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.

wednesday

Biggest 3wheeler Ever!

(and it's right way 'round, too)

This is the Lebedenko (aka:"Tsar") Tank. State of the art military tech in 1914. Its front wheels are almost nine meters in diameter. Unfortunately, during testing its tiny (1.5m) rear wheel got stuck in a ditch and the engine wasn't strong enough to pull its forty ton weight back out again.

Imagine if the Imperial Russian army had had a powerful-enough-to-pull-its-own-weight version of these in 1917...Empire of the 3wheelers!

thursday

TDM

In 1991 the boys from Hamamatsu produced a remarkable bike. They saw how well the BMW R80G/S Paris-Dakar rally bike adapted to life as a go-anywhere streetbike.

So they made a street-friendly but not-afraid-of-the-occasional-fire-road version of their own Dakar winning XTZ 750 Super Tenere. The TDM850.

While having little of the Tenere's (or the G/S) off-road ability, it was more than most of the Standards (that's what Naked bikes used to be called) of the time. And it could carve. All day. Big (20L) gas tank. Givi even made cases for it.

Unfortunately, it was a couple of years too early. It was imported into the US for only two years, 1992 and '93. The Yanks couldn't figure out what it was.

"Look at that bash plate and long-legged suspension, is it a dirtbike? No, look at the cast wheels and fairing, it's a sportbike. Naw...can't be a sportbike, it has wide handlebars and comfortable ergonomics. AAAIIIIIIIGGGHHHHHH!!!!! That's it, I'm buying a bike that's not so hard to figure out."

It was a street-biased adventure tourer. Since there did not yet exist a niche market called Adventure Tourers, sales of this confusing motorcycle were not brisk. At least not in the US.

In 1994 the four valve oilhead BMW R1100GS (by way of some pleasantly surprised magazine writers and a renewed interest in marketing on behalf of BMW) showed the Yanks that a "big trailie" can be a very competent and compliant canyon-carver. Most people cannot or will not spend the money for a BMW. Enter the Triumph Tigers, the MotoGuzzi Quotas, the VStroms and the Multistradas. You can't go ten feet without seeing an "SUV-like" streetbike. And like most SUVs, they live their entire lives on pavement. These bikes are not the same as the GS. They are more like the TDM. Here are just a few of the TDM-flavored bikes that have come along since 1994. In a future post I mean to delve into the new MotoGuzzi Stelvio.

But we're here now to talk about the TDM. I am, anyway. I'm not entirely clear why you guys keep coming back (thank you, all six of you). Basically, I'm just bitching because Yamaha bailed on a bike I liked but couldn't afford after only two model years. If they had held out one more year...

In the rest of the world, the TDM is in its third generation and going strong. In the US this type of bike is now overrepresented and Yamaha has no plans to bring it here. Ever. Dammit.

Don't just be mad at Yamaha though, the Euros are bogarting the Honda Varadero, too.