monday

Yeah, but what the hell

is it?

I've been visiting motorcycle and sports car fora over the last few weeks to get the locals' take on the CanAm Spyder, which has been much the buzz of late.
The motorcycle guys and the car guys both seem to come in two major flavors: 1.) Those who are cautiously optimistic: "a 3wheeler might possibly provide at least some fun to its (probably foolish) owner until the novelty wore off" - and 2.) Those who find 3wheelers to be an abomination that wantonly spits bile in the face of the motor gods just to be pissy.

These two groups make up an easy 80%.
The remaining twenty percent either don't care or have already drunk the 3wheeler KoolAid.

I won't dwell on the car guys (and gals) because their point of view is as foreign to me as that of a retarded tapir. It essentially boils down to variations on two comments:

"It's dangerously unstable because of its lack of a fourth wheel."

This is simply due to lack of understanding of the physics involved.

and:

"I'd hate to get T-boned in that thing."

This is the line of thinking that has brought us 6000 lb. all terrain combat vehicles being used as one-occupant commuter cars in dense urban environments. That's simultaneously environmentally stupid and evolutionarily maladaptive. And willful stupidity is far and away the worst kind, so we'll disregard that perspective since spending all of one's time in an enclosed vehicle obviously causes brain damage.

What does concern us today is the reaction of the motorcyclist community. And by and large the motorcyclist reaction to Bombardier's first pavement-specific vehicle is:

"What good is it if it doesn't lean?"

A valid criticism found on every peg-dragger site I lurked in.

It doesn't lean.

It doesn't lean because it's not a motorcycle.

It's not a motorcycle, and - Ago forgive me - I like it anyway. But it's not a car either. It's something else. And we need as much something else as we can get.

Motorcyclists already use an "alternative" vehicle (from the POV of the majority) and are therefore more open to an alternative alternative, but ultimately bikers seem to be stuck on what they see as the "loss" of the tilting horizon. Some will eventually be able to get their heads around it (sidecarists first, I 'speck) and some will not. Ever. So it goes.

There will be (and indeed has been throughout history) considerable resistance to a "new" type of vehicle sharing the road with "regular" vehicles. Automobiles were once the catalyst for the same sort of resistance from the horse and carriage crowd. I imagine there were fur-clad naysayers in a torch-waving circle around Thor (the inventor of the wheel) shouting "What's wrong with walking from place to place like we've always done?" and things of a similar nature. It will pass. Eventually.

The thing about any change of paradigm, even a limited one like what constitutes a "proper" vehicle, is that it doesn't fully manifest until the last of the people who hold the old paradigm have died. So it's gonna be awhile before vehicles with even and odd numbers of wheels - both leaning and non-leaning - can share the roads in peace. But it will happen.

I just wish it would hurry the hell up.

Coming Soon: Guzzi Stelvio and a cohovision update.