First thing what you learn in team
work, project management, etc. is the need to find a good name for the
thing you wanna do/build.
My search went all around and of course
it had to be aligned with what we want to represent i.e. vegan
bikers. So talking about leather, pearls and so is maybe not the best
fit. Aaaand of course - our little twisted mind had to be satisfied
;)
Maybe it was the start of summer and
all the humming around, we finally came up with a name for the
sidecar and my bike:
Willy
- the Bee
This also meant that the colors were
clear: black/yellow. After this big decision was done, I was ready to
visit the Sidecar building company.
I asked several companies for quotes,
and some had good comments and suggestions, others did not like the
fact that I want to ride a beamer, several told straight that they do
not do such kind of sidecar projects, one was totally booked for this
year and another had response times of days and could not be reached
by phone for days (I think after I called ten times and only got the
answering machine, I had enough). Dear owners of the companies, maybe
business is going so well that you do not need to care – maybe in
future you do – in any case, I see a huge potential for you to
improve your customer relationship. Ok, enough of my old work style
talking and back to the visit.
This visit to Germany was absolutely
necessary and money well spent. Many details were clarified and of
course its easier when one can see samples and details at other
sidecars and bikes. I also understood the schedule worries of the
builder, what is the critical path in the schedule and I think
together we found good solutions so that the given time frame is
enough. Lets hope so.
The boat – now I saw a picture of a
naked and unmounted one – revealed also a surprise which was not
really visible when the boat is mounted. Also it seems that the boat
and the boxes together get too long and the boat's backwall shape is
not optimum. All this means the boat backwall needs to be cut, the
boat shortened and the backwall made straight.
Also quite some time went on how to
build the cover, the size, position of the openings in there, so that
one can easily get the dogs out without opening all those fancy
buttons. Also the entrance door into the sidecar needs to be such
that all of our dogs are fine with climbing in and out. The
windscreen is pretty round, and this limits the area where Hertta
could sit straight. One discussed solution was to have a flatter
center and rear bar, which allows Hertta to sit in a bigger area and
thus leaving more room for the Lyra and Ulpu to move around. So far
the theory, lets see how practice will look like.
Bike will also need to get rid of its silver fur and match the bee colors. I noticed that my pannier will be silver ... well not for long :)
Now I need to install some add-ons I got from Touratech :) (see next post)
~ Wolfi