Yoshie has a new home

I've been meaning to blog about this for days now, but other rides and snow riding got pushed to the front of the line.

Yoshie has been bought from Unique Rides where I had traded her and my 2011 Ural Patrol Sidecar rig, Valencia.

Her new owner's name is Cecil and he lives in the Elbert, CO area.  He picked up Yoshie for quite the good price and is now in the process of going over her in detail, to include doing a valve clearance adjustment and replacing the drive chain.

He found a damaged master link on the old chain and got a new one from Krause.  You can get all the details and latest pictures from his new blog about his new rig:  LINK

Here's a picture of Yoshie, borrowed from Cecil's blog, as she arrived at her new home:

I tried to give all the information possible to Cecil before the purchase and I believe he'll be happy with Yoshie once she's put back together.  Though Cecil has never ridden a sidecar rig before, he is planning on taking the Basic Sidecar/Trike Course given by ABATE this coming Spring.

Previously: Checking out the mods on Darrell's Rig

So much for having a spare sidecar rig!

As I rode Valencia, my 2011 Ural Patrol Sidecar Rig home with an ailing clutch on Thursday of this week, I was thinking to myself: "Good timing on the part of the Suzuki dealer, having Yoshie, my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom DL1000 Sidecar Rig ready for pickup".  Yoshie would function as my spare sidecar rig while Valencia awaited parts and the repairs scheduled for the 20th of the month.

Sigh, alas it was not to be.

The dealer elected to deliver the rig back to me stating that I should verify the sidecar's alignment myself before taking it out on public roads.  OK I said, that's reasonable as they don't do sidecars every day.

Yoshie was dropped off this morning and I geared up for a short ride around the neighborhood to see how she felt before I got down to the business of checking the sidecar's alignment and such.

She felt a bit weird in the rear but I shrugged that off as having been away from here over two months and having been on my Ural most of that time.  At a stop light, a Harley Davidson rider pulls up to me and yells: "Dude your rear wheel is moving back and forth!".   As you can imagine, a disconcerting remark to say the least!

We both pulled off into a shopping center's parking lot and he pushed Yoshie a short distance while I watched from the rear and damn if the tire wasn't wobbling back and forth!  Dammit.

I thanked the HD rider, and rode slowly back home.  I dismounted the tire, thinking perhaps it was a damaged tire that was causing the wobbles.  I had no luck getting the tire off.

Breaking the bead on the cut tire

I ended up cutting the perfectly good snow tire off using a sawzall.  Once I got the tire remnants off, I put the rear wheel on the ground and found it to be warped!

Yep, in spite of me telling them from the onset that I thought the wheel was bent....the dealer's tech declared the rear wheel as fine.  He told that to the insurance adjustor who believed him and so it was not part of the cost of repairs!  I figure it'll be close to $300 to replace the warped wheel with a new one, associated bearings, new axle and mounting a car tire onto it.  How much would you like to bet this amount might have pushed the cost of repairs over whatever magical mark the insurance guys follow in order to "total a bike"?

Now here Yoshie sits in my garage, sans her rear wheel/tire.  The replacement tire won't get in till the 9th so that's the earliest I can expect to be able to pick it up with a tire mounted on it.

Yoshie awaits her new wheel

Then, you have to wonder what other damages lay hidden awaiting me in the future.  I will surely write a letter to the General Manager at the Suzuki Dealer, his diagnosing tech sucks!

So, now I have two "down" sidecar rigs awaiting parts.  Luckily, there's Brigitta, my 1987 R80 Airhead Beemer, ready to take me to my first day of work on Monday.  

See, plenty of room for two rigs in my garage....

