He's Home! He's Home!

Mr. Burgman, proudly wearing his sidecar, is resting contentedly in our garage tonight. (and hogging quite a bit of the garage too) The installer and the factory owner talked to us a bit about the sidecar and riding a sidecar rig and we both rode it around the parking lot a few times and then we took off.

I rode Mr. Burgman and Ray drove the airconditioned van. I think he had the advantage as it was about 86 degrees when we left Enumclaw.

We stopped first at Kain's Corner Restaurant for supper. It was a nice first practice ride over to the restaurant on country roads without alot of traffic, except for bikes. We saw alot of bikes tonight! We sat around Kain's, ate a delicious dinner and took off from there about 5:30.

After talking with people at the factory, since I had never ridden Mr. Burgman before and not a sidecar before, they recommended we take highway 99 north instead of the jammed up bumper to bumper freeway. I was glad we did. But I did get some bits of freeway riding in, as we went on highway 18 and parts of 99 are freeway. So I got a bit of everything from town traffic to no traffic and speeds from 30-60.

I've already got the hang of braking, which is different with a sidecar. It wants to pull at startup and stopping. You can finesse the brakes to make a smooth straight line stop, but there's nothing but muscle for taking off and quick stops. Between my shoulders it kind of aches. I expect that will be gone by morning.

Tomorrow, some parking lot practice with different ballast weights in the car, to see if I can find the point at which the car will raise with the different weights. And practice turns and stops and take-offs. Although, the installer said he tried to get the car to lift while he was out on his test ride, and he couldn't do it even with no ballast. I think that's a good sign. He also said it was so much fun, he thinks the owner should buy all the staff a Bergman and sidecar.

So far, I ADORE Mr. Burgman and his sidecar. It's not so different from my trike, except my trike always wanted to go straight and Mr. Burgman wants to turn at times. Once we're at a steady speed, he maneuvers just fine.

Mr. Burgman is a fine, muscular scooter. The factory owner said to me, "THIS is a motorcycle in scooter clothes." And that's just about it. He wants to go fast, fast, fast!




See! I DID let Ray ride it!