Sidecar to France – Easter 2009

By Phillip Jackson

As a teacher, my year revolves around when the next holiday is and in this case it was the two-week Easter break. I’ve been on several big summer trips around Europe before but this was always one-up with friends on solo bikes. In the summer I wanted to do a big bike trip with my girlfriend but there’s no way I could fit a pillion and all her luggage too. I know other people manage it, but they must use hotels and take reliable bikes that don’t need spares! I’d thought about sidecars before, but didn’t know anyone who had one or have any idea where to start. Then an ebay fuelled idea struck, could I buy a sidecar, attach it to my bike and be ready for a trial run by the Easter break? Several beers later and yes I could (well I had the Dutch courage anyway).

Trawling the internet revealed all kinds of interesting and crazy contraptions, but the main mass produced examples that stuck out were the Ural and Velorex sidecars. Bearing in mind that I was going to attach this chair to a 400cc bike and taking cost into account I opted for the Czech solution. £275 on ebay secured a niceish 1981 example in grey, all the fittings and canopy, with only the screen missing. Borrowing the school bus to “pick up a parcel” I drove to pick up the item from an old boy whose garage had the heady scent of steam engines and housed some well cared for Brit Iron. He annoyingly told me how he’d bought the sidecar for £50 after seeing it in half buried in a bush in someone’s garden! At the time I thought I’d paid over the odds, but in retrospect I think it was a fair price – sidecars seem to fetch more than you’d expect.

The bike I had was a 1992 Honda CB400 Super Four, a grey import water-cooled 4-cylinder Japanese market bike that’s a bit like a Suzuki Bandit. Although it had become my spare bike after I’d bought a GPZ900, it was in many ways my better bike. Full stainless steel exhaust system, chunky aluminium swing arm, faultless reliability, brilliant brakes, light weight, etc... why don’t UK market bikes also get all this as standard? The best feature was that it had a round section steel double cradle frame – just right for sidecar clamps. After getting the sidecar home, the next task was to figure out how to attach it – all the struts were there but the bike clamps were missing. While the black Hammerite dried I pondered a bodge solution; replacement clamps are available but far too expensive for my taste. The (my) rule of safe bodging is to use thicker, stronger, metal than the weakest bit of the manufactured parts – trusting that they know what they’re doing. Having now seen a few sheared British-made sidecar eye-bolts, I recommend a belts and braces approach too.

I decided to make my brackets from steel plate and exhaust clamps for ease of manufacture, cost, and reparability. A few people have commented negatively on them (may slip or crush the frame tubes) but two years and thousands of miles later I’ve had no problems. Reading on the internet suggested four mounting points as set out below to spread the forces and to give backup in case one strut/bracket fails on a ride.

The top of the Velorex struts are forked with a hole, so I had the idea of cutting squares of metal plate of the correct thickness to fit in the fork, drilling the plate to take a bolt (through the top of the strut fork) and then using two M8 exhaust clamps per plate to hold it to the frame. Looking around car shops I found there are fine and coarse thread clamps, the coarse ones seem to be much stronger. I double nutted the exhaust clamps for extra strength and used nyloc nuts which have never budged.

Cutting through 15mm of steel plate with a hacksaw is a real chore, but character building! When all the clamps were complete and suitable bolts acquired from screwfix the next task was to align the beast. Received wisdom is that the sidecar should be toed in by about 1” over the length of the bike and that the bike should lean out a little, and also that the sidecar axle should be about 9” in front of the rear axle of the bike. I figured I’d just do it by eye and see what happened! Connecting all the clamps was a real fiddle, but luckily the exhaust clamps allowed me to rotate the brackets around the frame to get the arms to connect nicely. In future, for anyone setting up a Velorex I’d recommend doing the swan-neck first to set sidecar height, wheel lead and toe-in and then using the front upper strut to set lean out. The remaining struts can then be used to lock it in position. A patient helper makes the task much easier.

Finally, as test ride! So excited was I that I tried a shady potter around the cul-de-sac only to discover that turning left at anything above walking pace threw the sidecar frame up in the air. Maybe it needs a body and some ballast! With the body duly attached, 2 spare car batteries (thanks Matt!) in the boot, legalities sorted (thank you Carole Nash for shockingly adding the sidecar for free) it was time to learn how to ride it. There’s no point in explaining how to ride an outfit to experienced readers, suffice to say slow and calm is the fastest way forward and there were a couple of pant browning moments nevertheless. Ballast is like friends, the more the merrier! Initial test runs found the outfit pulling hard to the right, and adjustments using the Velorex single threaded arms were a real nuisance. A few hundred more miles of testing and confidence building followed and although an encouraging 90mph was revealed on the speedo after taking it to the red line in every gear, 60-70mph was more what the outfit wanted to do. Disappointingly the fuel consumption dropped to the low 30s, and a particularly long blast at 70+ had it down to 29mpg!

