Cams 13
The bike is a 1984 ZG1300 DFI model, and it resides at the other end of theworld in Tasmania. It's basically original except for the obvious modification - the dog transporting device. The sharp eyed will also notice non-standard rear shocks (heavy duty Koni) and mufflers (home-made stainless jobs). Even the blurry-eyed will notice the leading link front suspension (also with Koni shocks), the bloody great steering damper (ex-volkswagen), and the handlebar fairing. The sidecar and front suspension are both from the Australian manufacturer "HRD" (no relation to Vincent HRD). The sidecar suspension is a trailing arm with yet another Koni shock, and the sidecar wheel was nicked from a Mini. The rims are stock Z1300 at present. Rear tyre is a re-tread, because I don't need tread around the sidewalls, and the bike chews through them too quickly to keep forking out handfulls of cash for new tyres. The front tyre is a square profile block pattern intended for vintage cars and appears to be lasting forever. If you're wondering about the speed rating of that dodgy set of tyres, well, um, er... I don't ride it very fast anyway. They're adequate for "normal" highway speeds.
For the curious minded, the bike that's partly visible in the background of one photo is my other bike (a Ducati MHR Mille). The passenger is a Siberian Husky cross. And that's an ex-Christmas tree in the trailer, so no prize for guessing what time of the year the photos were taken!
I put a fatter rear tyre on the Z1300. It's a 165 x 15 car tyre!! I
had a spare back wheel cut down and a car rim fitted to the spokes. It's
actually offset about 15mm to the left so as to clear the driveshaft side of
the swing arm. Not a problem with a sidecar. I still had to grind a couple
of mm off the weld on the inner side of the shaft tube. I can send photos if
you like. One interesting observation is that the car tyre doesn't have as
much road adhesion as even a crappy bike tyre. It will spin up pretty easily
with a handful of throttle, even on a dry road (haven't tried it in the wet
yet). Not really a problem - it's actually quite handy to be able to break
traction easily in some manouvres. I suppose bike tyres are much better
rubber compound, which is probably why they cost twice as much as car tyres.
