Monday, January 28, 2008

#49 Sidecar Joyride

My friend Jerry, as well as several other folks in the neighborhood, own these restored BMW sidecar motorcycles. The cycles were built in China for the Army starting in the 1940s or 50s (or something like that).

Apparently there is a guy in Suzhou who buys up old derelict bikes of this model and rebuilds them into family wagons for expats. They look like new when he is done and run as smooth as any 50 year old design can be expected to. I know one guy from Caterpillar Wuxi who had his machine crated up and shipped back to his next job location in the Midwest.

Jerry took me for a spin to gas up the bike up before storing it for the short, hard winter here in central China. The bike is very cool. Anyone remember George Burns as the wisecracking almighty in the movie "Oh God! Book II"? In the scene above, Jerry would be God and I the little girl with a big grin and bugs in my teeth !

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