MZ Riders Club

South of Scotland Section

Page updated : 27/12/2005

Site designed by Mike

The Art of the Sidecar

(by Mike)

“Bloody dangerous contraptions, aren’t they?” - Perhaps, but only to the uninitiated. Sidecars, outfits, chariots, hacks, chairs, call them what you may. There hasn’t been such an interest in the ‘third way’ for many a year.  Must be something in the water.

Most folk wouldn’t be seen dead on one. “Well, it’s the worst of both worlds, ‘innit?” Neither as good as either a car or a bike. People who speak like this, I would argue, are missing the point. Yes, I will admit that they can’t beat solos through traffic and, yes again, they don’t stop you getting wet when it rains, and alright, perhaps you won’t get as many miles to the gallon, but they are a hell of a lot of FUN.

As a source of cheap family travel , the sidecar lost out to the family car. However, plenty of people use them as everyday transport, and very practical they are too. Try doing the weekly shopping on a Fireblade or a Ducati!

If you believe what you read or hear, then  no doubt you think that outfits aren’t fast, don’t handle, do 20 mpg, wear out tyres like Liz Taylor wears out husbands and are owned by deranged lunatics with a death wish and no sense of balance. Not true. Well, maybe except for the last bit.  Like them or (more usually) loathe them, I’m afraid that outfits simply won’t go away.

If set up properly you don’t have to be Tarzan to steer one and you don’t have to be geriatric or infirm to use one. Most people are usually put off three-wheels through having a quick shot on someone else’s, usually set up ‘just right’ for them. Or, even worse, being offered a quick shot in the chair by one of your “friends”. Who can resist when someone jumps eagerly into the chair saying, “Come on then, show me what it can do”. Oh the fun that can be had at these poor innocents’ expense. A couple of 360 spins then stick the chair wheel a couple of feet in the air as a finale. How they clamour to escape from this bizarre form of masochism. 

There is a definite, learnt,  knack to driving an outfit. And, yes, I do mean driving. It is extremely unadvised to leap aboard without at least talking to someone with some experience of piloting what may, at first, seem to be an untamed  animal. One of the major problems is thinking that, because you have all these years experience in riding bikes, you are eminently prepared to take to three wheels. The most dangerous period is when, after an initial sortie, you reach that most dangerous condition - thinking that you know it all. What was all the fuss about after all? Oh, are you about to be brought down to earth. I reached this point after about a week of ownership of my current beast. Nary a problem had been encountered until, at about 15 mph, I rode off the road, across some grass and ended up nose-first in a hedge. Thankfully it was quiet and there was no damage to either self or machine, except in the ego department. Damn, “bloody dangerous thing”.  Don’t be put off, persevere. It’s well worth the initial effort. Honest!

The facts are that large (and not so large) modern machines are ideally suited to having a chair attached. Smaller machines, including the humble MZ, rarely need much in the way of alteration. My ETZ has had the front sprocket reduced and I’ve beefed up the front suspension with heavier fork oil, stiffer springs and ten 2p coins. That’s it. Hardly major surgery.

Expensive, grippy tyres aren’t necessary. The rule of thumb is that, if it’s black and reasonably round, then it will do nicely. I use cheap or, more usually, second-hand tyres that I wouldn’t dream of putting on a solo and have worn out a number of Pneumants, a feat previously thought to be impossible. In fact, the last one on the front was so worn that the girlfriend one day asked what “that thing on the front wheel was?” It turned out to be a crack in the side-wall with a section of inner-tube poking through it. I patched it with duct tape and rode it home before changing it for another, equally, disreputable cast-off.

Fuel consumption does suffer. Here the outfit’s detractors have got it right. Just think of all that extra weight being hauled around. However, fuel consumption can be down to how daring the driver is. MZ’s do lend themselves to being thrashed, so fitting a chair will hardly change that. Worst I’ve seen is about 30 mpg, best is about 55 mpg. Many a solo MZ has similar numbers.

The stiffer frame of the Supa-5 makes it the ideal MZ to alter in this fashion, although getting a fitting kit for the chair is becoming increasingly difficult. Watsonian Squire, who used to manufacture a special chair which they called the ‘Mitzi’ and fitting-kit, stopped doing so many years ago. The most common version to be found revolves around an ETZ 250. I’ve seen a number of different chairs attached to one. I’ve not seen an ETZ 251outfit in the flesh, although I’ve seen pictures, but I have seen a TS 150 outfit. I bet that this was bloody slow. For some reason there aren’t that many outfits based around the MZ Rotax bikes. I would have thought that the attraction of all that extra muscle would have been attractive to charioteers. Strange. I know that that was why I acquired mine. Perhaps the most sought after outfit is an ES Trophy and Super-Elastik chair. Oddly beautiful, in a peculiar sort of way. Okay, lock me up right now. I admit it. I want one!

Once an outfit man, always an outfit man, it’s said. No sooner do you discover the amount of gear which can be carried that it becomes impossible to consider doing without. A full fairing, spotlights, trailers and all those other things that you used to despise Gold Wing owners for having. Sheer luxury, and all the wind in your face that you can take. Unless it gets a bit chilly and then you can duck back behind the screen and listen to old Barry Manilow on the stereo. Oh, alright then. 'Zombie Killer Death Thrash Metal'. You are meant to be a rufty-tufty biker type after all.

