It is smooth on the straight-away, where it counts but takes practice. It weaves a bit on its own and has to be hauled around corners. The leather is original and it has the WWII air pump in the back, in perfect working condition. Thus, this is a hybrid. A Russian sidecar with a Honda motorcycle. It eats four times as much gas as the scooter, but it is so nice to sail along the open road at 65, the miles disappearing behind.Most people have never drove or ridden a sidecar. Every right turn gives the impression of the chair lifting, but it isn’t. The Honda gearbox grinds and clunks like it ever did. The gears are one down and four up, causing that characteristic toe-tapping maneuver at stoplights. The drive is “heavy”, although it tracks nice you must apply more than a constant slight pressure to keep it there.
The chair has momentum, both speeding up and slowing down must be learned, as it is not the normal motorcycle experience. The photo today is when I stopped to lower the passenger windscreen. I could tell the difference after the twenty miles it took me to get used to driving, the slipstream is stronger than expected. The Honda disk brake design is considerably better than the Chinese scooter copy. Give me another week to polish my driving, it still wobbles and bounces in unfamiliar patterns that must be compensated for.
This is the older 1,000 cc model, with carburetors instead of injectors. It has no reverse gear but is easier to roll back than the scooter which weighs a third as much. The front mounted radiator pours heat back over the cycle body. The on-rushing air is keeps you cool enough. The sidecar had all the original Russian leather (easy to tell because it is tacked, not stapled, per the guy selling it) and the original air pump in the trunk is still in working condition. The unit is a chick magnet and a crowd-pleaser on the freeway.
Check in tomorrow, for despite an easy day, regular coffee stops, and decent traffic, I am exhausted and need eight hours. It was 217 miles each way to Sarasota and we did not stop to sightsee. Once again, on the outbound leg, that totally confusing intersection with one tiny sign sent us into Weston, where all the intersections have been posted with no U-turn signs. That’s around the fourth time for me. For clarity, if you are in any but the far right lane, it is easy to get trapped into a wrong turn into a nothing town and waste ten minutes getting back on to Alligator Alley.
And stay away from the Exit 49 gas stop. It’s a monopoly for 50 miles in both directions on reservation land and the prices have gone sky-high. The quality is okay, but not at twice the expected price tag. I’m just saying the tradition of stopping there on purpose has changed as of now. Agt. M and I made the trip, it turns out he has never been through any of those areas. This is not unusual in Florida. Even JP had never seen the Everglades until I showed up here.
If it wasn’t so far away, I’d live on the Gulf side. It’s more civilized and more laid back. The sidecar brings Naples and area back into my weekend picture. I’m at odds whether to transfer my plates or get a second $200 registration for the new unit, which I can see is going to be unwieldy for local trips. Technically, I can afford both. (I’ve been let down before by two broken vehicles so many times, which is far less fun than you think. The second registration will prove a bargain if the Honda ever craters on me.)
