I agree with what most of you are posting,I am still not sure about the UK traffic laws,I have it in writing that two wheels must be fitted on the same axle when the law was changed from it being illegal for a solo motorcycle to tow a trailer to being legal (1983) Eu law is different and the UK law may have been relaxed in order to gain parity, I have two experts loking at it, and I have asked the question to the UK manufacturer (Monotrail) who is being extremely vague, which does make me wonder.......
I realy like my cars, vans 4X4's even lorries and get huge amnounts of pleasure from caravanning, and towing almost anything includeing 60 ton Churchill tanks with a Diamond T or Scammell Constructor on a Rogers or Dyson trailer.I have class one HGV and PSV.I have driven mobile cranes ranging from 18 tons up to 140tons.I will operate any kind of plant and own my own 2 ton Kubota digger.I have also done a little bit of light aircraft piloting (well 3 hours actually) I posses a car transport trailer, a mobile welder/tool chest trailer,a box van trailer, single bike trailer, three bike trailer, 2 cubic meter rubbish trailer, a digger trailer and a 26 foot twin axle caravan, that is eight trailers, so I know a little bit about towing, and vehicle combinations, what you can get away with in safety,eg we towed an Ifor Williams with scrap iron on it the other day from a farm clearout with a transit van, the van was loaded as well, the trailer was detatched from the van at the weighbridge and it grossed just over 3 tons, the van was carrying another ton, the speed was kept down to 25MPH and no higher than third gear, very illegal but actually quite safe, brakes on the van and trailer were tested with a mild panic stop, just to be sure.
So now we get onto sidecars, which I also love as well, I once owned a 650 Matchless with a Busmar DA,this was converted into the worlds smallest camper, well actually a tin cover for a single bed, very handy when arriveing at a rally site in the pissing rain, or again at departure time.I even had a ful blown kneeler sidecar (a race bike) as a road legal vehicle, it was a cut down featherbed chassis with a 650 BSA motor complete with 45 DECOE webber, that was great fun,then there was a Goldwing and sidecar on loan at the TT, not the full dresser but the original naked GL1000, we had a great fortnight with that, the boys were small then, and would fight over who should sit in the front of the "chair".
so now we get on to solo motorcycles towing trailers,something that I am looking into,I dont see the merit of a solo with a two wheeled trailer, that would give the luggage carrying capacity, but with it comes unwelcome width and the strange look of a towball that just has to be on the same plane as the rear wheel spindle and the trailer spindle, in order to avoid "turning" forces as the bike leans left and right, so for me a solo motorcyle with an inline mono wheel trailer starts to make more sense,the trailer can have a "swan kneck" towing beam, and then the atatchment point can be hiden under the normal luggage rack that is already fitted to TOG.monotrail show a very neat and unobtrusive 7 point plug socket arrangement,which is both small and weatherproof and again can be hidden, so that when the trailer is detatched, you would be hard pushed to know that the bike actually tows one. no disadvantage of width, almost no load on the bike, since I intend that the trailer wheel will carry about 80% of the load.This would primarilly be used when I am away with Andrea, neither of us are lightweights (sorry And) with me going 20 stone (125 kilos) and Andrea a little over half of that.We currently load up TOG with, very heavy tank bag, soft panniers and the luggage rack, we can get everything onboard for a weekends camping and do so regulalry, the thing is you cant realy ride the bike with any amount of spirit under those circumstances, the weight makes everything very much more sluggish performance wise anyway, and the height of the load can make thing interesting on accasions.I well remember coming off a motoway in germany, and misjudgeing my speed, very easy if you have been doing 140 klicks for 4 hours,and the slip road tightened dramatically, I realy thought that we were going down, and i was damned if it was going to happen without one hell of a fight, as i tried to lose speed, I ran wide, into the dusty/dirty part of the oustside of the bend, the stand touched as did the altenator cover, it felt as thougn i was on ice, but we made it, I stopped and Andrea said "well done" maybe it would have been worse if i was towing a mono wheeled trailer, I dont know, I just rather like the idea of not haveing the weight on the tank and rack and instaed having it very low to the ground, either side of a single wheel,in a totally waterproof box,when at a rally of course you detatch and leave it behind, then you have the solo motorcyle and all that it goes for, I would only use the trailer to get somehwre, and of course the bike would ride differently, I might not like it, there may be other reasons, but for sure we will see.I need to try it out.
Hotels? yeah well we do that as well,we were in sumptuous confort at Baskerville Hall last september, it cost about ?300 I recall , and when on the continent we very often overnight in a nice hotel on the way to a rally, Silberstead (Germany) for instance the run from the UK can be done very nicley as two one day legs with stopo in a posh hotel in Holland,Hotel Hengello (just outside Hengello)fits the bill, as good as any four star London hotel at a quarter of the price. and in france you are never very far from a Premmiere Class, or even a Formule I ( which I never use) you dount have to dislike camping to use hotels, you can enjoy both, which we do.Money is not in unlimited supply and I have to watch my pennies, but I would far rather get a casmping weekend in for a low budget than stay at home, that is why we caravan once per month in the summer, The first weekend in fact of every month , but burglars take note these premises are protectd by Mossberg 500 bulpup,when we are not here
CLEM
