Does this thing qualify for a mention in motorcycle blog? The Stealth Tryke is a twin front-wheeler with flat profile tyres, no ability to lean, a foot throttle and a steering wheel. But it’s got a Gixxer engine and a chain drive, so we’ll let it through just this once.
Lehigh Valley Choppers have clearly been inspired by other performance three-wheelers like the exotic-looking Canadian T-REX, which is based on the ZX-12R and ZX-14R engines. The Stealth Trike’s GSX-R1000 engine is no slouch for horsepower either, as the above video shows. Despite the enormous, fat back tyre, the Tryke has no trouble lighting up its rear wheel.
We’ve been going on a bit lately about three-wheelers, I know, and I promise I’ll give them a rest for a bit after this one, which is the first I’ve seen with any decent horsepower. Looking like a V-Max with an old-school lawnmower bolted to the front of it, it’s the latest bike from Tilting Motor Works.
The tilting three-wheeler concept has well and truly broken onto the market in the last 6 months - before that, few of us had seen anything like it. But as early as 2005, Bob Mighell from Stanford, WA, USA, was searching for a way to combine the lean-in cornering of a bike with the front-end stability and grip of a 4-wheeler. He quickly decided on the idea of a three-wheeler with tilting twin front wheels, and made a prototype out of his son’s Lego.
Two prototypes using small-capacity Hondas were built and tested, and finally, in September last year, he put together the V-Max we see today.
Mighell’s home-made front end bolts straight into the engine mounts down low. A new set of rigid fork tubes connects the steering arms to the bike’s stock steering head, and the two theels are independantly suspended from the new front end. Braking forces are fed back low into the bike’s frame, instead of at the headstock like on a normal bike, so stability under the Buell-style rim-mounted disc brakes is very good.
There’s no MP3-style tilt lock yet, although Bob’s working on the idea, and he’s planning conversion kits for Harley and Goldwing donor bikes. A very nifty bit of home craftwork from a guy who makes a living refurbishing surgical operating room equipment.
There’s a slightly tedious 4-minute video of the Tilting Motorworks V-MAX available that doesn’t do much for Mighell’s cred as a rider, but shows he knows how to pick a pumpin’ workout soundtrack. Photos are from TheKneeslider.
French importers Sidam have signalled their intentions to build yet another type of three-wheel scooter to surf the popularity wave started by the Piaggio MP3, Gilera Fuoco and Vectrix three-wheelers. This time, though, instead of putting the two wheels at the front where they’re actually useful in a traction and stability context, they’ll be at the rear of the vehicle.
The (presumably Chinese-built) Sidam Xnovo will feature two rear wheels, each on a separate independantly suspended swingarm. The design sketches seem to suggest that both rear wheels will be belt driven in the 500cc Piaggio-engined petrol version - although hybrid and fully electric versions are also on the cards, the latter featuring twin electric motors, one in each wheel hub. (more…)
Having spent a considerable amount of time laughing myself silly on the Piaggio MP3 and snapping the necks of astonished onlookers who’ve never seen anything like it, I’m very excited to hear that this sensational three-wheeler’s evil 500cc big brother has now gone on sale. The Fuoco is built on the same platform as the MP3, but is being released under the sportier Gilera brand.
If you haven’t yet ridden the MP3 or the Fuoco, it’s probably hard to understand why this sort of bike would be of any interest. It looks big, bulky and every bit as dorky as a Burgmann - and your biker mates will tell you to “get a REAL bike.” But those same mates will disappear from your mirrors in tight urban corners, over bumpy and damaged tarmac, and in the rain as the two chunky front wheels simply dole out twice the traction and stability you get on an ordinary bike. You quickly learn exactly how quickly you can go into a right-angle corner to scrape the centrestand all the way around and come out on full throttle. Then, you do so on every single corner you see. Rinse and repeat.
It’s a demon on the brakes too, there’s almost no dive thanks to the twin-parallelogram front end, and the two contact patches let it stop like nothing on two wheels ever could. It’s an absolute gas!
The MP3 is hilarious fun, but it’s just begging for more power and a suspension package that can elevate it out of the learner-bike leagues and raise its limits to the sort of level the steering package makes you want to ride it at. And here’s that power and suspension package right now, in the Gilera Fuoco. A 500cc single making a grunty 40hp will fire the beastie out of those lovely tight corners with much of the urge the MP3 was missing - and hopefuly the stiffer suspension will give you just that few degrees more of a lean angle and iron out the MP3’s tendency to lounge around a bit in the faster corners.
For all its lavish helpings of hoonish fun, the Fuoco will be every bit as practical as the MP3, with huge storage capacity, hydraulic tilt-lock for feet-up stops and parking on any angle, and the sort of fuel economy that has you giggling at the petrol station counter.
When I last spoke to a dealer that was selling the MP3, he told me that it was proving a bit intimidating as a learner package, just because of its size and weight. But every seasoned biker that came in and took it for a belt around the block came back whooping and hollering and demanding to be notified when the Fuoco hit the sales floor. Well, they’re here, lads. Your hooligan commuting tool of the decade has arrived!
The Fuoco is hitting showrooms floors across the world right now with a price in the vicinity of UKP5500 or AU$13000, which means that it will probably be around US$11,000 when it hits American shores under the Piaggio brandname (Piaggio doesn’t use the Gilera brand name in the USA). Full press release after the jump. I can’t wait to get my hands on one!
A couple of things we didn’t get around to mentioning in our Gizmag review of the Piaggio MP3 three-wheel 250cc scooter - that may be of some interest to the more… ahem, spirited owner. Firstly, while we praised the plucky little carver’s huge braking power, we didn’t tell you that the twin front contact patches offer more than enough grip to lift the heavy weight-biased rear of the bike off the ground in a rather jovial manner when provoked.
Now here’s some sideways action I’d love to get into! The Brudeli 625L is a three-wheel carver in the style of Piaggio’s MP3, but based on the KTM 625 SMC Supermotard and kitted out for high-speed sideways dirt shenanigans.
