To cut a long story short, we were sitting at Fort Augustus and i had bought a local Add Mag, low and behold there sitting in the bike part section was a side car in need of restoration at the bargain price of £20.00, I grabbed my phone and gave the guy a ring and was off on a new adventure as it was 140 miles away. As soon as I saw the side car i thought it was perfect for my new project! "Rat Bike + a Side Car" COOL!!!

After much tinkering around with the bike we finally got it running, the coils were fucked, first they worked perfect then died off slowly and no spark would occur. After a conflab with somebody in the know we checked the ohms output and found after they had warmed up they had begun to drop there resistance "URIKA" problem solved.

As you can tell by looking at the pics, the old JAWA side car had to be cobbled (bodged) into place. After riding it around the block we found it handled better with a inward lean from the bike, as when it was put on straight the bike tended to fall over on a right hand turn. A bit of adjusment was needed and it crabbed just fine.

Time was running out as was money and the will to live. Thinkng this all started as beer talk in a pub six months previously on a cold winters night, the challenge had arose between myself and two other friends to build a "RAT" for Stormin the Castle and to ride it there.

Thinking this was just another night of all piss and wind talk as time was growing nearer to the rally, opportunity had arisen for finding a really cheap bike and i thought fuck it there's beer on this!!!

As the bets were flying that night on who would build a rat and get it there. After finally getting a bike and side car merged satisfactorily, we set to work to convert it into the "bucket of shit out of hell" you see before you! Call me old fashioned but for little money and a bloody good laugh building it and riding into the Castle rally the reception we got was priceless. If there's one bit of advice i would give to anybody considering building a rat is to spend a little more on a good bike as parts are dear and getting it road legal is a nightmare, this will save you time and moiney in the long run as it is far easier to make it look like a bucket of shit, but all said and done it did me proud as i got a nice trophy and free tickets to the rally next year.

So my advice to you would be give it a go when you have fuck all to do in those cold, lonely nights in the winter when your bike is sitting in the shed, get stuck into building a rat. Bags of fun factor.

All the best, Chris Osborne, Newton Hall, County Durham

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