Sidecars I have known
Mick Payne has been thinking! Stop sniggering at the back, please. When he was writing a regular sidecar column for Motorcycle Sport (pre Leisure) in the mid to late 1990s, it was probably during the last gasps of the industry. In the days of the Blue and
The popularity of the three-wheeled car was, in part, thanks to the fact that they could be driven on a motorcycle licence, plus there were many family models offered.
Bond and Reliant were probably the main marques and I well remember a fellow student at Luton Grammar School owning a Bond Mk G. I had a bicycle at the time so, when Roger and his girlfriend offered to take myself and my girl out on a regular basis, we would jump at the chance. I soon came to the conclusion that we were there to help bump start the car when he couldn’t kick-start it.
Could you imagine a 16-year-old today willingly standing with one leg inside the bonnet of a Villiers powered three-wheeler trying, often unsuccessfully, to start it? Yes, there was an electric starter but as a youth money went on petroil rather than a new battery. I don’t recall any younger person riding an outfit, although a fellow apprentice did have one on his café racer Triumph. That was so he could ride a 650 on a provisional licence, so as soon as Ian passed his test the chair was never to be seen again.
I went much the same dark way. My girlfriend got fed up with getting wet and cold on the scooter and her mother thought she would be safer in a nice little car. Well, it almost worked that way, but was a 600cc Reliant Regal that I bought; again I could drive it on my bike licence, I think her mother’s opinion of me went further downhill. That was the way of the world in the late Sixties, while the Woodstock generation rocked and dropped out, I drove a ‘Del Boy’ van. Cool Brittania. Not.
The sporting chair was all but dead when two entrepreneurs in Bideford upon Avon started marketing the Squire range. These were glass fibre with a shape that sat well alongside many of the bikes of the time. It was such a model that sparked my interest in fitting a chair, as one of their brochures featured an ST1 on a Triumph Bonnie; although my MZ/ Squire ML1 was rather less glamorous.
My T140 was eventually chaired up but with the Charnwood Meteor body from my BSA matched up with one of Charnwood’s own chassis.
That chassis led a strange early life, as I bought it from
Jim D’Arcy just before he retired and sold the business to one Jez Beswick, and it was fitted by Steve (Jim’s mechanic of many years) at the new Charnwood. A very nice job he made too.
Sadly, all was not good at the new version of Charnwood Classic Restorations and the fresh owner was leaving an ever growing number of disgruntled customers in his wake. Eventually the business closed, I believe with serious money problems. Sadly many still associated Jim with the company and he came in for some undeserved grief.
Anson Classics took over the remains of CCR and built some very tasty classic-based outfits, but more next time.
I’m managing to get out and I hope to ride something very unusual in the next month so I’ll be able to finish my retrospective on a high note and start looking forward again.
As early as the late 1960s the ‘tuning fork firm’ could see the writing on the wall and developed its 650 parallel twin to suit the American market. That said it still ‘kept the faith’ by developing some phenomenal strokers but with a weather eye on the future also embarked upon a programme of future proofing. Aside from the smaller XS twins, Yamaha would also invest in quarter litre four-stroke singles in a bid to cover all basis.
Given the runaway success of its original big single XT500, a smaller version seemed to be a very sensible idea and so through the latter half of the 1970s the R&D team found itself beavering away on a 250cc single, ohc cam, four-stroke motor. The focus was very much on accessibility and so the all-new engine featured a gear driven balancer, automatic decompressor for the kickstart only unit, an accelerator-equipped 28mm Mikuni carburettor etc.
Knowing that the bike would be targeted at less experienced riders than the 500, a fairly serious programme of weight reduction was also undertaken. Most of the measures, such as the output sprocket cover being made of plastic, were minor in isolation but collectively the various mass reduction measures minimised the bike’s poundage. Another crafty dodge was using the motor as a semi-stressed member of the frame, thereby reducing the proliferation of steel tubing.
Continually focused on being all things to all riders, the bike was very much intended as a dual purpose machine with genuine off road capabilities, even if most spent the majority of their lives on Tarmac.
A low seat height allied to a 17 inch rear wheel allowed the rider to get a foot down swiftly, easily and without drama should the need occur. With 21bhp allied to 15lb-ft of torque, the power was more than adequate for the bike’s anticipated role.
Launched in 1979 with a monoshock rear end, the bike enjoyed reasonably good sales due in no small part to the 1980 model’s stunning good looks of gloss black and satin silver tank counter pointed by anodised gold effect alloy rims and striking red graphics.
Other than cosmetic changes, the XT250 remained pretty much unchanged through its life. Although an essentially reliable design the bike sometime received a largely unwarranted reputation for being poor quality. The Achilles heel of many Japanese ohc designs similarly blighted the small XT.
With the camshaft running directly in the alloy cylinder head, unless serviced regularly with fresh oil of the correct grade and a new filter it was almost inevitable that the cam would eat away its alloy housing. The other issue here, common to all Yamahas of the period, was a relatively poor level of finish; minimal plating on fasteners, thin paint and partially open welds all had the XT250 and its cousins rotting way in fairly short order.
Despite being designed to overcome the noxious emissions of the two-stroke motor, the XT250 took an environmental hit circa 1984 when revised standards Stateside saw the bike reduced in power to just 17bhp in order to comply. In some markets the bike hung on until 1991, before being replaced by either the new XT350 and/or the XT225, sold in Japan as the Serow.
Analogous with, and contemporary to, the XT250 was the often overlooked, scorned and derided SR250. Some might argue it was a cynical plot by Yamaha to claw back some R&D costs, but the fact remains that the SR found a ready market among commuters, learner riders, the vertically challenged and folk who just wanted a simple, basic and reliable, lightweight, motorcycle.
The SR borrowed the XT’s motor (but it came with an electric starter) along with part of the chassis, wheel spindles, chain adjusters and few other odds and ends. The rear half of the machine was cut down and modified to accept a twin shock tail.
Taking styling leads from the various factory customs of the period the SR250 had a faux chopper look going on with stepped seat, pulled back bars and truncated side panels. Basic drum brakes, the absence of a kickstarter lever/mechanism and removal of the XT’s decompressor along with parts plundered from other models kept development costs to a minimum. Other than a subtle tweak to house the electric foot nothing much else needed changing. Basic monochrome, non-metallic paint, a lack of decals and no tachometer further reduced production costs.
The bike failed to sell in the same numbers as the XT250 but soldiered on until 1984. Beloved by learners, commuters and even urban despatch riders, the little SRs were gradually ridden into the ground and the few that remained have latterly remerged as various café racers, bobbers, brats etc. The SR250 was never going to set the world alight but its makers were only following the examples set by Kawasaki’s KL250 rebadging and Suzuki’s SP370 to GN400 rebirth – who could really blame them for following a proven route to profit?