Can-Am Spyder

Threedom fighter

It's pretty obvious how many wheels you'd need to create a niche between a motorcycle and a sports car. It's also pretty obvious that, if one wants to avoid re-inventing the already re-invented 1886 Benz or exhuming the Reliant Robin, a three-wheeler with sporting pretensions had better have two of its wheels in the front.

The last mainstream road vehicle like this, however, went out of production 55 years ago, when even Mesozoic-tech Morgan evolved onto four wheels. Since then, any of the world's car or motorcycle manufacturers could have thrown their super-computing smarts at this wedge-shaped hole in the market. None has.

The company that finally did builds neither cars nor motorcycles, though it has dabbled in both. Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), which brings you the three-wheeled (or 'Y-architecture') Can-Am Spyder Roadster, is probably the world's best-known manufacturer of everything but cars and bikes. It invented the snowmobile, the sit-down personal water craft and the two-seater all-terrain vehicle (or quad), and is a key player in each of these 'powersports' markets with its Ski-Doo, Sea-Doo and Can-Am brands - not to mention Evinrude outboard engines.

The Can-Am Spyder Roadster isn't trying to entice you off four wheels, but onto seven. Due to land in Australia in the first quarter of 2008, the 79kW, 316kg two-seater will be priced in the low- to mid-$20K area; cheaper than your outlaw-orthodontist's Harley and big sports-touring BMWs, and smack against large-capacity Japanese touring bikes.

Zero to 100km/h acceleration in 4.5 seconds is comparable with fellow two-seaters like the, er, Porsche 911 GT3 and Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG. A surprisingly similar suite of Bosch stability electronics keeps the Spyder straight and shiny-side up, but autobahnführers would be quickly frustrated by the Spyder's modest 190km/h top speed. Despite heavy lobbying by BRP, it seems likely (and appropriate) that Oz Spyder riders will need a motorcycle licence.

BRP openly acknowledges that more than half the Spyder's customers will not so much be car or bike converts, but brand loyalists looking to take their snow/surf/slush 'powersports' experience onto the road.

The first prototypes built during 1998 were, in fact, converted snowmobiles, though BRP design chief Denys Lapointe - who, in 1985, worked on a stillborn, Bombardier/Daihatsu small-car project - says his designers weren't initially locked into anything. "By definition, a motorcycle is a straddle-type product with three wheels or less," he said. "Some of the early ideas even had one wheel [the Embrio concept, see page 70]. There were two wheels, three wheels, retractable wheels, all kinds of geometries that were explored."

The eventual Spyder Roadster is a mélange of motorised fun stuff. The styling is not only explained by the 44-litre boot in the nose, but that Spyder design boss Etienne Guay spends six months of his year sketching snowmobiles.

The box-section steel tube chassis loops vertically around the rubber-mounted engine, as per the latest Ski-Doo snowmobiles. The same seems to have inspired the front upper and lower A-arm suspension, and rear swinging-arm with monoshock.

No end of track/wheelbase iterations were tried, see-sawing between engineers (wider, longer) and stylists (narrower, shorter). The eventual 1308mm front track and 1727mm wheelbase provides the expected agility, along with sufficient stability from the Bosch ABS/traction control/stability program - car-derived, but modified for the trike's greater load-variance and anti-rollover demands - which remains unobtrusive in normal
riding. Apparently, oversteer and rear-end aquaplaning, even more than tipping over, are major issues if the electronics are removed.

The liquid-cooled, balance-shaft, 60-degree V-twin engine displaces 998cc, and is a variant of that built by BRP-Rotax for the Aprilia RSV 1000 motorcycle. A lower compression ratio and milder cams tweak outputs to 79kW at 8500rpm and 104Nm at 6250rpm. (The Aprilia, in contrast, makes 105kW at 10,000rpm and 101Nm at 8000rpm.)

This engine's standard dry sump negates concerns about lateral forces not experienced on a motorcycle. But the biggest bottom-end difference lies with the Spyder's five-speed gearbox, wherein the motorcycle's sixth has been replaced with an idler gear allowing a proper, mechanical reverse.

The reverse lever on the left-side handlebar, along with the absence of a front brake lever on the right handlebar, is about all that's different from being astride a motorcycle. Otherwise, clutch lever on the left, twist-grip throttle on the right, up/down gear lever at the left foot and brake lever at the right foot, is all conventional two-wheeled stuff.

