Let the record that on the morning I rode hundred and seven miles each way to climb new Cam-am Spyder F3-S, I almost dropped me my bike.
I'm still not quite sure how it happened. Something like this: I turned my VFR800 Anniversary Edition around the slope of my driveway. My left foot slipped on some oil or maybe just water and the entire machine 539 pounds fell like my foot continued to slide. About a tenth of a second before it was too late, I took some traction with the outside of my heel, then all I had to do was to stop the blade with my left arm. He felt like deadlifting twice my weight and, for a moment, I thought my thrice broken left wrist would snap again and add a medical bill the cost of a replacement shroud.
When everything came to a stop and I pulled the VFR vertically, I stopped a moment to consider the following: I am forty-three, I broke the os eighty-plus, and the day I drop a motorcycle came fast. So with that in mind, I squeezed in, grabbed the first gear, and headed north to meet what I was now very happy to think like a motorcycle non-releasable .
This is my cell phone shot of F3-S, but because the trike is so curved edges, and because " there were so many other trikes around, it is not easy to see what it actually looks like. Use a photo of PR we?
is really beautiful in a strange and very different way of RS Spyder that I hated when I stepped a little there four years.
Fox shocks ...
Brembo brakes. What can you get for $ 20.999 who has that kind of equipment? Oh, and there was a cruise control, apparently. The color contrast trellis frame has the same appeal here he has on a sportbike or Ducati KTM. You can see many of motor, which is not the case with other members of the Spyder family.
To push 850 pounds dry weight of the Can-Am Spyder offers a Rotax-badged 1330 cc triple capable of 115 horsepower and 96 lb-ft of torque. That much engine you can get in a Spyder, and it is the same as that which grows full dresser RT tourer now, but we live in a time when most sport touring motorcycles have more than 150 horses. Even my old conservative man VFR 110 horsepower. So if you expect to follow Beemer K10GT your neighbor or Kawaski Contest-14 as they rip at 10.3 seconds quarter miles, you have to walk right past the Spyder and ask the Yamaha V-Max.
Before I was allowed to ride the Spyder F3-S on the street, I had to fill a small autocross course of her. Really just a small oval with a chicane in the straight, to be taken at about 15 mph. I negotiated easily, remembering that the Spyder does not run like a motorcycle. The man who has coached novices gave me a piece of advice I would like Can-Am myself back in 2011: The "Push the outer end of the handlebar you turn away instead of pulling on the handlebars inside. " also gives you leverage to get your body moved to the inside of the turn, which is absolutely necessary if you do not want to just roll into a ditch.
After completing the Spyder school without incident, I was then allowed to choose my Spyder. I took a gray with the manual six-speed transmission. The majority of Spyders, I am told, are sold with the semi-automatic activated electronically. I was not afraid to stall that I headed on the road for my thirty minutes of test lap ahead follow. Only a fool could block this thing. It is all torque and no action. I am the second pilot of a group of four trike in which both lead and last rider were Can-Am employees, but the boy in front was not inclined to take it easy on me and I soon found myself using to full capacity to keep up.
back roads around Lodi, Ohio are quite beautiful. There is a lake and there is a change of altitude and there is a lot of long corners and, in short, it is a terrifying place where completely fucking ride a Can-Am Spyder. To start, the roads have heavy crown and they are narrow. On a motorcycle you are dealing with this by the median line of riding unless there was traffic; in a car, you should just deal with it period. But the Spyder would fall into the ditch all the time and my instinctive movements countersteering just helped in this goal.
That said, the new seating position in the F3 really using the questions from the RS Spyder I rode in Atlanta. You sit in the trike, not to it. The footrests are ahead, not less. It's like a Harley V-Rod that way and the footrests are adjustable to ensure that you can stretch as desired. The lower seat really helps you lean in turns and, therefore, the F3 never feels quite as bad as the old Spyders. The arrow bars are similar to those found in the most recent touring bikes, and they are chock full of controls including a button that you press to be allowed to start the bike. "Pressing the button means that you have read the owner's manual," they said.
"I can see no way that the holding of court, especially as the button is labeled" ECO "," I answered. Nevertheless, you have to.
