EASTER BUNNY BBQ

Saturday, April 7, 2007

Well, we did it again!
The weather forecast was for warm and sunny, the hottest days on record for these dates. The days leading up to the weekend were balmy and clear. Naturally, it was raining when I got up Saturday morning.

Still, some interesting people showed up and there were a variety of bikes...

Jay and Tara, owners of Dauntless Motors , rode their personal KLR sidecar rig down for the festivities. Jay had installed his companies' leading link forks on the bike since last I rode with him. He let me try his rig out and it handles superbly! No wobbles, predictable steering on and off pavement, very light but not twitchy. Compared to my rigs Jay's bike requires no effort at all to steer. I give the Dauntless links two thumbs up! If you have the money, this is definitely an improvement over the stock fork for a KLR sidecar rig

The idea behind using links on a sidecar rig is to reduce the trail, thereby reducing the steering effort. Since sidecars don't lean into turns and you can't countersteer to initiate a turn, the steering geometry of stock forks is usually off and it can take a good deal of force at the bars to corner. Leading links have a couple of additional advantages- typically, they are stiffer than telescopic forks. When you consider the side loads imposed by the way sidecars handle, flex and stiction can become real problems for spindly fork tubes and sliders. Leading links also tend not to dive under braking, which, if you think about it, causes a change in rake and trail, also affecting the cornering of the machine.

illustration shamelessly stolen from Claude Stanley

The Dave Wade Experience entertained us and graciously let a number of visiting musicians sit in with them. It was a real treat to listen to!

We had an egg hunt and Piñata for the kids

We had a bunch of bunnies to grill. As always, they were done to perfection thanks to the efforts of Kevin, our favorite chef! Dave McF deep fried a turkey and Joe kept the cooks primed with beer and ribald stories from his checkered past...

...we also had some fine local beer to wash the rabbits down with! Thanks Jason, Stewart, Bob&Rob!

We all pigged out...

Before the beer started flowing we did a couple of short laps, giving some of the guests a chance to see what sidecars are all about. The rain didn't seem to dampen anyone's enthusiasim!