If you thought my trike was mad...
Jun. 2nd, 2007 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenDown to Castletown in the south of the Island this evening for a drink with an old school friend, Bill Galley and his wife Debbie. While chewing the fat, he was telling me of a bizarre trike he saw earlier in the day - he described it as a sort of hybrid of a sports bike and a Formula 1 racing car.
Well, damn me if when we leave the pub, it isn't parked up opposite. And a wholly remarkable vehicle it is, too. It's a Sportcycle Solo, and it appears to be a way for a car driver who's afraid of bikes to get a feel for superbike performance. The company doesn't seem to have a website, but I've found a couple of reviews:
http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=102&i=8733
&
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040907/ai_n12797850
It's a weird-looking thing. It looks like someone parked a Blackbird at very high speed up the backside of a Formula 3000 car. To my eyes, it's rather ugly, and FAR too long - it's something like 5 metres in length!
However, it does look like it would be FAF as Haydn at the Trike Shop puts it. (Not something obscure in Welsh; it simply means "Fast As F$%&".) Very rapid, good fun in a seat-of-the-pants wind-in-your-face kind of way.
I wouldn't trade my trike for it if you paid me, though. Well, not unless you paid me really quite a lot.
One of the reviews is rather inaccurate. Whereas one mentions other older bike-based sportscars (think Morgan Tricar here), it says nothing else like it exists. Well, that's not true. It's a kit to adapt an existing bike, whereas Grinnall have been making the Scorpion for years:
http://www.grinnallcars.com/scorpion.html
Scorpions look a lot more "finished" and professional, frankly, if a bit more tame. (There used to be someone who lived close to me in Onchan when I was over here full-time who had one. I seem to recall my mum asking me if I'd give up motorbikes if I had one of those. To which the answer was "no": to me, the Scorpion isn't a bike, it's a sportscar, and I didn't have a lot of interest in those.)
But more recently, Grinnall have also started making a "proper" trike - you can see a pic on their homepage:
http://www.grinnallcars.com/content/home/home.html
I see there's a new Triumph Rocket III version. That kinda makes sense. I've seen, indeed sat on, but not ridden, their BMC R1200C trike, but that's a bit of a silly bike. I'd rather have an R1150GS, a splendid all-rounder with a Paris-Dakar sort of heritage, than a version with surplus chrome designed to be a European Harley D rival. If I wanted an HD, I'd buy one, but they're stupidly expensive over here - at least for rather primitive agricultural tech. I've long thought they'd make a great sidecar pull, though. I could do without the official logoed leathers/gloves/cowboy hats/lighters/aftershave/condoms, though. (*Ick.*)
The Rocket III is a silly bike, though, for those with serious issues concerning penis size. Making a trike of it almost makes sense.
But for some years now, I've been coming to think that if you're going to make a trike out of a motorcycle, the preferable way to do it is to put the 2 wheels at the /front/ not the back. Simplifies the transmission, no need for a diff, probably more aerodynamic, the rider can see the width of the vehicle making manouvering in tight spaces easier, but most of all, I reckon it'd steer better. That's the big weak point of mine. It goes, it sticks to the road like glue and it stops on a dime. Roadholding, grip and braking are better than any solo. Also, it both accelerates and stops in a straight line, unlike a sidecar outfit. (I've got one of those, too. I speak from experience.) Gun an outfit, it tries to throw itself into the hedge. Emergency brake and it heads straight into the oncoming lane. Less than ideal. There are good reasons sidecars went out of fashion. They're great fun but in suicidal sort of way.
The Grinnall trikes are lovely bits of work. Perhaps a teeny bit over-polished for me - I rather like being able to see the workings and it is, as ever, drawing an attentive crowd every time I stop over here at the TT. Great work, though.
But still, I'd like to see a production effort at a 2-wheels-forward trike. I've seen one V-Max based one at the NEC, but alas, I lost the owners' details.
Another bonus of a 2WF trike is more obscure. Most trike riders chose their vehicles because they have a disability which means that they can't ride a solo. A very common injury in motorcyclists is a brachial plexus lesion - when the bundle of nerves that innervates the arm is either severed or pulled out of the spinal cord by trauma. My friend John Hall has such an injury and I've met 7 or 8 other bikers with it in hospital, plus others at meets of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD - good bunch. Go look 'em up and if you can, bung 'em some dosh).![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_major has a comparitively mild case, whereas another Sproutlore type, Cheryl, a very pleasant Scouse lass, has a quite severe instance. The effects range from total paralysis of the affected limb, in John's or Cheryl's cases, to paralysis of parts of it - I've met guys who can move the arm, or just the upper arm, but for whom the hand or whole limb below the elbow is paralysed. Sometimes it "just" causes weakness and poor coordination in the affected limb, if only some of the nerve fibres were damaged.
It need hardly be remarked that, for now at least, there is no treatment or cure.
