How do you fit 2 people + 1 dog on a Bandit ?

Hope Nathan doesn't mind me publishing this, however I've been asked a couple of times about the history of the sidecar on my Bandit, and not having officially introduced myself......

ohmyfj55 wrote:Hi Barry,

Was just browsing the galleries and checked out the sidecar conversion.

That is great. where abouts did you get the conversion done. And that front end looks like a great engineering feat. Is that running a slightly wider front tyre??

Regards,
nathan

Hi Nathan,

Thanks for the compliments, I can't take much credit other than the decision to purchase the rig, and in a roundabout way, the Bandit was the last part of the process.


The story goes something like this, we're getting towards retiring age and we have just decided to get our dream dog - an Old English Mastiff. We would really love to do some bike touring but take little Leroy with us, we looked at sidecars and found a builder, Sean Kelly who runs SRK Sidecars is a couple of hours up the road at Bathurst. We spoke to Sean about what would be the best combination for a particular style (Premier model) sidecar, Sean mentioned some different bikes in the >1000cc range including the 1250 Bandit. He also mentioned they were doing up a shop show rig. We called over to Bathurst before xmas (actually on the way to Orange to pick up Leroy), he had the frame finished and the body had just been delivered, we fell in love with it and put a deposit down. A little more building had to be completed and we picked it up on the Australia Day weekend. Sean has a fantastic Web Site and shows the construction of his rigs at various stages - (our rig is the third project down on the link).

The front end as you have noticed is completely changed over to a Leading Link setup.

With the different dynamics of turning you actually steer instead of leaning, this placers a lot of additional forces on the normal front forks and is quite difficult if the bike is left standard. With the Leading Link the front wheel is actually place forward of the normal axis and the suspension is also totally changed in this case to coil overs as well as the brake caliper placement.

The front tyre is standard, however the rear is a "standard" 205 45/17 car tyre - again because of the different cornering dynamics.


If you're anywhere in NSW (or even further afar) and wanting any type of sidecar I can't recommend Sean highly enough. He also mentioned that the Bandit has been one of his best conversions, so much so that you'll see on his project page he has decided to get another one for himself but with a Griffin body for the rig, I'm looking forward to seeing who it turns out.

I have added the black tinted Powerbronze windshield and headlight protector as well as Healtech Speedohealer (to recalibrate because of Suzuki's 6% out of tollerance and the different size rear wheel) and their GIPRO with ATRE for it's gear indicator as I'm still a little bit of a novice in working out what gear I'm in.


The Speedohealer will also come in handy if I ever decide to change front or rear cogs.

I'm also in the process of adding a sports racing seat to the sidecar, the existing seat is good, however the Premier is what is know as a 1 1/2 wide unit, this means you do slide laterally a bit, the Monza seat will give better grip and support on long runs.



Hope this didn't bore you too much, as like most bike riders I suppose we do get carried away somewhat,

Cheers

Barry

PS The way Leroy is growing, looks like he will be too big to fit into the sidecar, now I'm thinking of getting a trailer.....

Quite right! One must proceed threw the correct channels.
welcome!

Well when Cam started this forum I never expected to see a Bandit with a sidecar....
That's a cool dog, he's going to be huge!

I will officially welcome you....so welcome.
Like i said before, it reckon its cool.

Very cool mate, my miss's likes it & i know my dog would too

Hi Barry, great name. Wonderful bike, really love the headlight protector. I noticed your speedo is in MPH, is that a side effect of the speedo healer ?

Welcome to the site, hope to catch up with soon and see that great machinery in person.

Baz wrote:Hi Barry, great name. Wonderful bike, really love the headlight protector. I noticed your speedo is in MPH, is that a side effect of the speedo healer ?

Welcome to the site, hope to catch up with soon and see that great machinery in person.

Hi Baz - I cheated a little, the original posting was a picture from Healtech's site. I have used the (supplied) velcro strips to attached Gear Indicator to the right side of the brake fluid reservoir.



However you can switch between KPH and MPH if you want. You can also retrieving max speed by simply wiring up the supplied switch. If you look between the GIpro and the brake reservoir you can see where I've temporary placed this button, it is actually red, this picture was shot at night so the flash is a little too bright.



Disclaimer - the calibration of the speedo healer was still underway, I did not really go above the speed limit, that would be quiet improper....

Barry

barry_mcki wrote:I did not really go above the speed limit, that would be quiet improper....

What kind of a reason do you call that :-)



welcome to the forum mate.

Was checking out the gallery and thought your side car rig was bloody oarsum.
now i know a bit more about it which is cooler still.
will be gr8 to hear about some of the trips you and the family do in it.
i recon with a trailer it'd make a fun "grey nomad" machine. certainly something very different to the norm