Sidetracked, er...

Sidecar!

As I mentioned a couple months ago, I received an Xtracycle Sidecar to fit my Big Dummy as a birthday gift. 

Since my typical loads either fit in the Big Dummy's bags easily, or are big enough to require that I use the Bikes at Work trailer, I haven't really done any testing on the sidecar.

Until today.

We were low on cat food and cat litter, and completely out of bird food, so a trip to Feeder's Supply was on the schedule for today. As the intended purchases are all fairly dense bags, the sidecar got attached for this trip.

My route to and from the nearest Feeder's Supply involves the Shelbyville Road/Watterson Distressway interchange. Having ridden through this interchange for over a dozen years, I am quite accustomed to its quirks. More on why the intersection matters in a bit, however.

I rode to the store with the sidecar stowed, made my purchases, loaded the bike, adjusted the load a bit, and played in the parking lot for a while. I wanted to see how the bike felt with this load before moving in traffic. Several months ago, I hauled a similar load without the sidecar, so I compared my mental notes on that experience to the current one (the prior load was far more top-heavy, so the bike was a bit squirrelly, but still manageable). While I didn't think it would offer any race-bike cornering, I found it acceptable (backstop option was to reload as I had done before, as that was a known quantity).

Onward to home I rode. Yes, the handling was a bit different than what I have been accustomed to, but it was quite manageable. I had a brief moment of concern when I first got on the bike, but realized that I was trying to move the rear bike tire and the sidecar tire in relation to one-another. They are two points on a triangle, the sidecar pivot being the third, rather than points on a parallelogram. 

The only problem I had on the way home was that as I was setting up to enter the aforementioned interchange, I got caught by a couple seconds at the light in front of Mall St Matthews. I was there long enough that I had a BIG platoon of motorists behind me--enough that I couldn't get to the left lane before the next light at the Watterson exit ramp. I negotiated with a couple of cooperative motorists who let me get across their paths so that I could make my left turn at New LaGrange Road. Once I turned onto Washburn, I found a place to pull over and address the cause of the noise I was hearing--the paper sunflower seed bag had moved over until it was getting rubbed by the sidecar tire, but not enough to damage things or lose seeds. I adjusted the placement of the bag and went on my way.

So, one might ask, how about that sidecar?

It does well for dense, low-center-of-gravity loads like the hundred or so pounds I was hauling on it. It takes some time to acclimate to the subtle differences in handling. It requires a bit of understanding of its characteristics, as they are different than just hauling the weight around in the bags or on the rear rack. I go back and forth on whether I like it or really like it, but I certainly don't dislike it.