So conventional is the feeling from the firm but fairly comfortable seat, that riders at the launch were constantly reminded that front and rear braking was all via the right foot, and that cornering requires physically steering the handlebars. So, what's it like to ride? Umm, great. And weird. And easy and difficult at the same time. It's just like riding a personal water craft, or a snowmobile. I mean, I guess, as I've never ridden either.

The weirdest deal is the steering. Speed-variable electric assistance takes care of some of the effort, though it increases noticeably with more lock, even in low-speed manoeuvring. At road speed it's a tad too sensitive just off-centre. The turning circle is better than a car's, not as tight as a bike's.

On the road, it seems the less motorcycling experience one has, the less one will have to forget in order to ride the Spyder.

The V-twin engine is a peach, way torquey enough but with an urgent, bad-boy edge nearer the 9500rpm redline. If, as a car driver, you're worried you won't get used to routinely using 7000-9000rpm, we ask you in gentle encouragement: are you kidding?

The ABS calibration for the commendably strong, but numb-feeling triple-disc brake system makes itself obvious, though one's mind in a panic stop tends to be focused on simply hanging on.

The ride quality is excellent, given the Roadster's sports-touring intent; it's a no-brainer that, if the concept takes off, Can-Am will build a whole model family. The forward-leaning, sports-tourer riding position has the rider enjoying a combination of windscreen protection for the body and environmental impact in the teeth. Low-cut 'Sport' and tall 'Touring' windscreens are already available.

The front end, with its relatively narrow tyres, suffers only mild tramlining and delivers little road shock (and not much feel) through the bars. There's something pleasingly retro about watching the cycle guards - with pilot lights visible in one's visor at night - tracking confidently over lumps and bumps. The rear, also manually adjustable for spring preload, provides better comfort than many bum-over-axle sports cars. Some of that has to do with the surprisingly low recommended tyre pressures of 15psi all around. Which brings me back to steering and cornering.

When riding a motorcycle, one is continuously, even subconsciously, making small steering inputs through the footpegs, knees, bum and handlebars, to maintain balance. Counter-steering - effectively, tipping the bike into a turn by pressuring the handlebar in the opposite direction - is a prominent steering tool.

None of them do dick on the Spyder. The correct technique on the Spyder is to physically lever the thing into a corner with the handlebars, while bodily leaning forwards to the inside of the vehicle to counter the lateral g-forces. The Spyder, naturally, rolls towards the outside of the corner. Nothing particularly unstable or uncontrollable about that; even a lofted inside-front wheel is calmly swatted over the head by the ignition-retarding ESP.

Then you get to the next corner, reposition your body to the inside, steer into the turn with the handlebars, partly bracing yourself against the lateral g-forces with the outside handlebar. And the next corner, upsy-daisy, shuffle to the inside, steer in, hold your weight against the outside bar which, uhh, seems to be falling and reaching farther away from you the harder you corner...

Zapping through a flowing series of esses on the Spyder is a pretty invigorating sensation, hanging off and generating g-forces like you're on a qualifier at Monza. Same sort of thrill as having a big go with a car or bike? With the limited abilities of the low-pressure tyres and the well-timed intrusion of the electronics, you'll be carrying only two-thirds of the speed, but yeah, I reckon it's every bit as big a thrill.

But then, just tootling through the same series of esses on the Spyder also feels like a qualifier at Monza. A motorcycle can demand little effort from the rider as it banks lazily beneath him, countering lateral force on his behalf. The sports car driver props his foot against the dead-pedal and relaxes his shoulders against the seat backrest.

Cars and bikes offer the choice of whether you relax, or grab the thing by the horns and swing like a monkey. The Spyder doesn't, and it makes me wonder how tiring it would be for touring, especially two-up. I've also wondered if the Spyder's unusual footprint can be kept safe from the grit, diesel and detritus that ends up between car tyre tracks.

Still, it's interesting that only this last point has anything to do with the Spyder's weird wheel count. The riding dynamic would be the same if it rode on four wheels. Or skis.

BRP has known all along that the Spyder is not a motorcycle; instead, it's a road-powersports vehicle that's affordable, accessible and forgiving. In these speed-restricted and traffic-constricted times, it's increasingly difficult to get more fun out of our wheels. Maybe you should try with less.