My father, god love him, had always wanted to take flying lessons and at the age of 70 went in for his flight physical. He passed his flight physical with no real problems but neglected to mention the bypass surgery, minor stroke, and two major aneurysm repairs. Once it was explained to him that the FAA have no sense of humor about such things as lying on your physical forms, he decided on another bike instead. Now Dad rode for years when he was in the service but the Korean conflict ended many moons ago and physically he was not quite up to the same standards as days gone by. (Who among us is?) With a left leg that does not always work, balance can be a problem and having never had a broken hip and not wanting one now, it was decided that something with an extra wheel would be in order. Sounded simple enough to me but I have always been a glutton for punishment.

The first order of business was to figure out what the various options might be. There are several different trike kits available but the problem with trike kits is that they seem to only be available for the higher end bikes and the total cost can be a bit extreme. A trike dealer not far from me had an 883 Sportster with the lowest cost Lehman kit for the discounted price of $19,995 and a new Gold Wing for just slightly more than the national debt. (Flying is starting to look reasonable!) Trikes are out, side hacks are in. (I like the look of the hack better anyway.)

I started bike shopping by reading some of the reviews in the cycle magazines and every review that I read about cruisers on a budget had great things to say about the V-Star. (CycleTrader.com here I come.) I found a low mileage 650 V-Star within in driving distance and after contacting a friend at the Yamaha dealership was told that it sounded to be priced quite reasonably and was given a list of things to look at and look for. (Thank you to Mike at Ross Motorsports in Lufkin Texas.) Off to Houston I go with the trailer behind the Jeep to go buy a bike.

I do not know how many among you have ever looked up sidecars on the web but there are quite a number of options from numerous manufactures. I had no problem cutting the list of contenders down a bit by deciding that a classic style of cruising bike needed a classic look in the sidecar and not something that looked like it just came off of the front end of a retired Formula 1 racing car.

During a web search I ran across a link to a company called Texas Side Cars Inc. TEXAS!!!!! Did someone say Texas? After looking at the pages www.3wheels.com I knew at once that I had found what I was looking for. After a couple of e-mails and a phone call I loaded up and drove to Leonard Texas to look at hacks and bring one home. (I should have asked if they were in stock, live and learn.)

Upon arrival at the shop I got to meet Bob Darden and Deb Tajon, the owners and operators of Texas Sidecars Inc. When you hear the term Texas friendly from the tourism board they are talking about people like Bob and Deb. Bob showed me around and explained how the cars were built and how the install was done and clued me on what types of changes in riding to expect. He also told me that they did not have one in stock. (I hate it when that happens!) Back home, empty handed, with my enthusiasm dented but not destroyed, I await his call to let me know when he can have a car ready. I also need to set up a time to bring the bike to him for the installation as this was to be the first V-Star done and there were some unknowns regarding the bending of the mounting tubes and attachment points of the upper brackets. For the next week Dad jumps up like a kid at Christmas every time the phone rings hoping it is Bob with good news and the big call finally comes and the date is set for two weekends away.

I get everything loaded and ready to go on Friday night and get to bed early knowing that Saturday is going to be a long day with the drive both ways and the time to do the install. 2:00 am rolls around and the alarm blasts me out of bed (who's bright idea was this anyway) and to make matters worse my little Boston Terrier indicates her displeasure with the time by growling and baring her teeth at me. Into the Jeep and down the road I go with Dad already sound asleep in the passenger seat. 8:00 am sees me roll into the drive at Texas Sidecars where Bob is already setting up and waiting for me.

We roll the bike into the shop and get to work by mounting the lower brackets to the frame which is quite simple as everything is right out in the open and the frame clamps are designed to make this part of the operation quite simple. The top bracket on the front required a bit of modification due to the frame bracing, but Bob is ready for this with a band saw to cut the clamp in half and a welder right there to put in the piece to make the clamp a hair bit wider. In the back on the V-Star there is no frame tube to mount to so Bob drilled out the hole that was the front mount for the saddle bag bracket and bolted a stud through this to attach the rear clamp and welded two washers together with a nut on one of them and this then became the attachment for the saddle bag bracket. (Pretty slick if you ask me and he has a delightful selection of hardware on hand for just such things.)

