3 Wheeling
On the road again… 3 Wheeling
Our journey towards 3 wheels for 3 began in 2020.
In fact, it started in our heads much earlier, I always had the possibility in mind for when the family grew up! I’ve always had a soft spot for this kind of machines.
When Emma was born, we thought about buying the sidecar when she would be around 2-3 years old. Before then, the muscles in the neck aren’t strong enough to support the weight of a motorbike helmet.
At the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, Juan, who is in charge of internet searches, started looking for sidecars in Ireland (North and South). There is a lot more second-hand market in France, but they don’t suit us because here the sidecar has to be on the left-hand side. We had previously contacted Dutch manufacturer EZS, who offered sidecars for both left and right sides, but we had to rule out the option of buying a sidecar new, as it wasn’t in our budget!
Juan found one, from EZS/Watsonian, but mounted on a Harley. And Harley is not my cup of tea… So he kept on looking… And a few months later, this sidecar was still for sale, but the bike had been sold separately. This was our chance! Juan contacted the seller and within 2 days the deal was done (we couldn’t travel because of restrictions so we couldn’t go and see it beforehand) and a few days later the sidecar arrived…
From then on, we had to be patient, very patient. Because life had other priorities and we had to wait for things to improve before going ahead with the project.
So finally, in September 2022, Juan found on the internet THE bike that matched what we wanted to attach to the sidecar: an XJR 1300. He called the seller, we drove to South Dublin and closed the deal. The bike was insured and the 5 of us were on our way home (Juan, the bike, Emma, me and the car). In the pouring rain the whole way.
So we now had in the garage:
-a sidecar on a pallet
-a motorbike
-some spare parts (a tyre, a rear-view mirror, a footrest…)
We contacted Watsonian in the UK, as we thought the side had originally come from them. They could attach the side to our bike.
So I looked for and found a transport company who would take the side on a pallet and the bike from our house to Watsonian, in a van. Of course, we had to go through a customs agent, thanks to Brexit…
The sidecar and bike were kept warm until all the components were ready for assembly, including the fork, as a modified one was made for better manoeuvrability.
Finally, it was ready, and I had to find a transport company for the return journey, a car carrier this time, as it was too wide for a van!
Here it comes, along with the rain… (rain that was to last all summer, by the way!).
Our long-awaited sidecar is back. A superb professional job!
But it’s not over yet! We had to finish the customs paperwork, then get the new logbook for the motorbike, which was now a motorbike + sidecar.
Well, that took us the whole of July and half of August (and a number of emails!).
When we got back from our holidays (with the car…), we were pleasantly surprised to find the new vehicle logbook in the letterbox!
All we had to do was pay the insurance, which took us a good week longer, as our insurer here since 2015 takes a week to open the emails. So after switching insurers, we were ready on Saturday morning for our first test drive.
The first attempt was of about 1.6km, and we gave up… waiting for some training and recommendations gathered online before persevering.
We’d been told that riding a sidecar was different from riding a motorbike… and that it was better to take a training course, but there isn’t one in Ireland. So we looked online for official advice.
So you need to know that:
1- the sidecar is unstable: it’s normal for it to move
2- When you brake, the sidecar moves to the right: this is normal.
3- When you accelerate, the sidecar moves to the left: this is normal.
Armed with this basic but extremely useful information, Juan decided to do his self-training alone on the bike and with nobody in the sidecar, for our own safety LOL.
He started by going back and forth through the village, which has 2 bends and a nice straight stretch and a big car park to turn around. After a number of passes and a neighbour coming out of her house with her fist in the air (the exhaust was not original, so it made a lot of noise… we’ve since changed it for the original one, which is much quieter for the neighbours, the rider and the sidecar passengers)… he decided to continue on his way out of the village. We followed him in the car. First on a small road with no traffic and a dead end. Back on the road leading into the village. To get out of the village we had no choice, there were bends, one or two of them quite sharp, and to the left! So we set off on a short loop that includes a faster road (limited to 100km/h). To understand how it works and gain a bit of confidence.
For a week, Juan took the sidecar on longer and longer trips to get used to how it handles. When he gained confidence, the two of us got into the sidecar, and the 3 of us set off on a little sidecar tour! After a few short spins, we finally tried THE spin. All the way to Cork, to meet up with some biker friends and have them try out the sidecar as a passenger. Then off to Innishannon, just for some ice cream and a playground!
The second, slightly longer outing was to Lismore. A beautiful spin. The road wasn’t in very good condition at times, and the sidecar moved around quite a bit! Emma was happy, Juan was getting used to the driving (and there’s even a left hairpin bend, ideal for practising!). And in Lismore there’s also a playground!