Some tips for riding in deep snow with a Sidecar Rig

I found this information on the sidecar.com books link:  "The Manual for Enthusiasts of Riding with a Sidecar".
The book is in PDF format and is free.  It is a wealth of information on the theory and practice of owning, maintaining, setting up and riding a sidecar rig!  If you ride a sidecar, it's worth your time to read this and the acknowledge "bible" for Sidecar Operations:  Hall Kendall's "Sidecar Operators Manual"

But I digress, here's the applicable portion from the manual which caught my eye and may help you out when you're out riding on your sidecar rig in deep snow.  As always, be prepared and take things slow when riding on snow.

from 2010 Elephant Ride, the furthest point reachable 

by the Uralisti

Excerpt: (bolded text is my own commentary)

If the rear wheel does not grip on snow or a loose surface, stand on the rear footrests or kneel back as far as possible on the seat. A greater load is put on the rear wheel and the outfit will move again. The rider must then lean forward over the handlebars. Now it is important not to have too much power on the rear wheel, but a suitable gearing for a motorcycle with sidecar instead.  - From prior experience, this is quite accurate, I'll be strapping on a 60lb sand bag onto Yoshie's pillion seat for the upcoming Elephant Ride.

You can often find a track for the motorcycle in deep snow, but not for the sidecar. In such a case the rolling resistance of the wheel of the sidecar can become so great that the sidecar comes to a halt. The motorcycle tries to move around it, describes a quarter circle and then you are definitely stopped. - Also very true, the weight or drag of the sidecar pretty much sucks your rig into the snowbank on the side of the road if you're not careful.

After you have sweated a bit and have righted the motorcycle and sidecar again, put both feet on the left footrest and lean far enough to the left that the sidecar comes up.  With an empty sidecar and halfway normal track width this will always work. The cycle wheels are put under a heavier load, the wheel of the sidecar is up in the air and in most cases you can move again. - You definitely work up a sweat at times while extricating yourself and others from the spot in the snow where the rig has become stuck!  I'll be riding with an empty sidecar during the Elephant Ride to allow for the "lifting" of the sidecar.  From experience though, its more "lightening the load" on the sidecar wheel rather than actually being able to lift the sidecar into the air and out of the snow.  I guess I need to gain more weight huh?

If you get stuck, the passenger should push at the outermost edge of the sidecar. In most cases it is his fault anyway; if he had leaned over the rear wheel early enough, you would not have got stuck. If you are alone, clear the area in front of the sidecar wheel as far as possible, then either stand on the left footrest or help to get going by pushing. - One great thing I've see about the Elephant Ride is the willingness of fellow riders to help each other when stuck, I'll be in the company of Uralisti as well this year so while I may not get very far with Yoshie, I am sure I'll be able to make it back to pavement at the end of the day.

My previous reports on the Elephant Ride:

Four Uralisti Challenge the Elephant Ride

The Uralisti at the 2011 Elephant Ride

A Sidecar Rig in the garage, once again....

She who remains to be named, though I am leaning towards Yoshie which means "Beautiful Stream" in Japanese, has been mated to the hack.

For you who don't know, Suzuki named this model motorcycle the V-Strom.  V is the V Twin Engine type and Strom is German for Stream.  Why a Japanese company elected a German name for its motorcycle, I have no idea.

I finished mating her to the Dauntless sidecar this evening, took me less time in terms of the mounting hardware, the hard part ironically was the electrical connections between the sidecar and the tug.  Note to self, if you don't have a good ground, you are going to have weird symptoms and stuff won't work right.

The present chain on the tug is an RK 525 with a tensile strength of 8800 lbs.  I ordered a Sidewinder 525 chain, their "Extreme Performance" model which has a tensile strength of 16000 lbs, it's twice the price of a regular chain but I think it'll be worth it.  It should be here at the end of the week, I'll put it on this weekend and keep the present chain as an emergency spare I guess.

I may buy new sprockets as well if the dealer has them though to my amateur drive-chain motorcycle eyes, the ones that came with the new tug look pretty good.  I am trying to find out when the previous owner last changed sprockets, if recently, then maybe I won't swap them out when I swap the chain.

Here she is, sorry but it was late when I took the picture and the light in the garage sucks for photographs.