audiomick

Pete, it seems we think alike. As far as I'm concerned, your attitude is exactly right.

Yes, very boring. Wouldn't want one of them at all. For sure. Really. Not jealous at all.

Yes. My Z900 did that, as did my GTR 1000 and the Honda CBX 650 E. The Suzuki GSX 1100 motor was particularly good at it.

Yes, they are very cool dogs.

A mate of mine in Australia had a blue heeler named Harry. The mate did eventually end up having a side car for a while, in fact the CB900 with the double chair that I mentioned further up. He bought it off the other mate and rode it for a while. That was after Harry, however. Harry used to ride on the Tank of the K100 RS. PS: blue heeler... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Cattle_Dog

Probably. To be fair to Holger, the thing is road-registered, but he built it for track days, so I reckon he can live with the low-speed heaviness. He also wrote somewhere that he can't sit (lie) on it for more than about 45 minutes at a time. It's a toy, and he likes it.

I can see. There is a Ford in the way. Can't you park that on the street or something? Seriously though, I hope you find a suitable buyer. And I'm as interested as @docc in knowing whether it will be the new Stelvio or the old one, and if the old one, which one?

Ahh. What popped up in my mind was "Verkehr" (traffic) and some kind of abbreviation of that.

I had a second look at those test reports. I assumed that it was two different bikes, but it seems it was two tests of the same bike. That makes it very interesting, because the numbers are different. So what had changed? The wheel diameters (Durchmesser) are different. Going by the dates on the report, I could imagine that the bike had got a new front tyre, but was still on the same rear. That would explain the front being a couple of mm bigger, but the rear a few smaller. The trail in the second report is marginally shorter, the wheelbase about 5 mm shorter. Maybe the forks got pushed a bit higher through the triple-clamps? I can't really imagine what might have caused the changes in the numbers in the last section, unless through pushing the forks up a bit they got a little out of line (one slightly higher than the other...), causing a bit of a twist between the front and rear wheel. And an interesting question is why the bike was tested twice within less than a year? That sort of test generally is not for free, and would not normally be made without a reason.

Sorry, don't get that. As far as the photos go, yes, not enough light. Most of them are in focus (more or less) somewhere in the picture, but not for the whole bike. Too little light = small f-stop number/ large iris opening = poor depth of field. Taking "art" photos matches the light-hearted text, but yeah, he could have done better.

Quite a few members of the German forum keep a sidecar for the winter. Favourite choice seems to be a Ural, with which the concerns about the frame not holding up to it are a non-issue because they are built as a sidecar. On a completely different note, one that I haven't seen other than on photos but would like to, and would like to ride: It was built by the bloke in the second picture, a fellow administrator of the German forum that I am active in. To put it into perspective, Holger is about 5'4" tall. The motor is from an 1100 California, with a Doc Jensen cam and a bit of tweaking. The really impressive bit: at first glance, or on the photos, you don't notice any lights apart from the headlight, but the thing is road-legal and registered. That, in Germany, is quite an acheivment.

@4corsa thanks for that. What a brilliant text. And it appears to have the rather nice Magni fairing on it. If it wasn't in the wrong country, I could well be seriously tempted. http://www.magni.it/v11_fairing.htm

That's actually why I don't like Honda much. I've had two, they both worked very well, and were both a bit sterile. For the big luggage factor, I had a GTR 1000 Kawasaki for quite a while, and liked it rather a lot. It also worked well, was very reliable, and wasn't nearly as sterile as a Honda. My Guzzis arguably don't work as well as any Japanese bike, but they are anything other than sterile. I like that about them.

Any chance you could copy and paste that to here? It sounds like it might be fun to read, but one apparently needs a facebook account to see the ad, and I don't have one.

Yes, because some people find them fun. A mate of mine had a double-boot on a CB900. Sitting in the boot was fun, hanging out in the corners and such. Riding it was interesting. I picked it up for him after he had a sky-diving mishap, and rode it about 100 km home (somewhere down near Dandenong up to Macleod, for those who know the territory...). It was fun to ride somehow, even though it pulled to one side pretty heavily. The mate was about 30 kg heavier than me, the thing was set up well for him, and with me on riding it didn't want to go straight. So I can see why people like them, but don't want one. The reasons why not are pretty much exactly what @Lucky Phil wrote. I would like to have a go on a serious racing sidecar, though. Both as rider and as swinger.