We also took advantage of a few dry mornings to go for short spins with just the two of us (Juan practising his skills and me in the sidecar).
Taking advantage of the last few days of sunshine, we made another trip to meet up with friends in Courtmacsherry. On the way back, we stopped off at the brand-new playground in Bandon!
We also stopped off at a shopping centre car park, and I got to grips with the sidecar for the first time: accelerate, slow down, turn left, then right. Well, at low speeds and with no obstacles on the sides, everything was fine!
I picked it up again one morning in the village. I have trouble knowing where the sidecar wheel is, and I’m a bit scared on narrow roads (no white centre line to know where to position yourself) when a vehicle is coming the other way (especially a lorry or tractor). I went through the village several times to practise accelerating, braking, slowing down and turning. Without worrying about the neighbours’ ears this time!
Another morning, I drove (with Juan in the sidecar) to the next village and back.
On a Sunday morning that happened to be sunny, we improvised an outing to the service station where the bikers meet, then continued on to the Bandon playground, of course! On the way back we stopped in Blarney for a snack, then took the lovely back roads home (after stopping at a biker friend’s place on the way back).
We arrived pretty knackered, BUT it was the FIRST TIME in over 6 years that we’d had a ‘motorbike day’: in other words, we got on the bike, met up with other bikers and rode for miles with no predetermined destination, just to enjoy the spin. Well, now we’re adding a playground destination, and we’re lucky enough to have plenty of them!
Here we are, the sidecar was originally intended to enable us to resume our motorcycling outings. And that’s it! And here we are!
Another outing while the sun lasts to go again to Lismore and The Vee with 2 friends:
And a couple of Autumn short spins:
(Yes, Emma is able to read in the sidecar!)
We’ve still got quite a bit of miles to go to get comfortable on the bike. We’ll also be practising emergency situations in a closed car park. I need to keep practising on the road, so that I can use it too (just with Emma in the sidecar, Juan won’t fit with her). So if I drive, we’ll have to get the second bike too! For the moment, Emma prefers me to go with her in the sidecar. We all need to get used to it!
This is the first stage of our 3-wheelings dream, and we are looking forward to the next stages to come!
W’s!
Road Races
Our 2022 Season: road racing and more…
This post was originally written in November 2022. For lack of time I couldn’t prepare it and publish it before now. When I was writing it, I certainly couldn’t imagine that 3 months later we would be in that incredible situation on the Island of Ireland with all racing cancelled in the North and the same uncertainty in the South, because of crazy insurance premiums. Problems still to be solved.
I really hope from the bottom of my heart that we WILL have some racing in Ireland this year 2023. Fingers crossed and hoping to be able to go around the paddocks, have a chat with some riders and organisers, and watch the best racing in the world.
This year it is our 10th wedding anniversary, so also the anniversary of our honeymoon trip, which went through Armoy, our first road race, in 2013. Hope to be able to celebrate it there, watching the most thrilling racing in the world.
Our season started in March, when it was still cold and rainy, with the “Stephen Davison” show organised by the CMRVC in support of the Munster 100 Road Race. The show was brilliant as usual, with a great number of great riders including Peter Hickman, Jack Kennedy and Brian McCormack.
The following day was the “Cork Motorcycle Show“, which was a great success considering the circumstances. It was so good to be back into the Motorcycling world again and meet with other people sharing the same passion. We had great chats with Stephen Davison, Wallace and Gillian from RRI, Roger from FBOS, between others.
The racing season started for us in Tandragee. We had never been in Tandragee before, so this year we thought it was a good opportunity to discover it. And what better place than a road race to celebrate my birthday! As Emma was at school and Juan was working on the Friday, we left quite late and drove straight to county Armagh. We stayed at a B&B owned by a very friendly lady who made us feel at home straight away.
The Friday had been a nice sunny day, a good day for the Practice sessions after such a long winter. On the Saturday morning we woke up to the sound of the rain drops on the windows… not a good start. We had our breakfast and went to the track. We had a go around the paddock, it didn’t stop raining for a minute. We had our rain gear on, and the big umbrella. When they announced the first race, we went to the field just outside the paddock. The Classic bikes were starting. After some wait and several warmup laps, it finally got under way.
We realised that we had forgotten to take something to sit on, we used to have 2 folding chairs, but we didn’t think about it. So, Emma started to be tired, Juan took her on his shoulders, and then he got tired. After the race we went back to the paddock. We saw the first start of the second race, but after a while and some more wait, and a great chat with Andy Farrell, we decided to pack up and leave it for another day. Unfortunately for the organisers, rain did not stop in the whole day, and they had to cancel shortly after we left.
