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Having a blast, but have you noticed these Spyders Take an Effort To Ride?!

Many of us have found that riding a Spyder is different in nearly all respects to riding a 2-wheeler. One difference that I'm finding is the Spyder takes more effort to ride - especially in the twisties. Probably because I find the posted speed is just a suggestion, but keeping the line around a corner requires effort on the handlebars as well as pressure on the floorboards.
I've ridden many snowmobiles over the years and the experience is remarkably similar.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining - just another observation as I get more experience. Totally having a blast riding this thing!!
 
That is certainly true. I rode Tail of the Dragon, 318 curves in 11 miles. I was sweating at the end. It was summer and takes more effort plus you throw in concentration and your sweating. Not complaining but it's the way it is. And I was solo doing spirited riding, that takes work!!
 
Hang in there because it'll get better the more you ride it. The first couple of weeks on my 26 Sea to Sky I had my doubts about paying out over 34 grand for it and thought I would rather have the money back in my bank account but after over 1800 miles on it I have no regrets. I've spent a lot of money on add-ons, the first being the Baja Ron Ultra sway bar which made it handle much better especially in tight curves, followed by an LED grill light, a 1&1/4" bar riser, bar end weights, leather like foam grips, adjustable rider pegs, arm rests for the wife, a top trunk organizer pouch, then I changed the oil and put hex head drain plugs in. I'm 72 and have been riding something with 2 wheels since I was 10, so yes, the Spyder is different, but once you get used to it, the more you're gonna love it. I kept my Harley and KLR Kow in order to continue enjoying motorcycles, but I know if I live much longer that I will eventually have to give them up and the Spyder will keep me in the wind.
 
When you get in the twisties it's almost an art of brake and gas, leaning and pushing, it's fun as heck when you get it right and you find yourself clipping along the road! After I spent two weeks in the hills of Tenn, it was a letdown running the roads in Maine! :cool:
 
My Spyder is more upper body physical effort to be sure than my bikes I had in the past, but the mental load is about the same.

I ride two up and very much in the Dave Moss "Two Clicks Out" style of brake, turn, power out, on tighter corners.

Riding two up with my wife so I don't do anything silly like lifting the inside wheel a lot or hanging off to the inside. I'm not riding ultra quick, but I don't hang about either. Dave's style of braking or downshifting into the tighter corners, carrying less corner speed perhaps, then powering out seems to suit two up riding. For more open corners it's just perhaps a downshift to settle the suspension and then pull through on the throttle.

Like you say, when you get it all right intuitively, and the thinking is just for looking ahead and anticipating, it all flows nicely and you can push on remarkably quickly all things considered. Well it feels quick, quite possibly isn't, but it's fun anyway.
 
Like you say, when you get it all right intuitively, and the thinking is just for looking ahead and anticipating, it all flows nicely and you can push on remarkably quickly all things considered. Well it feels quick, quite possibly isn't, but it's fun anyway.
It is quick. I took my Spyder on a ride with the Cleveland BMW owners club down into WV. We like to ride the curvy roads in a "spirited" fashion. I didn't have much trouble keeping up with them. I was very new to my Spyder at the time, and it had (and still has) the OEM tires and anti-sway bar. With improved skills and machinery, who knows? I might actually outrun them.
 
When I was I young lad in the 1980's I was in a motorcycle club in the UK. All the old farts (not understanding I was going to be an old fart one day) rode various BMW R100's. The older these guys were, the faster they were. We even had an old guy with one working eye and no depth perception and he was difficult to keep up with. I don't think he could see well enough to be scared. Eventually I bought an R100, this was the old air cooled ones, but darn it, most of them were still faster. I wasn't as keen on scraping the rocker covers as they were.

My Spyder is still riding on the new OEM XPS Kendas and the stock sway bar (I have the Baja Ron Ultra Sway Bar I bought the other day, but at 100F in my garage I haven't gotten round to fitting it yet).

It's still fun to ride, but I don't have much of a benchmark nowadays, though I'm way past the days of worrying how quick or slow I am. I probably think I'm quicker than I really am, but that's OK. I don't want to go faster than my wife is happy with as the last thing I want to do is put her off riding. I'm not into lifting the inside wheel or getting the nanny to cut in with her on the back lest I get punched in the kidneys.
 
