Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Too Warm

Today at noon, I walked down to the Farmers Market just a little ways down College Road and it felt really hot. The forecast for tomorrow is even warmer. It must be time to head for cooler temperatures. I'll be headed north again in a couple of days so I'll be getting a reprieve from the heat.

The motorcycle parking spaces are starting to fill up again with 8 bikes here this morning so I started parking in a regular parking space. There are notices posted all over the building that the whole parking lot is going to be torn up for most of the summer with very limited parking adjacent to the building. As you can imagine, this has caused some folks all sorts of anguish. The moto spaces will be reduced from three to two and this is what brought up the question on whether I will continue to use the motorcycle spaces given that the sidecar rig takes up a lot of space.

I was looking through my photos from the weekend and I was struck by how different the four sidecars at the Alaska meet up in Talkeetna were. Their similarity being limited to having three wheels touching the ground. My airhead/Cozy combination is smallest and lightest with few, if any, frills. My goal wasn't to carry passengers but simply to be able to ride into the winter.

Here is Bob and Sharon's setup with a BMW R1200GS as the tug and a sidecar and mounts from DMC. The sidecar has a hydraulic disc brake, automotive tire and electric lean adjustment for making small changes on the fly. It is a beautiful, clean setup and should serve them well on their upcoming trip to Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. Follow them on their new blog.

Here is Dan's rig which he refers to the sidecar as "Sophi's car" as his daughter is the usual passenger. The bike, I believe, is a 1300cc V4 Yamaha Venture and they have travelled all around the state and down to the lower 48 towing a small tent trailer. The Champion sidecar has a soft top and could be fully enclosed in case of inclement weather. With the DVD player, Nintendo games and books for the Sophi, they travelled over 8,000 miles on it's inaugural ride.

The last of the four is Dom's 2011 Ural Patrol named Valencia. The only rig with reverse, 2WD, spare tire and the steering mods to reduce the trail normally designed into a motorcycle for stability on two wheels but makes for hard steering on three. Not to mention that the Ural is the only rig designed from the ground up and sold as a sidecar rig. His adventures on his blog are what convinced me to look for a sidecar.

12 comments:

  1. What an eclectic selection of sidecar rigs, and what a coincidence to meet those in one place.

    Stop complaining about the weather already, please. Except for one day Germany seems to be the new Alaska, it is cold here, grey and mostly rainy...

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    1. Sorry about the weather whining. After I got back from the Farmers Market all I could do was sit in front of a fan for a while trying to cool off.

      It really was an eclectic mix of sidecar rigs at the meet up. One more commonality, three of them had motorcycle subframes made by DMC.

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  2. Two days of rain, two mornings of 70 degrees and I am on my knees begging for it to end. All the farmers markets of the Last Frontier wouldn't be enough to compensate.
    I guess this was my week to visit. Sigh.

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    1. There is little produce available at the farmers market, as you might guess, and most of the booths are selling things like plant starts, seed potatoes, home made trinkets and prepared food. I went for the gyro.

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  3. Richard:

    I wished it were 75°F (24°c) here. We could do with a bit more warmth right now but our rain is forecast to stop tomorrow

    Looks like it's time to start farkling up your sidecar

    bob
    Riding the Wet Coast

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    1. The 10-day forecast is for clear and sunny. I guess that may be a small benefits of not being near the ocean. Nut we don't get the cooling breezes either.

      Not much farkling here. I was asked to put in a seatbelt and that was ordered from Amazon last week.

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  4. The side car rigs are so different yet have so many similarities too.

    I envy your 'too warm' weather, but today is supposed to be the end of rain for a while so I shant complain.....yet.

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    1. The DMC sidecar on the R1200GS looks a lot like the Ural though it's made of fiberglass instead of metal. I was considering the same one for a while but it was a bit too expensive, especially as an "experiment" to see if I like having a sidecar.

      I shouldn't be complaining about the weather either. I had some errands to run this morning and it was really nice to get out and about.

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  5. MMM...the weather looks nice. Given we are already soaring into the 80's and the humidity isn't far behind. :)

    I like Sophi's car with the convertible style lid. Great way to travel.

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    1. Sophi's convertible was a pretty nice setup.She had plenty of room, USB charger, reading light and and really enjoyed travelling around in it.

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  6. You Alaskans seem pretty heat sensitive! :)

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    1. I guess that's how we ended up in Alaska…

      After growing up in southern Calif. I was really sick and tired of "hot" and even worse "hot and muggy"!

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