For us it was just good to be back in a road racing paddock, after such a long time, so we were happy despite the rain and all.
On the Sunday we had booked tickets for Armagh Observatory, not motorbikes related, but certainly a fantastic day out for the kids. We spent there a good few hours and only left because we were very hungry and needed some proper food. Emma loved it and we did too! Hopefully we will be able to go back to Tandragee in 2023, hopefully weather will be ok, and we will also go back to the Observatory! On our way down we stopped at Decathlon in Dublin and bought 3 folding chairs, so now we’re ready for the next race!
On the 10th of April, West Cork Motorcycle Club was holding their annual Drag race. At last Juan had been able to register and on the Saturday we all went down to Halfway for the scrutiny. All was good for his bike, unfortunately he had seen at the last minute that helmets must be max 5 years old, and despite having hardly used his, it was just over 5 years old. So that was it for his racing. On the Sunday we went to watch the racing for a short while (Emma was cold), only as spectators. We’ll try again next year!
Then it was a long wait until our next road race. On Saturday June 18th, we were leaving home not too early, dropped our suitcase at the B&B we had booked for the night; the same as last time we had been in Kells, years ago!, and we went to the track.
This time we were better prepared with our folding chairs. The practice was well under way when we arrived, we were at the same corner as the first time we went to Kells. The practice sessions finished quite soon after we had arrived, so we went to the paddock to have a walk around. Once again it was nice to see many familiar faces; we had a chat with Yvonne Montgomery, and after a while we went back to the B&B, had dinner, and went for a short walk to the lake shore, a beautiful place!
On Sunday morning we headed to the track early enough to be able to walk a little bit around the track looking for a good spot. But we finally went back to where we had been the previous day, and took a seat there, close to the village with possibility to buy food and drinks, and a safe place to watch.
The racing started early enough, it was a little bit chillier than the day before (and we were sitting in the shadow of a tree), but we could watch some good racing and take “a few pictures”.
Unfortunately racing came to an abrupt end after an incident further up the road. The rider, a very young man, Jack Oliver, unfortunately lost his life in the accident.
After a while, racing was cancelled, and everybody headed away. This was very sad, nothing was official yet, but we knew what had happened and the journey back home was a sad one. Rest in Peace Jack.
Over the summer, there was a full calendar of road races at sight. We tried to go to Skerries before leaving for our holidays but the prices of the hotels and B&Bs, if any room left, were just mental! So we had to forget about it for this year. For most of the summer we were visiting the family, so we missed the Irish road racing season.
On our way back to Ireland from France, we stopped in Le Mans, for an event called “The Big Car Show”. We booked one day visit on the Saturday and spent the whole day watching nice cars on display, walking around the different stands and what Emma liked most, the stunter Florian Bugs who was brilliant! Maybe she liked even more the Carrousel, as each session just never ended: 15 minutes going round and round and round (and we had bought 5 tickets!!!).
Then we were back home and back to the “routine”, so we didn’t want to miss West Cork MCC TwoHigs Hillclimb on the 18th of September. We left home not too late for a change, and we arrived in Clonakilty around 11am. We put our chairs not at the best spot, but not too far away from the start and watched bikes pass by. We were there for a couple of hours, had a chat with Stephen Davison, and finally headed back home after a while. This was brilliant as always.
But the season did not finish with the Hillclimb! We decided to give a go to the Dunlop Masters Superbike Championship in Mondello. We had thought of going earlier in the year but could not make it. So finally on the 25th of September, we headed to Mondello and arrived around 11am. We went to the grandstand that overlooks the first corner and you can also see other parts of the track. We took seat there and started watching racing and more racing. We were thrilled. We are quite close to the action unlike bigger tracks we used to go in the past, and the atmosphere is very similar to road racing – well, many riders are the same ones, so similar paddock and teams!
It was also our first time watching sidecar racing (well, we did see some in Czech Republic but most sidecars were quite old, although not less impressive!), we were hooked! I just loved them, and Emma too!
After a few hours watching racing, we went for a walk around the paddock and before the last Supersport race, as it was already 4pm and we had to drive back home, we reluctantly decided leave. Emma wanted “to watch more racing”. We will definitely be back to Mondello, we had a great day there, great facilities and great racing with great atmosphere!
Our next and last outing of the season won’t be for racing, but we will hopefully be at the Annual CorkToy Run on December the 4th.
And fingers crossed for a full 2023 season!