It is quick. I took my Spyder on a ride with the Cleveland BMW owners club down into WV. We like to ride the curvy roads in a "spirited" fashion. I didn't have much trouble keeping up with them. I was very new to my Spyder at the time, and it had (and still has) the OEM tires and anti-sway bar. With improved skills and machinery, who knows? I might actually outrun them.

Once you really get used to riding your Spyder, working it a bit, and you start pushing for that 'perfect ride', where it all works sooo smoothly and exactly how you've pictured it in your mind (unless you have Aphantasia, of course. ;)) then you'll eventually find that even on a largely factory Spyder (once you get rid of the Kendas, anyway!) you really CAN 'outrun' pretty much all of the 2 wheelers, but only in the technical stuff, with tight turns, unpredictable surfaces, and short straights! (y)

I don't do too many 'group rides' with 2 wheelers along, but when I do, I generally have a ball doing just that here in the Hills, where every corner has some degree of complexity; the straights are rarely too much longer than 40-50 metres; and even in the best of weather, there's likely gonna be something like loose sand, gravel, water run off, or loose (wet, dry, duz'n matta!) leaves strewn across the road surface part way around the next blind curve that will absolutely kill the ability of most 2 wheel machines to stay on their tiny rubber contact patches at speed (corners/surfaces that have been known to kill riders when they try, too! :eek:) - and that pretty much describes most of the 'non-Highway/Freeway' roads here in the Hills, where many (if not most) of the curves ARE blind! ;)

But once out of the Hills where the curves start opening out and the straights start getting a fair bit longer, some of the 2 wheel machines will start to be able to catch up - after all, they don't hafta push the massive great barn door sized 'wall of air' down the road that all Spyders & Rykers do hafta push outta their way, courtesy of their reverse trike platform and for some models, their windscreens, panniers, etc also! But it sure is fun standing around before one of these rides thru the Hills and hearing all the trash talk coming from the 2 wheelers (who don't yet know Spyders) about these 'old man trikes' or 'those things that are just for cripples'; then going out and proving them sooo wrong, by either pushing them so hard that they give up on trying to stay ahead, or leaving them so far behind that they can't even see the 'rapidly disappearing into the distance ahead' tail-lights of my Spyder! And for those who are excessively mouthy, I take great joy in reaching our first planned 'coffee break' so long before them that when they get there, the freshly made coffee I bought them on my arrival is now cold, or better yet, the cold & frosty beer I had waiting for them is now room temperature warm and disgusting! :ROFLMAO:

Like I said, I don't do many of these group rides in the Hills, but when I do, no-one who's ridden with me before ever suggests that I should ride up the back with the slower machines - not more than once, anyway! And most of the local Spyder riders enjoy doing this almost as much as I do!! ;)

Just Sayin' 😁
 
Once you really get used to riding your Spyder, working it a bit, and you start pushing for that 'perfect ride', where it all works sooo smoothly and exactly how you've pictured it in your mind (unless you have Aphantasia, of course. ;)) then you'll eventually find that even on a largely factory Spyder (once you get rid of the Kendas, anyway!) you really CAN 'outrun' pretty much all of the 2 wheelers, but only in the technical stuff, with tight turns, unpredictable surfaces, and short straights! (y)

I don't do too many 'group rides' with 2 wheelers along, but when I do, I generally have a ball doing just that here in the Hills, where every corner has some degree of complexity; the straights are rarely too much longer than 40-50 metres; and even in the best of weather, there's likely gonna be something like loose sand, gravel, water run off, or loose (wet, dry, duz'n matta!) leaves strewn across the road surface part way around the next blind curve that will absolutely kill the ability of most 2 wheel machines to stay on their tiny rubber contact patches at speed (corners/surfaces that have been known to kill riders when they try, too! :eek:) - and that pretty much describes most of the 'non-Highway/Freeway' roads here in the Hills, where many (if not most) of the curves ARE blind! ;)

