1967 Sidecars - 3-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article

Description: Yes we combine shipping for multiple purchases.Add multiple items to your cart and the combined shipping total will automatically be calculated. 1967 Sidecars - 3-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article Original, vintage magazine article. Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each pageCondition: Good The uses for sidecars presented in thisarticle will doubtless seem unusual or atleast be unfamiliar to American motor-cyclists for the most part. In the first item,Graham Forsdyke pays tribute to a manand his beloved machine. The author thengoes on to give us a brief glimpse of thespeedway outfit. Finally, he presents someinsight into the sport of sidecar trials.Forsdyke, an enthusiastic and active side-car buff, clearly illustrates that there isvirtually no motorcycle sport in whichsidecars are not used with the same seri-ous approach afforded their solo counter-parts.For Want ofThe fastest three-wheeler in Britainis soon to be pensioned off and willspend the remainder of its life in a mu-seum, for the owner cannot afford to gofor the records he is sure the machinecould beat.Years of development have been put in-to building the l,123cc Vincent-engineddragster by its owner/rider, one-leggedMaurice Brierly. He has taken recordswith the fantastic supercharged machinewhich he calls Methamon, being a combi-nation of “Methanol” and “Monster.” buta Nail . . .has risked bankrupting himself to do so.This year he planned to take the tire-burning beast to the Carrigrohane Roadin Cork, Ireland, where he was to go forworld standing and flying-start records.But his sponsor, an oil company, back-ed out and Maurice just couldn’t affordto go it alone. So depressed is he withthe whole business that he has given upand the machine, which has hardly everbeen beaten at a sprint. The machine willgo to Beaulieu Motor Museum to rest be-side other record breakers.■No Left TurnSpeedway racing, on one-eighth-mi ledirt ovals was going through a prettylean period in Britain until Harry Den-ton turned up at Southampton from South-ern Australia with a quartet of the mostfantastic machines ever seen in England.Sidecars are fairly commonplace in theBritish Isles, but no one had seen any-thing quite as breathtaking as Denton’smethanol burning behemoths. They wouldnot even stand up with the front wheelpointing forward!Denton announced his intention ofbarnstorming around the British tracks,and with three English riders, includingthe author, started setting the circuitsalight. The fans loved it, and no wonder!The l,000cc Vincent machines are setup at a fantastic angle with the sidecar(Continued on following page)The author at speed on the big Vincent.wheel at a full 45 degrees out of true.Righthanders were a piece of cake, thestraights between the comers were a littlehairy, and no one dared to even think ofgoing around a left-hand bend.Riding the beast was a work of art.The straights were taken with the sidecarwheel high in the air. Well before thecomers the driver had to throw the ma-chine into a vicious slide, moving up tothe front of the bike on a special pad.With the passenger over the rear wheel,the bike could be steered around the bendin one long slide, with full opposite lockThe passenger has his work cut out avoiding the wheel which takes up most of theroom in the sidecar.Only with the front wheel on full left-hand lock would the Vincent machines stand up-right.applied to the bars.The sidecar cut the tracks to smallpieces, and made a few dents in the safe-ty fences as well. But the word wentround, bringing the fans back to thetracks.When Denton returned to Australia hetook his four Vincents with him, but hemight be back next year to give Britaina further taste of the blood-and-thundersport. This time he plans to give the pro-moters a little more warning ... so thatthey’ll be able to lay in a good supply ofsafety fence spares.■Skillful MadnessAlthough sidecar trials have been go-ing on in Britain from the very earli-est days of motorcycle sport, it is onlyduring the last few years that the side-hack brigade has become a real forcerather than poor second cousins to thesolo riders.Few people who do not take part inthe sport can have the faintest idea why asolo rider will pay up to $850 for a ma-chine and spend one day a week gettingit filthy, scratched and bent — possiblysuffering the same fate himself.Sidecar riders are even less rational.They take the same solo and weld on tothe side a contraption which, if originallyintended to destroy any semblance ofsteering, rob the cycle of power and pro-vide discomfort for two instead of one.could not have been better designed.About a dozen such sidecar trials takeplace in Britain each weekend, and eachattracts up to 40 competitors. The eventsare run on the same lines as solo trials,with riders endeavoring to get the two-track contraptions through hazards con-sisting of mud, gradient, trees, rocks orany combination of the four, withoutstopping or putting their feet to theground.A strict set of rules laid down by theAuto-Cycle Union limits the dimensionsof the sidecar and ensures that it looks alittle like the normal passenger-carryingvariety.A trial usually lasts about three or fourhours, covers about 30 miles and has any-thing up to 50 sections. Because a sidecarwill balance at slow speeds obviouslymore easily than a solo, most sectionsput a premium on engine power and over-all light weight. Favorite hazards amongorganizers and competitors are flat-outblinds up hills or through deep, deep mud,of which there is plenty in Britain.Marks are lost as follows: five for stop-ping in a section, three for pushing one’sway through with the feet, and one for aquick steadying prod with a foot. Sometrials organizers also penalize riders 10marks if they cannot summon up enoughcourage to at least try a section. The manwith the least marks lost comes out thewinner.The most successful machines in useare single-cylinder four strokes. Ariel mod-els are the most popular as they can betuned for high engine rpm without losingbottom-end power. The narrowness of thecrankcase on this particular model enablesit to plow easily through mud with littledrag for the engine to work against.Gold Star BSAs and Matchless enginesare also in use, either housed in theirown frames of those built specially for thejob. Sidecars are made from thin gaugetubular steel with alloy sheeting. Thenoses, the dimensions of which are laiddown in the rules, are usually made fromalloy, although the author prefers fiber-glass and another rider has experimented— not very successfully — with polythene.Two-strokes and twins are not in gen-eral use, as both tend to dig holes in mudrather than find the necessary grip.Sidecar trials have been called the mostdangerous of all motorcycle sports, andwhile this is, perhaps, an exaggeration,things are certainly getting more hectic.With improvements in suspension andengine power, the old sections whichcould defeat most of the riders a fewThe author testing a new Butler sidecar outfit. One of the few usinga 250cc two-stroke engine, it certainly was not short of power.With the passenger’s weightwheel has very little grip and,machine along with his foot.right out over the sidecar, the rearin this case, the driver is helping theyears ago are becoming child’s play, andorganizers are coming up with steeper andsteeper hills to test the competitors.The riders are answering this with moreengine power, and a do-or-die attackingsystem which either results in a cleanascent or a mess of broken machinery anda mass of scratches and bruises.So far no woman has seriously tried todrive one of these firebreathing outfits,but many do passenger — and do so sur-prisingly well.Being a passenger calls for light weight,so as not to rob the power of the engine,lightning reactions and the not-easily-ac-quired ability to judge how much weightshould be put over the sidecar wheel tokeep the machine on an even keel andhow much over the rear wheel for grip.The only American to really have a goat sidecar trials was Staff Sergeant GeorgeWoolfe, who got in the habit when on atour of duty in Britain. He took his out-fit back to the States with him and is nowtrying to get enough enthusiasts togetherto run these trials in the USA.■London rider Dave Taylor on a machine built by the author.Many sections involve feeding the outfit between tightly-packed trees where the emphasis is on precise steering. 16101

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End Time: 2024-10-06T13:01:42.000Z

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