Winter riding - sidecar or Jeep?
in [Motorcycles]
|
From: Futility Man on 26 Jul 2010 22:36 On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:49:13 -0700 (PDT), BryanUT <nestle12(a)comcast.net> wrote: >I know a place with 100s of old Tote Goats, they seem to share much >history. Actually, no they don't. The Tote Gotes (note spelling) were made by Bonham in Provo, Utah and were in no way related to Rokon. The original Rokon design was cooked up in the late 1950s by J. B. Nethercutt, owner of the Merle Norman Cosmetics, believe it or not. > A search for Tote Goat brings up mostly Rokon sites. You'd have better luck if you'd spell it correctly. That is due more to the ignorance of the people listing their bikes, not what the bikes actually are. Tote Gote actually had several models of single wheel drive bikes, some of which were legendary in their climbing ability. I had one, it would climb a tree but at full throttle you could jump off and trot beside it. Rokon also made a single wheel drive scooter that closely resembled the 2wd models, called it the T-140 but it was never popular. It had no 3-speed transmission, just a torque converter to a jackshaft and then to the back wheel. I have one sitting by my back door. I had a Tote Gote that had two sequential jackshafts, it was too slow for anything but climbing rocks but it did that quite well. >You can still get a new one: > >http://gokartsusa.com/trailbreakerminibike.aspx > >A mere $5600. ouch. Like anything else, shopping around will save you a lot of money. GoKartUsa is merely reselling Rokons at a markup. Rokon will sell you one right now and ship it to you on a pallet in two days, but at full retail. You can bargain with some of the resellers or one of the few actual Rokon dealerships. Only suckers pay retail. A good used one can be found on Ebay, especially the two strokes, for less than $2,000US. Expect to pay a bit more for the Kohler and Honda four strokes. Starting in 73 they went from a single speed centrifugal clutch into a 3 speed Albion transmission to a Comet torque converter into a 3-speed plunger transmission. By doing that they increased the top speed from about 15mph to about 35mph but they lost the shift-on-the-fly capability and they lost the kickstart. I think they started offering the 4-strokes just in the last 10 years or so. Popular conversions are the addition of a Honda or Lifan go kart engine, and there are also some 110cc Honda motorcycle engines crammed into the frame of a few. -- Futility Man
From: Robert Bolton on 27 Jul 2010 02:18 On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:17:31 -0700, sean_q <no.spam(a)no.spam> wrote: >It looks as though we'll be here in this RV park for the winter >(no $ for snowbirding). It's over a kilometer to the nearest >bus stop, too far for the g/f to walk. So we'll need our own >transportation, and my concern is the snow. > >The snow we get here (Vancouver, Canada) is wet, slushy >and slippery. Also highly variable. Last winter there was >only one snowfall, about 2". The year before that it started >snowing in mid-December (of '08) and kept up for about 6 weeks. >It piled up until the roads looked like white canyons. I even >saw a coyote boldly walking along a residential street >in the middle of town one morning on my way to work. > >Cars were stranded all over the place. At the time I had >a van with front wheel drive so the motor's weight over >the drive wheels helped a lot. > >Now we have a '90 Toyota Corolla which I expect will soon >become useless due to its low ground clearance if the snow >piles up like it did in early '09. > >My Dnepr sidecar rig is only 1 wheel drive and I don't know >the maximum snow pack it will handle. It did fine in 2" >except on the steeper hills but I'm not sure if it would >have handled the winter of '08/09. I've seen WW2 pix of >the Eastern Front with sidecar rigs like mine stuck >in deep snow. > >So I thought about getting a small 4WD Jeep, YJ or TJ >(probably financing it by selling or trading the Magna/sidecar, >worth maybe Cdn $5k). > >I don't know much about Jeeps; which models to go for >and what to avoid. I think I'd be ok with 4 cyls as we >expect to use it only in town or short day tours >around the local mountains. > >Are there any Jeep experts here? Should we think about >getting one elevated bigfoot-style with big tires for >more ground clearance? > We have all kinds of cars up here. They commute pretty much without issue, but we are reasonably well setup for plowing and sanding. Anything with front wheel drive can handle normal winter. Storms may be another matter though, and we do have people getting stuck at times. There is also a Harley that runs around with a side car all winter too, but that sounds too dangerous to me. He no doubt runs studded tires though, which maybe aren't allowed down there? There are trikes too, and they do use studs. For safety, a person should be in a cage on icy roads. The odds that someone else will slide through a stop light and take you out increases on ice. Any AWD/4WD is better than front wheel drive, but if your looking for something to do off roads, get something you don't mind scratching up. Jeeps are popular. The short wheelbase isn't ideal for icy roads but is good for off-road. I vote Jeep. Robert
From: Vito on 27 Jul 2010 08:15 sean_q <no.spam(a)no.spam> wrote: >> >>> It looks as though we'll be here in this RV park for the winter BTW, remember to heat tape and insulate your water and sewage pipes and don't leave the black water valve open but rather dump it every few days.
From: T.J. Higgins on 27 Jul 2010 10:47 In article <79d55fff-0c1b-4e08-b8a9-4282b4352372(a)x20g2000pro.googlegroups.com>, BryanUT wrote: >A Corolla with chains is damn near invincible on snow covered paved >roads. Jeeps are cool and all that, but keep the Toyota unless you are >really going off road. I'd take a chained econo-box over an unchained >jeep any day on a paved road. Other vehicles to consider: Any Subaru wagon Old Corolla 4wd wagon Suzuki Sidekick/Geo Tracker, especially the 4-door version You should be able to find these at very reasonable prices. -- TJH tjhiggin.at.hiwaay.dot.net
From: ? on 27 Jul 2010 12:48
On Jul 26, 11:18 pm, Robert Bolton <robertboltond...(a)gci.net> wrote: > Jeeps are popular. And there's a certain camaraderie amongst Jeep owners that causes owners of Jeeps of the same model and color to smile and wave at each other... > The short wheelbase isn't ideal for icy roads but is good for off-road. I vote Jeep. The short wheelbase is handy in parking lots too. The line of cars to the drive up window at Burger King was blocking me from reversing a full Jeep length to get out of the space, but I was able to back up about three feet and then turn my wheels full lock and make a very tight turn out of the space I was in. |