: there really is not any sort of a fram aft of the transmission. the rear
: wheel is positioned, located, and driven through one side (prop shaft
: driven). The pegs start ath the beginning of the subframe that holds the
: passenger off of the wheel, and not much else. It's certinanly not able to
: pull a trailer.

With some money, and the inclination, you can mount a trailer hitch on almost anything. In your case ine wiuld either hae to go forward more to attach to some engine mount, or maybe build an entire rear subframe. That would be a lot of work and cost. With some cycle models obviously it is not worth the effort or cost

: I know that wingers often have trailers, and they don't wheelie so they must
: be shaft driven. I'll have to look at one oof those

What does shaft drive have to do with wheelies?

You want a certain amount of your total trailer weight ( usually about 10% with a car) to be on the hitch. If you are towing 300 pounds of trailer and gear then the trailer would be balanced to be front heavy, and a scale placed under the coupler should show a 30 pound load.

If you put that 30 pound weight on the rear foot pegs, it would be a fraction of a 200 pound passenger standing on those pegs. That doesn't mean it is a good place to mount a trailer hitch, though. As yougo over bumps the trailer will oscillate like a teeter totter, and that tongue will be going up and down. When it goes up the mass of the trailer will try to lift the back end of your bike ( or car) AS long as this rocking is within the range of your suspension system your rear tire will stay on the road. Consider though that if you mounted the trailer hitch to the hub or axle of your rear wheel that the bouncing of the trailer would pull the wheel up off the ground at times. (Is it still a wheelie if just your front tire is on the ground? ) You would lose traction, and more importantly, you might lose braking effectiveness.

: I saw an old Ural (russian adaption of a 1940's era beemer) with a side car.
: beautiful condition. I may look into that

Check out e-bay for your Ural. They are currently in production and being cpommercially imported into the US for about $6000 - $7000, and some are also being sold by individual owners in Europe and Asia.

I talked with a ural owner 5 -6 years ago. He gave me the impression that there has been very little improvement on the 1938 BMW boxer that some German left behind during WWII, and which the Russians took apart and copied part by part. From e-bay listings, though, it seems that some American and Japanese technology has been added, which has improved carburetion, braking, ignition, reliability etc.

In that price range you can get them with a side car, or without. There is also a sidecar-equipped version with a drive system for both back wheels. With two wheel drive on such a cycle you can go offroad, which might be a great advantage to get a boat down to the water's edge -- and even more of an advantage to getting it back up to the road.

Take the passenger compartment off, but leave its frame attached and you might be able to mount cradles for holding a kayak directly to the metal sidecar frame. Probably have to mount the boat fairly high to give sufficient ground clearance, but the weight, and balance, should not be a problem as the sidecar should be designed to hold a load at least 6 times the weight of a kayak.

Now, if the boat is licensed and titled, do you need to also get a title and plates for its "motor" when the boat is being driven down the road?

PGJ