I recently stumbled across a trailer for a documentary about dogs riding in motorcycle sidecars. The preview was perfectly executed: bikes and revving engines, dogs wearing goggles with their faces in the wind, americana music, and a bunch of biker stories about how much dogs enjoy riding in sidecars. After watching the first thirty seconds, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s a whole sub culture of people who absolutely love taking their dogs on bikes. I hadn’t previously considered the possibility, but I’m extremely happy to know this is a thing.
The movie is called ‘Sit Stay Ride: The Story of America’s Sidecar Dogs’. It was funded through Kickstarter earlier this year, raising almost $35K from 679 backers, and appears to have been primarily released digitally through Vimeo. What a great example of using crowd funding to facilitate creative projects. Just a few years ago a movie like this probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without the creators taking on significant risk, and now a small group of supporters can make this sort of thing happen.
Here’s the trailer, which I definitely recommend watching:
Immediately after watching the trailer I looked up dog goggles, as I also hadn’t considered that there’s a market for protective eye wear specially made to fit dogs. I quickly learned that it’s dominated by a company called Doggles, and they offer dozens of different colors, sizes, and styles (e.g., chrome, frameless, original). In the same way that the brand ‘Frisbee’ has become the most common word for flying plastic discs, regardless of the brand, I get the sense that dog goggles are always just referred to as doggles. Which makes sense.
I also researched the secondary market for motorcycles with sidecars. I decided that if I ever get a motorcycle (which I won’t), it will definitely be a Ural 750cc. Examples here and here.
A few days after seeing the trailer I had an open evening and decided to buy and stream the movie. I enjoyed it, but at an hour and twenty minutes, make sure you’re very excited to hear bikers talking at length about how much their dogs love riding around in sidecars before jumping in. I think it actually would have been better as a forty to fifty minute film, with the same content, but edited down a bit. Regardless, it’s filled with a bunch of interesting, quirky, small-town people who all have great stories about their lives, dogs, and sidecar bikes. And as a crowd-sourced documentary project, it’s clearly positioned to appeal to a niche group of people who think this sort of thing is awesome. And that’s great.
And yes, I realize the proportion of my posts that are about dogs has significantly increased since Laura and I got a dog.