. Shanghai
  13. Nagasaki
  14. Kyoto
  15. Tokyo
  16. San Francisco
  17. Omaha
  18. Chicago
Our production/travel support team meets us at each pit-stop and takes our media while giving us fresh memory to save stuff too.  We spend a couple of days at each spot touring about and resting up then we're off on the road again as Alanna and team flies ahead of us to the next destination.  Having a travel expert in country ahead of us should ease crossings and make entry into each new area more efficient.

Alanna could also help produce some establishing shots and other footage for the final product.  Needless to say she'd need a production partner... she and I both think... Jeanette!  They'd have a fabulous time.

Back To The Kit

Here's a fun statistic!
  • Royal Enfield Classic 500cc = 183 kgs
  • Classic side car:  80 kgs
  • TOTAL WEIGHT:  263 kgs, or about 88 kgs per wheel
A BMW R1200GS Adventure weighs 260kgs or about 130kgs per wheel, so with a side car and another wheel to share the weight, the Classic weighs about the same as BMW's big adventure bike, but has a much lighter presence on and off road.
Royal Enfield Classic with Classic Rocket Sidecar

With some handiwork we should be able to fabricate a tonneau cover for the sidecar that keeps Max warm and dry in nasty weather, but disappears when not needed.  I'd also look at  putting together a canvas tent that works off the structure of the bike.

The Classic Enfield also has a back deck we could fabricate a rack on for carrying, and the long nose in the sidecar could easily hold soft bags and other equipment.

The bike itself could also hold gear in front of the handlebars and behind the saddle.  It isn't a giant bike, but at 500ccs it would be more than capable of getting us down the road with our gear and would get good mileage too.

In parts of the world where lodging is available, we'd refocus the expedition machine on a lighter load with less food carried and minimal equipment.  In places more remote, we'd reconfigure for camping and be sure to have the kit we need to get by in the rough.

A year off with an epic trip across the planet with Max would be fantastic!  Seeing how he sees the world would be unique.