Easter arrived and Sanna and I squeezed our belongings into the fibreglass coffin, Sanna was definitely riding pillion! In luggage capacity terms it’s much better to fill the sidecar because you can’t fit that much on the pillion seat. My plan was to travel to La Rochelle and the Atlantic coast but one day into the trip a serious itinerary revision was required. We caught the late afternoon ferry to Calais and decided to see how far we could go before the night drew in. The late start, 1½ hours on the ferry and the 1 hour time difference conspired to force us to look for a camp site after only 30 miles.

Easter is out of season for camping in France and we found a nearly deserted static-caravan park willing to take us. There were almost no facilities but luckily we’d stocked up in the last town. Having travelled around Europe on just 2 panniers and a bag on the pillion perch I was amazed at how full the sidecar had become; our shopping had to be bungee netted on top of the tent and spare sidecar tyre (the Barum had disintegrated over the brief testing period). Even removing the seat base had been necessary to fit everything in, considering the extra road space it takes up, the canoe shape is not conducive to easy packing.

The next day we travelled a slightly less-unrespectable 70 odd miles to Bresles. The outfit was proving perfect for bimbling through the country lanes of Nord Pas De Calais even if progress was slow. By chance we stumbled across a British WW1 cemetery in the Somme region. Although I kind of knew about these giant testaments to bravery and folly, it was a shock to see one close up. I would be surprised a few more times on this trip and left wondering how a curious teacher with an A in GCSE history and years spent in the education system could know so little about recent British history.

After spending some time reading the various panels and respectfully walking around the immaculately tended gardens we headed off through more country lanes. Spying a tower in the distance I decided to head for it and as we went deeper into the countryside we passed through bits of woodland that are still scared with craters from nearly 100 years ago. Some of the craters are so huge they need to be seen to be believed. I never understood as a child how soldiers could just be missing in action, but seeing the carnage rent to tonnes of rock and earth it now makes sickeningly perfect sense. As we came closer the tower turned out in fact to be two, part of the giant Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge.

The beautiful memorial is inscribed with the names of countless thousands of soldiers dead and missing. It’s an amazing sight, at an incomprehensible cost. I hope that as well as inspiring amazement and thanks for what others have given, so that we can mess about on jolly bike holidays, these memorials will remind all of us just why war should be avoided in the future.

Evening found us at a nice municipal camp site run by a friendly Frenchman and his Dutch wife. The picnic tables, toilets and atmosphere were so improved from the previous night that we decided to stay for two nights. Bresles is a nice small country town with many florists and strange shop opening hours. After enjoying a couple of drinks in the local pub (they only understood my ‘vin rouge si vous plait’ at the 6^th attempt!) we were joined by an elderly man who told us that unlike the rest of the bar, he liked the English because he remembered them liberating his village as a boy (no-one seemed to have twigged yet on the trip that Sanna is indeed not English, but Finnish!). My poor French seemed to improve with alcohol and after sorting out the old boy with a large glass of port we headed back to the campsite. Restroom facilities at the bar were typically continental!

Heading back we noticed a flickering light; local youths had just set fire to the wheelie bins outside someone’s house! I managed to flag down a indifferent local and ask for assistance in calling the pompiers as the flames were now 2 metres high and licking the side of the building.

The next day we opted to explore the local area and I tried my hand at a bit of soft-roading. Sanna’s choice of nylon trousers and a seat repaired with shiny gaffer tape meant on one sharpish corner she flew onto the chair (and into a rage)! Impressed with the outfit’s stability and go-anywhere nature we more-gently explored some dirt roads before I had the idea of trying to teach Sanna how to ride a bike. On a deserted road with no traffic to worry about, and a third wheel to keep balance Sanna picked up the gears and clutch really quickly.

The next day we left Oise and headed to Aisne region without a real plan, just stopping when things caught our interest. The small villages in France seemed to be littered with interesting old buildings and abandoned medieval monasteries that you can just go up to and explore without gates, fences and toll booths. One interesting structure covered where a small stream was used to fill a watering trough and presumably provide drinking water in past times.