But once out of the Hills where the curves start opening out and the straights start getting a fair bit longer, some of the 2 wheel machines will start to be able to catch up - after all, they don't hafta push the massive great barn door sized 'wall of air' down the road that all Spyders & Rykers do hafta push outta their way, courtesy of their reverse trike platform and for some models, their windscreens, panniers, etc also! But it sure is fun standing around before one of these rides and hearing all the trash talk coming from the 2 wheelers (who don't yet know Spyders) about these 'old man trikes' or 'those things are just for cripples'; then going out and proving them sooo wrong, by either pushing them so hard that they give up on trying to stay ahead, or leaving them so far behind that they can't even see the 'rapidly disappearing into the distance ahead' tail-lights of my Spyder! And for those who are excessively mouthy, I take great joy in reaching our first planned 'coffee break' so long before them that when they get there, the freshly made coffee I bought them on my arrival is now cold, or better yet, the cold & frosty beer I had waiting for them is now room temperature warm and disgusting! :ROFLMAO:

Like I said, I don't do many of these group rides in the Hills, but when I do, no-one who's ridden with me before ever suggests that I should ride up the back with the slower machines - not more than once, anyway! And most of the local Spyder riders enjoy doing this almost as much as I do!! ;)

Just Sayin' 😁
Have you tried the new OEM XPS branded Kendas? I know car tires/tyres are probably still better for the right tires, but they are a big improvement over the original ones. The compound has definitely changed, the sidewalls seem a better flex-rate to match the dampers better, they don't get all greasy in 100F temperatures and they are miles better in the wet.

They are far from perfect, but I think they're a whole bunch better than they were. I doubt the tires are the limiting factor to my road holding limits anymore.

In the canyons here, two up at an altitude where I'm 15% down on power, like you say the dodgy surfaces and short straights are where the Spyder excels. On the better surfaces, wider curves and longer straights, the sport bikes just have the power to blast past. Their power to weight ratio is just so much better. Fifty percent more power and well under half the weight and the math is in their favor.

Trying to push a garden shed through the air, with effectively 100 bhp at the crank, two up with my lardy body, and it just doesn't have the legs. Plus I'm scared of heights and refuse to really push it with a thousand foot or more drop on the outside of some of the bends. When it gets to 10,000 feet it feels like I'm running on two cylinders effectively.

However, I think my two wheeled friends are quite surprised at how well the old bus can keep up. They stop making rude comments, that's for sure.
 
When I was I young lad in the 1980's I was in a motorcycle club in the UK. All the old farts (not understanding I was going to be an old fart one day) rode various BMW R100's. The older these guys were, the faster they were. We even had an old guy with one working eye and no depth perception and he was difficult to keep up with. I don't think he could see well enough to be scared. Eventually I bought an R100, this was the old air cooled ones, but darn it, most of them were still faster. I wasn't as keen on scraping the rocker covers as they were.

My Spyder is still riding on the new OEM XPS Kendas and the stock sway bar (I have the Baja Ron Ultra Sway Bar I bought the other day, but at 100F in my garage I haven't gotten round to fitting it yet).

It's still fun to ride, but I don't have much of a benchmark nowadays, though I'm way past the days of worrying how quick or slow I am. I probably think I'm quicker than I really am, but that's OK. I don't want to go faster than my wife is happy with as the last thing I want to do is put her off riding. I'm not into lifting the inside wheel or getting the nanny to cut in with her on the back lest I get punched in the kidneys.
I was very surprised that my bride wasn't giving me the squeeze, she was enjoying the ride as much as I was! When we got to the end of the Dragon, she asked if I was not with you would you have gone any faster, I said most likely in a few spots! ;)
 
Twisties are nothing when you get the Spyder set up well. I put a BajaRon swaybar and shocks on, as well a Vredestein tires and it runs thru the curves almost effortlessly. You don't have to make constant steering changes when the body stays on top the supension and the tires stay on the road.

Not saying anyone NEEDS to make these upgrades, just saying they change the ride
 
Have you tried the new OEM XPS branded Kendas? I know car tires/tyres are probably still better for the right tires, but they are a big improvement over the original ones. The compound has definitely changed, the sidewalls seem a better flex-rate to match the dampers better, they don't get all greasy in 100F temperatures and they are miles better in the wet.