Have I mentioned that Dad is now asleep in a chair next to a Kerosene heater in the corner of the shop? I think he gets it from his Boston Terrier "Brutus", except Dad does not sleep on his back with his feet up in the air, just in case someone might want to rub his tummy.

Attaching the frame of the car is rather straight forward and most of the rough set up Bob does by eye as far as the fore and aft alignment. The car frame sits on what looks like a furniture movers dolly and there is a piece of pipe welded to it for and aft and this is the attachment for the tubes that control the alignment regarding toe in. There are two more tubes with flex joints on them that attach to the trick frame clamps and these are used to adjust for level both fore and aft and side to side. It sounds complicated but I assure you that it is taking me almost as long to type about it as it did to do it. The only unknown was the pipe that connect the car frame to the front bracket on the top that had to be widened as Bob had not done a V-Star prior to this one so the length and radius of the bend was not known before hand. At this point I am sitting on the bike holding a couple of degrees of lean away from the car so that everything will come back to upright once the car settles on its suspension.

With everything level and the frame of the car in place it is time to do the rough toe-in adjustment. This is done by centering the tires on the bike on a line drawn on the floor and attaching an eight foot fluorescent light bulb to the wheel on the side car and taking measurements at both ends of the tube and shooting for about 3/4" of toe in. (Stop laughing, that is really how he does it and it works!) Tighten everything down and four bolts later the car body is on and it is time for a test ride. Bob asks me if I am going to play ballast and with no thought I hop in and off we go. Down the road about five miles to put gas in it (Why don't these things come with a gas gauge?) and check the ride. After topping off the tank Bob gets in the car and lets me drive him back to the shop. After a bit more toe in to compensate for a bit of a pull to the right it is time for some pictures and loading the bike back on the trailer. This is when we discovered that the bike with the car attached did not fit onto my trailer. (Stop laughing.) After pulling the foot board and shifter off of the bike it goes on, but just barely.

For those people wondering how the handling of the bike changes with the sidecar let me say that everything changes. You can feel the weight even though Texas Sidecars builds one of the lightest cars on the market. With the car properly adjusted for alignment the steering effort does not really change but you do have to get used to turning the bars instead of leaning into corners. Under hard acceleration the bike does tend to squat in the rear and if you are not paying attention it does want to turn around the car. One notch of preload on the shock for the bike and this is corrected but watch it if you are prone to Jack Rabbit starts. I had been warned that it would try to turn to the Left under hard braking as this model of car does not have its own brake but I have not noticed this personally.

Riding in the car itself is surprisingly comfortable and though you feel like your fanny is on the ground (it is) you feel quite secure. The wind screen does a wonderful job of keeping both the wind and the bugs off of the passenger and I have managed to light and smoke a cigarette going down the road. (I know that smoking is bad for me!) The room in the car is amazing. It measures six feet from front to back without the seat and at six feet tall I have enough room to stretch my legs out with room to spare when I am sitting in the seat. Put an extra piece of foam under the seat cover for padding but I must say that the adjustable coil over gas charged shock on the car suspension does a nice job of smoothing out the bumps and occasional pothole.

The fit of the parts and pieces on the unit itself is first rate and the fiberglass work is well done. The colors are either Black or White and the gel coat is free of defects but not a factory smooth finish as it is expected that most people will paint the car to match their bike so the time and effort is put into other areas of the unit and to keep the cost down.

Total cost? About $6,500 for the bike and the sidecar not counting my driving time. For anyone that has had surgery or suffers from some sort of physical limitation that would make two wheels less than comfortable, this is a great way to get your knees back in the breeze for less money total cost than most new cruising bikes.