This there is an electric parking brake. But there is no handbrake lever. only a large rubber foot to your right foot. That alone was almost enough to make me crash the Spyder least four times. I do not use the rear brake foot lever on my motorcycle. Maybe once a turn to clean machines, but that's all. My VFR tied the brakes, so apply the brake before applying the rear brake a little, and my CB550 has an almost completely useless drum there than I activate when it rains. time and again I found myself squeezing the air when it was time to stop. If you want proof that the Spyder is designed to "cagers", there you go. No brake. How hard would it be to add as an option?. Well, the Can-Am ABS to go with his ESP, so maybe hard enough
My next beef with the trike was: In a car, you only need to find two smooth lines bumpy road in a rural environment. On a bike you only need one. But a trike needs three. If there is a pothole or a wave of the road there, Spyder can find, and the geometry of management seems perfectly suited to following the grooves on the road. So I am constantly struggling to keep straight on Ohio to two lanes of frost heaved. Now, were you to find yourself on a freeway, you would appreciate the stability of three wheels against the wind and fatigue -. But tearing down a twisty backroad, it is miserable
I also noticed that the application of full throttle on said backroads with waves of the floor and undulations was very exciting, making me hang on thing left and right as I was in the original of Mad Max . Fortunately, the F3-S is not a Hayabusa and the same amount of twist that gets the VFR 110 or more only pushes the Spyder to maybe 65-70. If a modern V-6 Camry will run you for pink slips, know that you are in that old hands dragstrip call a "driver's race."
On the positive side of things, the transmission could not be easier to use. I found myself bumping past neutral first lot, but speaking just
a) me being a cack feet moron who rides a 1975 CB550 in traffic
b) the excellence of the Can-Am synchro.
Less amusing is the difficulty I had smooth operation of gas while using the handle for leverage. This is the place where you are spoiled on a motorcycle because if you're in the middle of Man TT on the island you really are not leaning on the bars a lot. I can run the VFR with fingers only on the bar more 100 mph, but crazy would you do something like that on the Spyder. So in the left turns, I kept on strangulation. This is called "whiskey gas" by experienced trike drivers, apparently. And when you do, the front end receives light because hey, you accelerate DUR. This reduces the ability of the front end of turn. scary as hell.
Several times I thought I had to get the price George Patrick Crashing to a vehicle during a follow lead the event, but each time I managed to HUCK my big ass seat in the right direction and things calm down. I'm a little better at this during the half hour.
the end of the test run has not come too soon for my personal satisfaction. I respect this machine, but I do not like to horse and I think it would take me a long time to learn how to operate it safely. "You sure liked the midline," sneered the fellow Can-am who was leading the race.
"Well, being away from, toward the white line on the side, scared the crap out of me." He smiled again. I felt like telling him that I had hunted Zanardi line at Laguna Seca to take first in a race, then realized I did not care what he thought of me, either. At that time, I am 100% done with the idea of the Spyder.
But as I walked around the tent Can-Am and saw the people that showed for the next follow lead of the race, I noticed that most of them were not what I think "bikers ". They were older, they were women. More than a few of them did not have their approval "M". There were two different African-American couples who were interested in the full-dresser Spyder RT, and they shared with me they liked the idea of it being stable on the highway.
as I returned to my Interceptor 800, which to my immense relief steers in the direction I lean and meets my desires without any particular strength of my hand I thought about how long I could ride something like that. My wrists hurt some of the hundred mile race over and my hands were a bit numb when I got to the demo-ride area. With more severe joint injury, I will be done with the bike as I know - or maybe the value of another decade of arthritis and joint deterioration, to say nothing of the denial of my right ACL to reappear magically going to call time on my riding aspirations. At the age of 23, I could ride my Ninja from dawn to dusk. At 28, I could ride my YZF0R five hundred miles, then go for a mountain bike sprint. Today, at 43, I can still go up three or four hundred miles in a day if I'm careful. Where will I be when I'm sixty? Confined to my 911 or Boxster or perhaps a convertible Corvette? How will I feel on the motorways of the stability of the Can-Am Spyder and the relaxed riding position and the relatively modest pace and ?
On Highway 71, down a tree-lined section I have long been used as a zone free-fire of personal irresponsibility, I leaned over the tank and twisted the knob Honda gas my stride 85 mph. Hundred. A ten. Around twenty. An hour and a half. I felt good. As the end of the section Wood approached, with a crossing where the Ohio Highway Patrol likes to sit, I crossed into the middle lane and sat, using my big Fieldsheer wearing low speed airbrake go-to-jail. No problem. I'm not too old to ride this thing, not too fragile. Not yet.
But a few miles later, as I alternated the pressure of my weight in my hands to keep needles, I saw a boy on an old trike conversion GoldWing position in the other direction, through the median. He saw me. And he did not just do the little nod that bikers do, or fall to the brink cooler-than-thou salvation. In fact, he nodded. With all its arms. He was hopeful, he was friendly, he suggested that we were brothers of a sort, pursuing the idea of being in the elements and do our own thing, but in different ways.
I looked up, saw the sun illuminating the white clouds, then I too raised my whole hand. And agitated. As I go to the Spyder drivers, the next time I see one.
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