If you have a bad case, over years, the muscles atrophy - not only in the limb but in the spine, too. The working limb does everything and the affected limb does nothing, so the muscles in the back which counter the loads from the arm hypertrophy or atrophy. (Broadly, you have pairs of muscles right down your back which control and align each vertebrum in the vertebral column. In a person with 2 undamaged arms, these muscles coordinate to meet the loads imposed by the arms. But if one arm does nothing, carries no loads, then the muscles that balance that side don't do any work and gradually get weaker and weaker. The result is a back that goes all out of balance. After 20yr, John can put his back out by sneezing.)
His trike, incidentally, is finally finished and running, after some 13 years. He's planning on riding it up to the TT on Sunday. I'm really worried for him - he's barely ridden or driven in a decade or so, his trike's almost totally untested - he's currently fighting problems with the exhaust silencers - and I know from my own just how heavy trikes are to steer and how easily they go into "tank slappers" - violent oscillations of the handlebars from lock to lock. It almost never happens to me any more - I know how to prevent it and how to stop it when it happens. It scares the willies out of solo riders who try my trike, though. A steering damper would help but make it even /heavier/ to steer, which would be a very bad thing. I don't know if John's back will take the strain, and I fear for how his first real ride and shakedown run of some 300-odd miles to the boat will go. If the machine doesn't conk out, he might. I wouldn't stop him for the world - he's been aiming for this for some 20y. But I worry, all the same. His dad died a couple of months ago and his mum 2yr back, so at least they won't be fretting over him getting back on a motorcycle.
Anyway. For such riders, there's a huge possible benefit to a 2WF trike. Power steering. 2WF trikes use the same sort of rack-and-pinion steering couplings as cars, so grafting a car's power amplification setup onto it should not be a massive effort. The result could be to make 2WF trikes a lot more accessible and indeed safe for riders who've lost an arm or the use of one.
So I am delighted to read in MCN that Can-Am Bombardier are putting one into production. They call it the Spyder:
http://spyder.brp.com/
I've got some reservations about the first version - I'd rather have a bit more performance than that and I'm not sure that I like the sound of the linked brakes and automatic controls to prevent it tipping. However, I think it looks hugely promising and I really want a go on one!
Most solo bike riders will look at such machines, shrug and fail to see any point. However, for some people, there are benefits to be had from three wheels - either for bikers wanting a bike-style riding experience but without the need to balance, or seeking greater stability - or indeed, like the Sportcycle Solo, for car drivers seeking bike-like levels of performance and power-to-weight ratio.
I'm really happy to see that some companies have the guts to experiment, take a chance and see if anyone wants something different.
I know I do.
Well, damn me if when we leave the pub, it isn't parked up opposite. And a wholly remarkable vehicle it is, too. It's a Sportcycle Solo, and it appears to be a way for a car driver who's afraid of bikes to get a feel for superbike performance. The company doesn't seem to have a website, but I've found a couple of reviews:
http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=102&i=8733
&
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040907/ai_n12797850
It's a weird-looking thing. It looks like someone parked a Blackbird at very high speed up the backside of a Formula 3000 car. To my eyes, it's rather ugly, and FAR too long - it's something like 5 metres in length!
However, it does look like it would be FAF as Haydn at the Trike Shop puts it. (Not something obscure in Welsh; it simply means "Fast As F$%&".) Very rapid, good fun in a seat-of-the-pants wind-in-your-face kind of way.
I wouldn't trade my trike for it if you paid me, though. Well, not unless you paid me really quite a lot.
One of the reviews is rather inaccurate. Whereas one mentions other older bike-based sportscars (think Morgan Tricar here), it says nothing else like it exists. Well, that's not true. It's a kit to adapt an existing bike, whereas Grinnall have been making the Scorpion for years:
http://www.grinnallcars.com/scorpion.html
Scorpions look a lot more "finished" and professional, frankly, if a bit more tame. (There used to be someone who lived close to me in Onchan when I was over here full-time who had one. I seem to recall my mum asking me if I'd give up motorbikes if I had one of those. To which the answer was "no": to me, the Scorpion isn't a bike, it's a sportscar, and I didn't have a lot of interest in those.)
But more recently, Grinnall have also started making a "proper" trike - you can see a pic on their homepage:
http://www.grinnallcars.com/content/home/home.html
I see there's a new Triumph Rocket III version. That kinda makes sense. I've seen, indeed sat on, but not ridden, their BMC R1200C trike, but that's a bit of a silly bike. I'd rather have an R1150GS, a splendid all-rounder with a Paris-Dakar sort of heritage, than a version with surplus chrome designed to be a European Harley D rival. If I wanted an HD, I'd buy one, but they're stupidly expensive over here - at least for rather primitive agricultural tech. I've long thought they'd make a great sidecar pull, though. I could do without the official logoed leathers/gloves/cowboy hats/lighters/aftershave/condoms, though. (*Ick.*)
The Rocket III is a silly bike, though, for those with serious issues concerning penis size. Making a trike of it almost makes sense.