Winter rallies, ie. Dent, oh and the Dragon for all the softies out there, become less of a chore. Neither snow nor ice stand in the way of a serious charioteer. Whereas slippery road surfaces can mean a quick and impromptu trip to A&E, as well as some very expensive surgery to the all-enclosing plastic of modern  machines,  inclement weather holds no fear for the three-wheeled brethren. No falling off for them. Spinning, whirling, careering, yes. But no falling off. Nosirree! And remember to pack those extra thermals, that hot water bottle, duvet etc.

So there you have it. I won’t go into the actual mechanics of setting up an outfit or try to explain the intricacies of piloting one around, but by following a few simple do’s and don’ts it’s possible to have a whole new world of fun motorcycling:

Lots of 'don'ts', however. Don’t rush out and buy an outfit and expect to be able to ride off without some instruction. Don’t buy one at the other end of the country and try and ride it home. Don’t ride without some weight in the chair, at least initially. You can dispense with this later on when you’re comfortable with your new toy. Don’t ever shut off the power halfway around a left-hander (the measure of the man is holding the throttle open when every instinct says not to). Don’t think that after the first five minutes that you’ll never get the hang of this, we all felt like that once. It passes. Don’t get over-confident. It can take some time to get it right. Practise does make perfect. Well, nearly. Don’t believe anyone who says that outfits are inherently dangerous - they’re not. Don’t panic and try and jump off. Mmmm, if you need to be told this maybe you should be driving a nice sensible car, like a Volvo.

Also some 'do's'. Do start to learn on quiet streets or out in the sticks. Do chuck a bag of sand or large tool-kit in the chair to start off with. Do persevere, it is well worth it. Do have a go, even if you never get around to buying one of your own. It’s an experience that should not be passed up.

And remember. When others mock, speak it loud and speak it proud, “I’ve got an outfit and it’s a bloody good laugh, so there!”

The Federation of Sidecar Clubs
For those of you interested in life on three wheels.

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And now for an opposing point of view

John Higgon's Sidecar Misadventures

So Mike likes his new sidecar outfit. His name will go down in the alphabet of disasters between "Lemming" and "Nine Mile Island", for it is a well-known fact (amongst the sane, that is) that motorcycles and sidecars harbour a mutual dislike such that they will never co-operate with each other, let alone the rider/driver.

I speak from experience. My MZ ETZ 250 outfit was bought from Two Wheels in Edinburgh. I have no idea how they came to have it, but they were strangely keen to get rid of it. My guess is that it was abandoned outside the shop & wouldn't fit in a skip. The bike had an MOT and was in the 'dirty-but-serviceable' category. The nice man in Two Wheels was at pains to explain that once I took it on the Queen's highway, I was legally responsible for it & myself, so with his reassuring words ringing in my ears, I set forth down Peffermill Road. Oh what joy, as outfit cruised down the road as steady as a die. But oh what horror, when I came to navigate the first of three roundabouts. The bars shook violently from side to side, but this seemed to have little effect on the direction of the outfit, which seemed to be floating around in a fairly aimless way. At the next roundabout, the bike decided to take the first exit into Sainsbury's, so I got my first chance to try out the teeny weeny turning circle. Well, every cloud has a silver lining... Another roundabout, and this time I can coax the bike towards the correct exit, but am dismayed to find the bike determinedly moving into the wrong side of the road. The SS never had these problems in "The Great Escape", but that is movieland: Spock doesn't really have pointed ears, not in real life. How could they? A car has 2 wheels at the front which act in unison; bikes turn round by getting leaned over, in case you hadn't noticed. But the abominable sidecar blends the worst of both worlds - one wheels turns, whilst the other points doggedly forward. (In my case, the sidecar seemed to orientate itself to magnetic north, buy maybe that was my imagination.) This runt of the wheeled world doesn't stop at dodgy steering, though. It also combines the size of a car with the protection of a bike, which in my view isn't a good deal. Unencumbered bikes will nip past you, reminding you of those carefree early years when it was just you and the bike, with no third party to tie you down. Motorists will notice you, but will assume that your vehicle will magically make itself narrower to accommodate their overtake. They will have to overtake, too, because the chair will make a big difference to your acceleration, particularly if weighed down with ballast, as is so often required, apparently.

Then there's the toe-in, lean-out, etc., etc.. In the end, I threw the towel in, put it in the lean-to, & eventually persuaded a club member to take it off my hands.

So, Mike, call the sidecar exorcist and removed this evil influence from your life. If you don't, you'll get no sympathy from this reformed character when you want to change your rear tyre/check your oil pump setting/remove your swinging arm pivot but find your fibreglass friend in your way, with those inaccessible nuts and bolts now forever corroded into one fused lump.

If God had meant us to ride/drive outfits, He wouldn't have given us a sense of danger. And it's not just God & I who feel this way about outfits: I know for a fact that all right-minded bikers are deeply suspicious of those half-bike, half-boat contraptions. Not for nothing is Squire Sidecars an anagram of "Car is Queer, Sid?"