Test Ride in December 2007

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Hi. My name is Kevin. That's Brenda and Dan in the picture.

Back in spring 2007 my wife Brenda asked me if we might be able to get her son Daniel a sidecar so we could all go riding together. When she was a young girl in England, the family "car" was a "motorbike" and sidecar.
One of the first things I found out was that Dan would have to wear a helmet. Since he sits in a custom fit wheelchair, we would have to first find a helmet he might be able to wear. We did find a DOT approved helmet that he could tolerate, especially if it meant he could go riding! So we started with a helmet.
Then we started looking for a motorcycle we could use. Now I had spent many hours riding dirt bikes over the years but not too much road riding, and so most street bikes were unfamiliar to me.
I did know we would want something pretty comfortable, so I started looking at Honda Gold Wings, but in the process discovered the BMW K12oo LT. With the help of the Adventure Rider forum (http://www.advrider.com/forums/ search for the thread "a newbie does it backwards") and the K1200 LT forum (http://www.bmwlt.com/forums/cmps_index.php)I learned that the LT would indeed make a great tug for a sidecar.
I found a used one on Ebay, just 30 miles from our home. A call to the seller assured me it was in great shape --a 2003 with less than 11 thousand miles on it. So we bid on it literally at the last minute from my laptop parked on a side road in Lakehurst, NJ--and won the bid!
The kind folks on the Adventure Rider forum told us about a sidecar forum (http://www.sidecar.com/) where we found C Stanley Motorsports nearby in Pennsylvania. We were able to meet with him and create a plan for a wheelchair accessible sidecar custom built from the ground up. We spent Christmas week test driving it and finalizing the remaining details.
It works! Dan fits perfectly, and most of all, he can ride!
We will keep this blog updated as further details develop.