But for some years now, I've been coming to think that if you're going to make a trike out of a motorcycle, the preferable way to do it is to put the 2 wheels at the /front/ not the back. Simplifies the transmission, no need for a diff, probably more aerodynamic, the rider can see the width of the vehicle making manouvering in tight spaces easier, but most of all, I reckon it'd steer better. That's the big weak point of mine. It goes, it sticks to the road like glue and it stops on a dime. Roadholding, grip and braking are better than any solo. Also, it both accelerates and stops in a straight line, unlike a sidecar outfit. (I've got one of those, too. I speak from experience.) Gun an outfit, it tries to throw itself into the hedge. Emergency brake and it heads straight into the oncoming lane. Less than ideal. There are good reasons sidecars went out of fashion. They're great fun but in suicidal sort of way.
The Grinnall trikes are lovely bits of work. Perhaps a teeny bit over-polished for me - I rather like being able to see the workings and it is, as ever, drawing an attentive crowd every time I stop over here at the TT. Great work, though.
But still, I'd like to see a production effort at a 2-wheels-forward trike. I've seen one V-Max based one at the NEC, but alas, I lost the owners' details.
Another bonus of a 2WF trike is more obscure. Most trike riders chose their vehicles because they have a disability which means that they can't ride a solo. A very common injury in motorcyclists is a brachial plexus lesion - when the bundle of nerves that innervates the arm is either severed or pulled out of the spinal cord by trauma. My friend John Hall has such an injury and I've met 7 or 8 other bikers with it in hospital, plus others at meets of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD - good bunch. Go look 'em up and if you can, bung 'em some dosh).
the_major has a comparitively mild case, whereas another Sproutlore type, Cheryl, a very pleasant Scouse lass, has a quite severe instance. The effects range from total paralysis of the affected limb, in John's or Cheryl's cases, to paralysis of parts of it - I've met guys who can move the arm, or just the upper arm, but for whom the hand or whole limb below the elbow is paralysed. Sometimes it "just" causes weakness and poor coordination in the affected limb, if only some of the nerve fibres were damaged.It need hardly be remarked that, for now at least, there is no treatment or cure.
If you have a bad case, over years, the muscles atrophy - not only in the limb but in the spine, too. The working limb does everything and the affected limb does nothing, so the muscles in the back which counter the loads from the arm hypertrophy or atrophy. (Broadly, you have pairs of muscles right down your back which control and align each vertebrum in the vertebral column. In a person with 2 undamaged arms, these muscles coordinate to meet the loads imposed by the arms. But if one arm does nothing, carries no loads, then the muscles that balance that side don't do any work and gradually get weaker and weaker. The result is a back that goes all out of balance. After 20yr, John can put his back out by sneezing.)
His trike, incidentally, is finally finished and running, after some 13 years. He's planning on riding it up to the TT on Sunday. I'm really worried for him - he's barely ridden or driven in a decade or so, his trike's almost totally untested - he's currently fighting problems with the exhaust silencers - and I know from my own just how heavy trikes are to steer and how easily they go into "tank slappers" - violent oscillations of the handlebars from lock to lock. It almost never happens to me any more - I know how to prevent it and how to stop it when it happens. It scares the willies out of solo riders who try my trike, though. A steering damper would help but make it even /heavier/ to steer, which would be a very bad thing. I don't know if John's back will take the strain, and I fear for how his first real ride and shakedown run of some 300-odd miles to the boat will go. If the machine doesn't conk out, he might. I wouldn't stop him for the world - he's been aiming for this for some 20y. But I worry, all the same. His dad died a couple of months ago and his mum 2yr back, so at least they won't be fretting over him getting back on a motorcycle.
Anyway. For such riders, there's a huge possible benefit to a 2WF trike. Power steering. 2WF trikes use the same sort of rack-and-pinion steering couplings as cars, so grafting a car's power amplification setup onto it should not be a massive effort. The result could be to make 2WF trikes a lot more accessible and indeed safe for riders who've lost an arm or the use of one.
So I am delighted to read in MCN that Can-Am Bombardier are putting one into production. They call it the Spyder:
http://spyder.brp.com/
I've got some reservations about the first version - I'd rather have a bit more performance than that and I'm not sure that I like the sound of the linked brakes and automatic controls to prevent it tipping. However, I think it looks hugely promising and I really want a go on one!
Most solo bike riders will look at such machines, shrug and fail to see any point. However, for some people, there are benefits to be had from three wheels - either for bikers wanting a bike-style riding experience but without the need to balance, or seeking greater stability - or indeed, like the Sportcycle Solo, for car drivers seeking bike-like levels of performance and power-to-weight ratio.
I'm really happy to see that some companies have the guts to experiment, take a chance and see if anyone wants something different.
I know I do.
