New 3 Wheeler hitting market!

My local paper was advertising a new 3 wheeler coming to the marketplace and to register for a demo ride.

Here's the web site for the 700 pound Can-Am Spyder 990 liquid cooled V-Twin rotax engine

http://spyder.brp.com/

 

I think bmw is coming out with 3 or 4 wheeler thAt will be street legAl.Prise is like 30-50 grAnd.

 

Owner of a local Motorcycle gear store is thinking hard about being a mid-west dealer and getting one as a store vehicle to advertise at meets.

 

Three wheeled vehicles (whether in the front or the back) are scary to me. I was raised on a three wheeler as a child (never really owned a four wheeler), and I should be dead after how many times I flipped it, rolled it, and came off it in general.

 

I did a lot of that on my first motorcycle, it was a Honda CL-90 way back in the late 60's.

 

Dude, same here. Was I the only one that thought it was totally rad to be able to ride super-far on a three-wheeler balancing it on the front wheel and one back side wheel? That was a favorite trick as a kid, and it ended in disaster more often than not.

 

I rode the prototype at a local dealer in NY they took 2 units out and you followed a guy on a new R1.
I thought it would be lame but its a blast,it handles great,they have stability control and itf it lifts the inside wheel it works the anti lock brakes to set it back down.
It feels very similer to ridding a newer snowmobile on a very smooth trail and taking a corner above 60mph.
It has good power also but no rocket. The brakes are tremondous you had better hold on hard,with three contact patches it stops faster than a bike.
It would be a cool toy but $15,000 is a bit steep

 

Ive seen at least one yellow and one red on the streets in the west suburbs of Milwaukee. It could have been 3 different yellows, since I didnt see the plates. Being in a 5 mile radius, they might all be the same one.
The first one I saw on the street was in mid April.
The Can-Am spyder does look fast. I expect there will be a ton of go-fast goodies in no time!

On another note, the specs for the Can-Am list Full moon black and grey ans one color choise, and Millenium Yellow as the other - no red.
Unless there is another 3-wheeler like this out there, somegot thiers painted.


WI has a law that if you take your motorcycle license test on a trike/3-wheeler or wiht a sidecar, you will be stuck being legal to only operate the sidecar equiped or trike/3-wheeler, until you retake the test on a two wheeler.


Steve

 

I did the test-ride of one of the Can-Am Spyders at Uke's Dirt Store in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I have some video I keep meaning to post. Pretty cool ride, but a bit rich for my blood.

The thing has TONS of power and handles like a snowmobile except the rear end does NOT slide out as you power through turns. I hit 65 in second gear without even realizing it. There were 3 more gears. TONS of power with a very smooth power band. It sounds mean, too.

As for lifting wheels and such, there are 5 computers running the stability and traction control (and a 6th backup in case one of them goes off-line which they seemed to do on startup on the demo beaters - you reset the computers by restarting and blipping the throttle to redline once). Word from the guys giving the rides is that try as they might, they couldn't lift a whell for more than a fraction of a second before the stability control limited power or applied brake to the correct tire and brought it down. I took some pretty hard turns with nary a slide nor tip - even with some gravel on the road.

Oddities/downsides - No hand brake lever - foot only. Took some grabbing at the air to get used to this (there are, of course, brakes up front, they're jsut all computer-controlled by one lever at your foot). Also, due to the engine and wheel cowling, my legs got pretty warm with nowhere to put them to get them cooler - this was on a short 5 mile or so jaunt on a HOT day. *shrug*

That's just a quick write-up. If the tour comes near you, definitely check them out. Just whatever you do, don't try to counter-steer at highway speeds or you'll quickly end up in the oncoming lane. Don't ask me how I know this.

And yes, of the 10 or so rides they had on the tour, they were only grey and yellow - no red.