SIDE EFFECTS, manufacturers of ”Steerite” Performance Products, has continued to maintain its position as a world leader in modifying and constructing various steering systems, designed specifically for trike and sidecar markets. The latest edition to this group of products is offered under their ”Leading Legs” line for the Yamaha Star family of bikes and includes the Royal Stars, Road Stars and V Stars. Very easy to install, these kits attach to the fork sliders giving high style and quality engineering along with the performance expected from ”Steerite” items - the picture says it all. The pre-production run is sold out already and full production is now taking care of the orders from customers world wide.
The very popular ”Steerite” triple tree modifications for all makes and models of bikes continue to put smiles on customers and the BMW specific "Leverite" conversions improve the late model front ends. All of these different approaches to steering upgrades result in identical handling, so one is not better than the other, just engineered specifically for a variety of models. Coming soon is a complete line up of steering products for the "Motor Companies" many different models, including the V Rod. No matter what bike you drive, SIDE EFFECTS has a ”Steerite” cure for your handling challenges. - ”Steerite”. "Leverite" and . "Leading Legs" are trademarks of Side Effects.
The Steerite conversion for the lower part of the fork sliders is registered and known as Leading Legs, a play on words referring to Leading Links yet of course fitting the telescopic fork legs. It's always been our goal to develope unique products and market them with catchy yet successful names.
The end result is exactly the same as a regular Steerite conversion, same trail reduction, same wonderful light yet stable steering and the kit for the Royal Star includes a special steering stabilizer which increases stability at high road speeds as the Royal Star has a lot of "stuff" hanging on the triple trees which tends to destabilize the steering when trail is reduced. The overall improvement in handling and the huge labor saving installation method makes this the ultimate and probably only steering upgrade for your trike or sidecar rig.
The main advantage of the Leading Legs is in situations where the triple tree is either too complicated to modify or requires simply too much labor to get at and put back together. The Royal Star is a good example of this and the Leading Legs only require the following easy proceedure to install: - remove calipers from fork, - remove front wheel, - remove bolts at rear of front fender, - swivel fender down slightly at rear and drill two new holes to remount (template supplied), - place special inserts into existing axel holes (installation tool supplied), - position Leading Legs on each slider and bolt into location using supplied fasteners, - fit new brake line splitter (supplied) under lower triple tree, - install front wheel at new location using existing axel, - reinstall calipers at new location infront of sliders, - bleed front brakes and you're ready to go. We put equal emphasis on quality, engineering, style and value and this kit indeed conforms to this, especially in style. It is designed to be subtle and blend in to look like it came from the factory that way. The end result is exactly the same as a regular Steerite conversion, same trail reduction, same wonderful light yet stable steering and the kit for the Royal Star includes a special steering stabilizer which increases stability at high road speeds as the Royal Star has a lot of "stuff" hanging on the triple trees which tends to destabilize the steering when trail is reduced. The overall improvement in handling and the huge labor saving installation method makes this the ultimate and probably only steering upgrade for your trike or sidecar rig.
Our primary company goals have always required us to be innovative when creating new product which leads to ongoing development on upgrades for your three wheeled vehicle and we anticipate this coming Spring to have a Hub Center steering conversion (registered and known as CENTERIDE) for those GL1800's that have been triked and still have the original front end. Customers have a choice here to use the Steerite conversion (triple tree) or CENTERIDE . Both these systems improve the handling but through different principles and components. The regular Steerite of course, modifies the trees and retains all other O.E.M. parts, the CENTERIDE, however, keeps the original trees, discards the forks, wheel, fender and brakes (hence they remain unmodified) and a replacement single shock and automotive wheel/tire/brake assembly is fitted to a hub center steering system which is then totally enclosed in a style matched, non steering front fender body work which attaches to the Gold Wing lower fairing and includes day running lights, disc vents and ground effect styling to make this a 21st Century addition to these popular GL1800 trikes. The system, can also of course, be used for sidecars too.
We are still working on the pricing of CENTERIDE, and any new info on this and other developments will appear on our web site (please note we hope we've made our web site easier to find by having it changed to www.sidecars.ca ) This may not help the trike owner but trikes.com was already taken and our main stay of work revolves around sidecars but the spin off of course is that trikes and sidecars share the same steering problems, so hopefully through site links the computer speak fraternity can communicate about our new stuff.
Best Regards,
Pete and Donna Smith