Mini Sidecars/Buckets in the UK

[jibberwobble]

To avoid spamming up Pumba's thread I've done this one to shove all this in one place and not clutter existing threads.

Bit of vid here (it moves away from the corner at about 2.30) Whilton Mill

General run down and as I said before I'm not the worlds leading expert so what I say is purely an opinion and open to debate:

Dimensions

Maximum overall length (including bodywork) 1727mm
Maximum overall width (including bodywork) 1122mm
Maximum overall height (including bodywork) 616mm
Maximum wheelbase 1144mm
Maximum track 759mm

Engine Specifications

Single cylinder 2-stroke road derived petrol motorcycle or scooter engine with a maximum capacity of 86cc.Tuning allowed to a maximum of 26 bhp.

OR

Single cylinder 4-stroke road derived petrol motorcycle or scooter engine with a maximum capacity of 200cc. Tuning allowed to a maximum of 26 bhp.

OR

Single cylinder 2-stroke moto-cross engine to a maximum capacity of 85cc. (Maximum 26 bhp).
Tuning not permitted. Engine, gearbox, carburettor, ignition and induction system to remain as manufacturer's standard.
The use of aftermarket reeds (petals) is permitted.
Exhaust may be an after market type designed to fit your engine and must be readily available to any member of the public to buy.

OR

Single cylinder 4 stroke moto-cross engines to a maximum capacity of 150cc (Maximum 26bhp).
Tuning is not permitted. Engine, gearbox, camshaft, carburettor, ignition to remain as manufacturers standard. The use of high compression pistons is not permitted.
Exhaust may be an after-market type designed to fit your engine and must be readily available to any member of the public to buy.

Some random pictures but please note these are the more bling units. most of them are not this pretty.













I'll come back and add to this a bit later, I've got to head off to work now

[Rick 52]

Looks fantastic, thanks for the pics, the engine rules are interesting .

[BigAl]

I feel an infraction coming on......

[jibberwobble]

With the engines there are mixed opinions as always but they seem well matched in general which ever way you go. we've had road based tuned 2t's and 4t's hanging out with stock MX motors quite a bit along the way. I run a 200cc Zongshen (chinky) pushrod engine which is a honda CG copy. It has the least power out of our lot but our sled seems to be good in the corners now we've sorted the CoG so we managed a 3rd (out of 11 ithink) on the grid last time we raced. we are up against a few 2t MX motors, and a few CRF150 4t MX motors currently which are aroun 24hp where as our lump is rated @15/17hp or something like that. removing stock exhaust and air box makes a big difference though. I am looking at jollying our Zonger up a bit this year but have sacrificed the first 3 rounds in order to convert my bucket of shit into something a bit more reliable and sleek.

Out of t-break so will put more stuff up in a later

[jibberwobble]

I feel an infraction coming on......

Bloody hell what have I done already?

[BigAl]

Bloody hell what have I done already?

Na, Rick for quoting imbedded images.

Nice rigs though Jw, what are the participation levels like for chairs and minimotos over there?

[jibberwobble]

Strugling a bit with laying my hands on useful pics from here but here's a few -

No.1 son having a taxi ride



No.2 son .....



Up until now we've had two styles of outfit, the racing lawn mower type ones which are known as 'old school'. With these the passenger/swinger sits on the chair wheel arch much of time and exits in front of the wheel for lefts. The chair wheel being quite far back. The ones with full bodywork are known as new generation and have the chair wheel fully covered by the main fairing, passenger exits behind and up the side or over the top. Having issues finding something with left handers in shot though so bare with me.













In the vid in the first post I am passengering on the first one that comes round the corner (black n blue). I was standing in for a couple of rounds, before that I had a few try outs on this new gen outfit which is very small indeed. And the white outfit (vid) which is the last one to come round is my machine in the hands of it's previous headcase err owner.

[jibberwobble]

Na, Rick for quoting imbedded images.

Nice rigs though Jw, what are the participation levels like for chairs and minimotos over there?

Ah I see, hopefully he will have smacked his own bottom by now!

Something like 12 active crews on sidecars atm although 2 of us are still dragging along with overshot builds. MM's are not bad just now with 30-40 turning up at meetings across the classes. It's quite big on the kids front now, they move from A/C to W/C then up to mini GP and after that big bike 125's etc. We also have pit bike classes and what is currently being called moto team which are basically what would fall under the catagory of buckets in NZ.

Hang on for more pics of other bikes and chairs

[jibberwobble]

As you can see we all run kart wheels, rules state max wheel size of 6 inches. Most run regular 5 inch rims and plenty of good used tyres can be bought cheap on ebay or found free in the skip at most tracks. I will be running 6 inch rims now as an experiment this year, Stu (filf racing) has been on 6's for ages. Tamzines outfit here has 6's too. We all use kart running gear. No suspension aloud for us but not sure it be of much use TBH

















We have to have two seperate braking systems. Some use a foot brake like big chairs with a standard style front for the emergency.

[jibberwobble]

Most of the riders on the old school outfits just use the front brake alone to do all the stopping, the rear is on the same bar as the clutch so it is fairly useless but fills a gap in the rules! I was doing all my stopping like this last year and I must admit to my surprise at it's effectiveness. Llandow has a long straight with a hairpin at the end and when I stand on track at the point where I usually throw the anchor out from around 100k's and its shocking how short the stopping distance is.

Tamzines outfit is the only one with a chair wheel brake but is not currently being raced. The yellow new gen outfits use a foot brake linked to front and rear calipers. And once mine is done it'll have chair wheel brake and bias system on the foot pedal working all three.


And now Stuart is building what has become generation 3 which is a mini version of a full size F1









Having said all that, the most sucsessful rig of all is one of the old school ones but this is largly to do with the rider



Obviously some of these rigs are being put together by people who concentrate on just sidecars so you would expect a certain degree of adventurousness! (is that a word?)

[koba]

Interesting!

Thanks for sharing, certainly don't hesitate to post more.

It would be interesting to see how the 'long' bike goes, I would have thought the shorties the best bet.

[Pumba]

Loving the pictures. After my frame failed at its last outing I have been sketching some ideas out. Some good ideas in that lot

[jibberwobble]

Loving the pictures. After my frame failed at its last outing I have been sketching some ideas out. Some good ideas in that lot

Any particular areas you want to see different approaches on just shout and I'll see what I can find

[avgas]

fracking cool

[jibberwobble]

Interesting!

Thanks for sharing, certainly don't hesitate to post more.

It would be interesting to see how the 'long' bike goes, I would have thought the shorties the best bet.

I read the 'long bike' 'short bike' bit on Pumba's thread but forget how it works now. Is it the engine at the back, frame in the middle or both?

On mine the engine is at the front and the frame runs down one side of it and inside my left thigh so I straddle it.



Since I got mine I've been making efforts to get the weight further forward which is doing the trick nicely, on the rebuild this time round its going slightly further forward still and we have a heavy motor in there anyway. We do have bigger front tyre going in as well. At the end of a race the rear is warm but the front is bloody roasting. If I can get hold of the engine I'm after we'll be needing to move the CoG back a touch again.

Here's more of stu's (Filf Racing). My first thoughts on it were that the CoG was going to be too far aft but his thick filfy head is going to be well up front to avoid burning his fat filfy arse on the engine so maybe it'll work out ok???

This is pretty much all the pictures that he's put up of it so far.