A chair and a Klik

Ian Kirk's 600 Bandit Outfit

As requested, some details of my sidecar outfit.

It started life as a crash damaged 600 Bandit with the front end totalled, just what I needed. Over the next few months when cash permitted some leading link forks and 15 inch wheels were grafted in. Sounds easy but the forks and wheels were for a 1200 Bandit, so yokes and swinging arm from a 1200 were acquired from a breakers and slotted in. Went straight in without any alterations, handy to know! Whilst fitting the swinging arm, longer tie bars were used to lower the back end and an uprated Hagon shock fitted.

The rest of the bike is pretty much standard, just a bit of tarting up. A back rest was made which slides onto two pegs once I am on the bike, some straps to hold me on and footplates instead of the footpegs. The rear brake is now operated using a TL 1000 clutch lever mounted under the original clutch lever. This also works the sidecar brake. The gear change proved a bit of a challenge until I discovered the Kliktronic system. One phone call and a grant application form arrived. Within ten days of sending it back I received the system complete with all the fittings and instructions, pretty impressive if you ask me.

The instructions sounded pretty complicated, but after a night in the garage it was all coupled up and works perfectly. "Didn't have to use the hammer once!" We discovered that it was easier to make gear changes if you mounted the buttons on the right hand side of the handlebars rather than the left. We used a throttle assembly from an R1 which has no switch gear and mounted the buttons between the throttle housing and the original switch gear.

The sidecar is a Charnwood Sports which was originally on a Triumph 595. It proved a bit of a challenge to make the two come together as no fittings came with it, but a week cutting and welding brackets saw the two halves become one. Since writing the above I took it over to the Manx GP. Only a couple of teething problems but nothing serious. There are a few things to change over the winter, a single seat unit with a back rest moulded into it. Maybe a 750 top end, "You can never have enough cubes", also we need to beef up the rear brake due to it overheating too easily, most probably by using the disc and clipper which were salvaged from the 600 stuff. Enough to keep me going for a while.

Once again thanks for all the help.

This Kliktronic grant was sponsored by the Goldwing Owners Club of Great Britain