That evening we sought more salubrious accommodation and after circling the town a few times trying to follow the vague signage we ended up at a pension and restaurant called La Tourbiere. What a find, the staff were great, the beer cold, the wine cheap and the chef even agreed to ‘knock-up’ delicious plates of steak and chips when we returned from our brief tour of the town (trying to find another restaurant only to discover that everything had shut by 7pm).

It would appear that France shuts down for Easter and this was to prove a real nuisance for secular adventurers, although I’m sure it’s a bonus for families. During the evening a few more customers came and also left by the unlit back door! Unless you are a local I have no idea how you would find these places, but many businesses seem to work this way in Europe, perhaps we are spoiled by flashing neon in the UK?

Sunday morning and I realised that Easter really is taken seriously in France, it was like the twilight zone, everything was closed, even the small petrol stations in the countryside. Luckily I’d brought a 10L gerry-can and we made the decision to make a break for the Belgian border. About 80 quiet, almost desolate, miles later, running low on fuel, and having crossed the Ardennes (by tarmac!) we crossed the border to find the shops open, tourists out and about and an almost party atmosphere compared to France. Almost immediately we came upon a restaurant by the river which seemed the perfect place for refuelling ourselves and checking the tread on the tyres.

The food was great but the tyres were a little more worrying. In the UK the outfit had still been pulling a little to the right even loaded and two-up. In France with the adverse camber and particularly on the anti-clockwise roundabouts I’d been struggling with left turns. The wear pattern revealed that something was definitely wrong. After less than 1000 miles the sidecar tyre was dying a quick and lopsided death.

Perhaps the skinny nature of the 3.5” tyre compared to the 110mm and 140mm tyres on the bike was the problem – it later transpired that my setting-up still left a lot to be desired! I had a brief flirtation with adjusting the linkages, but after I skinned my knuckles using a large adjustable spanner, I decided to leave it in case I made things worse. Instead I decided to turn the tyre around to share out the wear! With the tyre being small and a tubed type, using the gerry-can as a jack and with judicious application of wash & go shampoo to the bead, it was all done in less than 30 mins! The evening was spent in a smoky sport obsessed bar which served great Belgian beer on tap, tasty hot chocolate before bed, but only vile sausage things by way of snacks.

Easter Monday we decided to make a big push back towards the UK as time was running out, but opted to stay on the Belgian side of the border! Crossing through a finger of the French Ardennes that pokes into Belgium confirmed we’d made the right decision. As soon as we crossed the almost invisible line that marks the border we were greeted by silence, only to find the world busy and open as we crossed back again into Belgium. To make up some time we took to the A roads, but keeping 65-70 mph against the wind, two up, with a loaded chair and with the pull to the right was a draining effort. After a stop for a chocolate and croissant fuelled lunch in the appropriately named Philippeville we motored on to a place called Ieper.

After nearly 100 miles today we were ready for a rest and followed the first signs to a nice campsite called Jeugdstadion (www.jeugdstadion.be) where you get a swipe card that allows you to come and go from the locked site as you please (and the use of more familiar type facilities). There were a couple of friendly British chaps there on Goldwings, another travelling solo on a big BMW GS and a friendly pet rabbit that had apparently been dumped in the woods a couple of years before!

As we paid, the attendant asked if we were going to see the buglers play the Last Post at the Menin Gate. Uh? This was to be my second shame of the trip. Every day at 8pm buglers from the local fire department play the Last Post under the ‘gate’. The ‘gate’ is actually a huge structure built to commemorate nearly 60,000 British & Commonwealth troops missing in action from battles in the Ieper Salient (or in French, Ypres). It’s so big that a road passes through it (although traffic is stopped at 8pm) and even then it was too small to fit another 30,000 names of the fallen missing. How I couldn’t know about this really shocked me and I wonder how many others aged 30 and under have no idea.

After the moving ceremony we investigated the rest of the town and I optimistically ordered a rack of ribs from the cheapest place we could find, it was bigger than my head, never mind my stomach!

In the morning we made a push for Dunkerque and home. Although the sidecar tyre was now barely legal after only 1500 miles, the concept had proved itself if I could iron out the alignment niggles. Ferry food was the usual bankrupting affair but I did manage to cheer myself by strategically loading the pasta & salad bowl like a skip, using vertical carrot sticks around the edges so I cold pile more in! As we approached the famous white cliffs I realised it was all over and work would soon again beckon.

Having always over-planned and only travelled on big bikes in the past, I realised that if a small bike can take two people and all their luggage in (relative) comfort on a lovely adventure, then the only obstacles in the way of bigger things are my perceptions of what’s possible. Oh, and proper alignment of the sidecar! Roll on summer and Milan via the Alps!