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 Yamaha 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.

wednesday

Brudeli 625L

This is the one I couldn't remember the name of in the post before last.

It's the Brudeli Leanster. It's Norwegian and has a KTM 625cc single. Bigger than I thought.

It also has a pretty cool control system, the body and all three wheels lean so you'd be countersteering like it was a 2wheeler, but the footboards remain parallel to the ground all the time. That sounds like a recipe for leverage to me. The guy in the video is hanging waaay off, but since the footboards can't touch down, and he can't lowside until the outside front wheel comes off the ground...I bet you could drag your helmet if you wanted to (do they make helmet pucks?).


Check out the video at the Brudeli site. With knobbies it makes a fine snow machine. Year-round riding, even in the frozen north (or south). Most groovy.

It's a snow & ice-laughing-at, hang-off-like-the-America's-Cup, three-wheeled supermoto. Cool.

It's not street legal. Bummer, but not too bad. Fun could still be had.

It's only built to order, in Norway, and costs € 20,000 (plus tax, duty, shipping and Jah knows what other international baksheesh) that's Twenty Thousand Euros, not dollars, for a not-street-legal three wheeled dirt bike. F*ck.

Badass, though.

photos: rune baashus

sunday

What is it with coho and those damn 3wheelers?

This one used to be a plane.

I've always thought trikes were cool. 3wheelers.com has been in the sidebar of this blog from the beginning. It is a list of (almost) every commercially-produced 3wheeler since 1769.

I prefer the reverse style (a.k.a. backwards or tadpole) with two wheels in front and one drive wheel (graft the posterior 75% of a motorcycle to an automotive front end and the rest is just bodywork). The handling is vastly superior to the two wheels in back type.

[Note: front wheel drive is not uncommon in such a vehicle, I just don't think of them the same way. That's a three wheeled front wheel drive car, not a three wheeled motorcycle.]

Besides, I like the dynamics of rear wheel drive and I've never seen a 3wheeler with all wheel drive. If you see one, let me know so that I can begin wanting one immediately...even if it's ugly. All wheel drive is neat. All wheel drive with an odd number of wheels is...ooh, I need a towel.

This one is Czech, and I can't remember anything else about it. It's a one-off, like most 3wheelers, and it's neat in a spaceshippy way, but ultimately isn't even as practical as a motorbike (the groceries go where, now?). And I'm afraid I must insist on at least a modicum of practicality in my vehicles. It's just the way I'm wired.

This one is the opposite of a one-off. It's a Grinnall Scorpion and if you want one you can order it from Grinnall as a kit, or as an engineless but fully assembled body ready for the BMW K1200 engine from your donor bike. I saw a 1999 Scorpion for sale online just this morning for only £8000. They also make (ho-hum) conventional trikes (two in back) out of the BMW R1200C and R1150R, as well as a four wheeled version of the Scorpion (Scorpion IV) about which I couldn't possibly care less...that's just a car.

I don't know these people, I just want their trike.

For a long time, the FireAero was the top of my 3wheeler want-list. It saw production as a kit and as a complete vehicle in the mid 1980s. The thing I liked most about it was that it was a well thought out, coherent whole, not just bits put together. And the Goldwing boxer4 engine that was in the later ones is a sweet bit of motor. Alas, like the TriHawk, the newest ones are twenty years old and $pendy...if you can

find one at all.Of course there's always the T-Rex. Built in Canada, high level of fit and finish, blisteringly fast (the newest iteration has a 187hp Kawasaki ZX1400 engine). The only thing wrong with it is that it's FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. US dollars, too, not that colorful stuff the Canucks use at home. Enough to buy four Kawasaki ZX1400s. That's simply too freakin' much. Bad ass, though.

Then came Volkswagen.

VW showed a reverse 3wheeler at the 2006 LA auto show. They claimed they were going to bring the GX3 to market in '07 or '08 for under $20K. This, of course, made more drool than usual run down my chin because a company with as deep a set of pockets as VW could really make a go of it (and that swingarm is a beautiful piece of engineering/sculpture). If they established a niche it wouldn't be more than a year or two before there was a Toyota 3wheeler, and a Honda, and a BMW, and a Suzuki, etc. Different trim levels, open or enclosed, even...(gasp) a 3wheeler aftermarket... Then the Germans chickened out. No GX3 for you or me. Damn.
You may have noticed (and almost certainly will now that I've drawn your attention to it) that these are all sit in machines (carlike) rather than sit on machines (like a motorbike) even though most of them are registered as bikes. Also that none of them are leaners. Leaning is for motorcycles. If I want to put new grooves in the sides of my boots I'll take the bike. This is a different kind of ride. Besides, until very recently the vast majority of the sit on ones looked somehow wrong. Too much like somebody just welded together a wrecked bike and a wrecked car. Not so much anymore.

It seems that the sit on type is currently ascendent. With the arrival of the (leaning) Piaggio MP3 scooter and the (non-leaning but much more powerful) CanAm Spyder it may be that small, light and gas-friendly 3wheelers will become a growing portion of our traffic. Neat. It's about time for the "cool new thing" to be something I like instead of the exact opposite of what I like.

The reverse-trike concept is not a new one as this advertisement for an 1898 Beeston Motette shows, but it seems that the time for the idea is upon us (both for leaning and non-leaning 3wheelers). That's why I'm so jazzed about the CanAm Spyder (see previous post - and probably the next one too), because while Bombardier may not have quite the depth of pocket VW has, they can take care of themselves and they're bringing it to a dealer near you (if you live in the correct state ... tell me again why we need fifty separate DMVs for one country?).

(not an advertisement)AeroTrike Kit - about $5K + donor bike