Actually, the two upfront and one behind is inherently more stable then one upfront and two behind. The Morgan I posted was tested by Richard Hammond of Top Gear (UK) on one of their challenges. He demonstrated it cornered well with out tipping over and could even do donuts.Gummiente wrote:When they first came out, I thought the Spyder was the answer to a question nobody had asked. I figured they would quietly go away in a year or two from a lack of sales, but several years later they're still around and I see more of them on the roads every day. As a dedicated sidecar enthusiast, I find the concept of a trike hard enough to fathom, but the "2 up front, 1 at the rear" layout of the Spyder just makes absolutely no sense to me. It is inherently unsafe and difficult to steer, but Bombardier has managed to counteract the bad handling traits by injecting the platform with all kinds of gee-whiz technology and transform it into a very fine handling machine.
However. It is not a "bike" by my definition and as such it does not get a vote. I do still wave to them whenever I see one, though.
The same could not be said of that other icon of British three wheelers, the Reliant Robin, which like the Bay Class Mine Sweeper I served on, would roll on a wet teabag, in the case of the Robin, it would roll to one side in a turn, nose in and flip over.
But I agree with you, Sypder is not a bike, nor is it a car, it is something else all together. Closest other vehicle I can think of is a snow mobile, only instead of having a drive track and ski's, its got wheels.