Yes, somehow I've become a side car racer, in my case, a "monkey" or 

Princess Kong to Dan. When Dan first proposed (he hates that word) that 

we do this as a hobby I really didn't take him seriously. Sure I found 

the movie clips of races we'd viewed on the internet hilarious in a 

Schadenfrude way (that's what the Germans call laughing at the misfortune 

of others), and sure I thought the bikes were sort of cute, but I felt 

pretty removed and safe behind my laptop. Then we went shopping for our 

protective racing suits and although uneasy, I still thought this was 

just a phase. Besides, we still didn't have a sidecar yet. 

My denial evaporated when the shipping company called. It was here... 

(Gulp!) We don't have a truck, but fortunately, once we took it out of 

the box and pallet it was shipped on it fit in the back of my Jeep! We 

also had the full attention of everyone at the airport working the night 

shift! This was our first taste of the attention this little thing 

generates. The next day we took it across the street to the park for our 

first test run. After twisting ourselves into pretzels, much to the 

amusement of our neighbors who honestly thought the sidecar was meant to be 

remote controlled, we finally managed to make a complete circuit - 

after only knocking our heads together and running off onto the grass a few 

times, ok, a lot of times! But it was fun! And we are so close to the 

ground, just a matter of inches, and so well padded (safety first!) it 

has yet to be anything but just funny , even when we've crashed! I'd 

never raced anything before, and still don't drive (the sidecar anyway) 

but I love the sense of speed we get with relatively little risk, and the 

tremendous amount of attention we get is like nothing I've ever 

experienced. Plus when we are really on and in "the zone" it feels a lot like 

ballet! Graceful, smooth, synchronized, loud, the smell of the 

premix...well maybe not ballet...yet! 

-- 

Suzanne