Give it time, both of you, FlyingBoat & flapjackandbeans!! There are many of us here with similar stories, altho maybe the age & or years of riding might differ slightly in the numbers, and I'd think it safe to say that
most of us took a bit of a while/a whole bunch of saddle time to truly come to grips with the differences! Some may have caught on to the
basic differences in 'riding characteristics' and handling etc a bit quicker than others, but to
really start to get the best from the specific advantages of a Spyder over the 2-wheelers we've spent so many years getting used to generally takes a bit longer, and
you hafta
want to do it and
work a bit harder at it if you
really want to start showing a clean pair of heels to just about any 2-wheel rider through the twisties & the short straights - but give it time, persistence, and learning the necessary 'body english' that
YOU hafta put into it,
and you can do just that! :lecturef_smilie:
All the 2-wheel riders I used to hang with initially gave me a lot of grief when I first turned up on a Spyder, and those who didn't know me may have even initially suggested that I should ride towards the back of the group on our weekly rides thru the winding gorge roads with short straights that abound in the local 'Hills' we have around here, 'just so I don't slow any of the 2-wheelers up too much'... But after spending a ride or two with nothing but a Spyder filling their rear-view mirrors, hurrying them along; out-braking them at every corner; carrying more speed into and getting on the gas earlier coming out of
every corner &/or hair-pin bend; they didn't do that for too long!
I'm not saying I'm a great rider, far from it, but I
am stubborn! After copping a Traumatic Brain Injury & other injuries that forced me to retire hurt, permanently, the Medical world told me that I'd never walk again... OK, it took me almost 2 years to learn to walk anything like
properly again, and I still can't move all that fast or walk far at all; but even with a crock like me aboard, now that I've graduated from just sitting on my RT and cruising along, riding it without putting much effort into it at all, and instead I've learnt how to move my weight around to take advantage of the better stability, traction, and braking that all our Spyders have, so that those features which make these 3-wheelers such a fun thing to ride can truly shine thru; well these days, they put me out front and then they all try their hardest
just to keep up!! And the
ONLY times they ever do that is once the tight corners & short straights start opening out into sweeping curves and long straights; or if I stop for a coffee to wait for them - and even then, I'm usually thinking about my getting my second cuppa before they get their bikes parked! nojoke
Sure, Spyders are a different machine to ride; they aren't so intuitive as a 2-wheeler, they aren't built with 'ultimate speed' in mind (just lookit the bleedin' black, vaguely round, 'excuses for tires' they leave the factory with if you don't believe that!
) and they do take more effort to really push to their limits, cos they don't have a dirty great centrifuge at each end that works to keep you on & upright when the centrifugal forces of hard cornering are trying their damnedest to throw you off the outside of any corner; but they
DO have a massive 'contact patch' advantage; a significant traction advantage as a result; and possibly three times the braking force on tap! So if you want to ride them 'spiritedly', once you learn how & where to put your weight to take advantage of all that, and you become confident in the way the Spyder works, including how, amongst other things, the Nanny
will stop you from flipping the Spyder even if you do lift that inside wheel a foot off the ground half way thru a tight hairpin bend when you're going faster than just about anyone could on a 2-wheeler, then you'll really start to laugh at all your poor deluded mates who are still riding around on their much harder to turn 2-wheeled bikes!!
And if you ever get comfortable enough on a Spyder to get an ECU upgrade that unleashes even just a little of the extra power and torque that both Rotax engines could provide but BRP decided that you couldn't safely handle, then you'll find there's a whole new set of thrills and you'll
REAALLLY start sporting that '
Miles of Smiles' grin that those of us who've been riding longer go on about!!
Just Sayin'
