I originally wrote this article shortly after purchasing my first sidecar in 1968.  Boy did I have a learning curve!

You see, when you are driving a sidecar outfit, the process of steering it is a totally different matter to the process of steering a regular solo motorbike.

 

On the solo machine, you just lean it into the corner and around you go.  But scientifically speaking, how exactly do you lean it into the corner?  Well, believe it or not, if you are going to take a corner to the right, you actually begin that corner by steering to the left.  As you turn the front wheel to the left, the bike begins to fall over to the right … after all, there is nothing to hold it up.  As it begins to fall, the forward motion is causing it to want to stand up again.  These two forces balance each other out and the bike kind of “falls around in a curve”.

Now look what happens if you add a sidecar to the same bike.  All of the controls are the same.  The motor gearbox and clutch are all the same.  But the steering … Sheesh!!!

Let me describe briefly my first attempt to ride in the Eastern Gardens at Geelong:

I guy named Mac from Pratt and Osborn Motors in Geelong had ridden my outfit to the Eastern Gardens while I was on the sidecar. Safely off the trafficked roads, he got off and indicated that I should mount the saddle of the bike and have my first ride.

I let the clutch out and the bike started moving.  The path turned gently to the right.  Now with some 60,000 miles or thereabouts of riding experience I reckoned I knew pretty well how to turn a motorbike around a very gentle right hand curve.   But suddenly I discovered that this outfit seemed to have a mind of its own!   I crossed the lawn on the left and then through the flower beds and then had the sense to pull the clutch in and hit the brakes just in time to avoid mowing down a row of standard roses.

By this time Mac was killing himself laughing at the expression on my face.  I felt more like Mulga Bill!

We pushed the outfit back onto the path.  Then Mac explained to me the difference between riding a solo and a sidecar:  The sidecar outfit is so obedient that it goes exactly where you point it. When I had wanted to turn right, I had naturally begun the turn by turning the handlebar slightly to the left.  The outfit, obeyed me by going exactly where I had pointed it straight across the lawn and the flower beds!

Mac patiently explained to me that I had to overcome my natural inclination to turn the other way and to very deliberately turn the handlebars towards where I wanted the outfit to go.   Somehow it made sense to me and I took all the turns correctly from then on.   After a bit more practice we went back to Pratt & Osborne and dropped off Mac while I prepared to head back to my home in Buninyong.

 

Norm and Allan Osborne both came out to see me off.  Norm advised me that if I learned to ride on the road with just the chassis for a while before I fitted a body to it, then I should have no real problems after I fitted the body.

He also recommended that I get out into a paddock and practise lifting the sidecar up into the air by turning sharply left and then to control the machine as a strangely unbalanced solo so that I would know what it felt like when the sidecar was approaching lifting point.

I followed Norm’s recommendations and soon became proficient at riding sidecars.