They are far from perfect, but I think they're a whole bunch better than they were. I doubt the tires are the limiting factor to my road holding limits anymore.

In the canyons here, two up at an altitude where I'm 15% down on power, like you say the dodgy surfaces and short straights are where the Spyder excels. On the better surfaces, wider curves and longer straights, the sport bikes just have the power to blast past. Their power to weight ratio is just so much better. Fifty percent more power and well under half the weight and the math is in their favor.

Trying to push a garden shed through the air, with effectively 100 bhp at the crank, two up with my lardy body, and it just doesn't have the legs. Plus I'm scared of heights and refuse to really push it with a thousand foot or more drop on the outside of some of the bends. When it gets to 10,000 feet it feels like I'm running on two cylinders effectively.

However, I think my two wheeled friends are quite surprised at how well the old bus can keep up. They stop making rude comments, that's for sure.
They are an improvement for sure, but they are still going to wear out in the center like the old style in the rear! When mine are gone it's back to the car tire for me!
 
Twisties are nothing when you get the Spyder set up well. I put a BajaRon swaybar and shocks on, as well a Vredestein tires and it runs thru the curves almost effortlessly. You don't have to make constant steering changes when the body stays on top the supension and the tires stay on the road.

Not saying anyone NEEDS to make these upgrades, just saying they change the ride
There are a few reasons why the Spyder can be a workout in the twisties. The platform definitely has something to do with it. But there are others.

One is that we tend to go into a death grip posture on a windy road. It's not necessary and will not improve your cornering. Be mindful of this and you can reduce the fatigue factor. Another is the Oversteer/Understeer oscillation with the stock setup. Especially riding 2-up.

I ask customers inquiring about possible suspension upgrades how many times they must adjust or correct their direction in turns. They usually say, 'Not at all'. So, I suggest that the next time they ride the twisties they pay attention to adjustments they are making without realizing it. Typically, they will call back somewhat amazed saying that they found they were making 3 and sometimes even 4 steering corrections in some turns.

You take the Dragon and multiply 318 by 3 and that is definitely a lot of work.
 
Have you tried the new OEM XPS branded Kendas? I know car tires/tyres are probably still better for the right tires, but they are a big improvement over the original ones. The compound has definitely changed, the sidewalls seem a better flex-rate to match the dampers better, they don't get all greasy in 100F temperatures and they are miles better in the wet.

They are far from perfect, but I think they're a whole bunch better than they were. ...

I have. I'm still very much less than impressed! :rolleyes:

I've even dissected a few now, and after a lot of careful measuring, they still look to be very much the same old crapenda carcass, only with a slightly deeper tread layer that continues to measure very close to the earlier tires in the compound - so all up, they basically look to be the same old same old, and quite a few have reported here and elsewhere that many of them continue to suffer from all the original issues that plagued the earlier Kendas, albeit slightly fewer than before, and possibly they've 'firmed up' the feel a little due to that 'bandaid' fix of extra tread thickness in way that might make your Spyder feel a little less 'under-tired' and may possibly return a little bit better longevity (altho I haven't yet seen anyone here who has been prepared to put up with them for long enough to see if the last!) just so long you don't expect too much from them! 😣

Personally, having seen that the old problems still persist and that quite a few new Spyder owners are still encountering these problems in at least some of these XPS branded Kendas, albeit a little less often than they were a few years ago, which in turn is a little less often than they were even more years ago, I reckon it's still a 'luck of the draw' thing to get one good tire that works well for its entire life on your Spyder, let alone get three good tires, and maybe you juuust might have been lucky enough to have all three behaving OK so far - but quite a few other Spyder riders with these tires haven't been that lucky! So I STILL wouldn't trust those tires on my wheelbarrow, let alone on my Spyder, nor would I recommend them to anyone who might want to ride in a wheelbarrow fitted with one! 😖

But hey, it is your Spyder that you're running them on, so if you are prepared to run the risk/accept a tire that could well turn out be such a mediocre excuse for a black round thing that often can't even keep the metal bits off the ground reliably &/or last much longer than a normal service interval or maybe two, then that's OK with me - at least, it's OK with me just so long as I'm riding here in Oz and you're riding over there in North America! ;)
 
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