MOST tests involve a long process of careful assessment to judge the
relative benefits and disadvantages of the bike in question,
painstakingly attempting to judge whether the new machine has any clear
advantage over its competitors. But on swinging a leg over the only
existing 4MC prototype the only question in your mind is answered within seconds.
And the answer is yes; this is still a motorcycle, despite the number
of wheels. The 4MC feels as natural to ride as any conventional
two-wheeled bike. Blindfolded, you'd swear you were straddling a quite
normal big-capacity scooter, so familiar are the handling, the feedback
and the controls. And that in itself is perhaps the greatest achievement
of this completely new design.
So, if it feels so normal, why bother with the extra wheels? To
discover that, you really need to get into a situation that you never
want on a normal bike; a big, unexpected slide of the front or rear end.
Because on the 4MC that slide either simply won't happen, or if it does
the bike will mollycoddle you through it, proving virtually impossible
to fall off. It's little short of remarkable – in tests on a oil-covered
skid-pan that would see any rider, on any conventional bike, picking
themselves off the ground within seconds, the 4MC doesn't just remain
upright, but it can actually cope better with the slippery conditions
than most cars – as proved by skid-pan lap-times several seconds faster
than most cars can manage on the same circuit. There are no bike times
to compare it with; no two-wheeler has been tested that can safely make a
single lap on the low-friction surface.
As a prototype, there's little point in going into the finer points
of the 4MC's handling; it feels relatively long, with a low center of
gravity disguising it's overall weight, and it's set up to give neutral
handling. Only when you tip it over at ultra-low speed do you realize
that, with the fear of crashing surgically removed, you can make
full-lean, low speed circles tighter than you're ever likely to dare on a
conventional bike.
More important than the handling – which on this prototype is so
hugely adjustable that it's virtually immaterial anyway – is the
feedback. Bumps are something you notice, but which don't upset the bike
– even if you hit one with just one wheel during a tight turn, it does
nothing to throw the machine off line. And at the bars there's exactly
the feeling you'd expect from normal forks, with none of the remoteness
usually associated with hub-center steered two wheelers – a result of a
its designer's own concoction of play-free joints in the steering
system.
So, it works. But why? Is it a bike? Is it a quad? Is it a car? As
far as most governments are concerned, it's none of them – despite the
mathematical evidence against it, they reckon it's a trike, and that's
exactly why it's got the potential to be the most significant thing in
motorcycling for years. Under the licensing laws of most countries, a
machine like this can be ridden using a normal car driving licence, so
its potential market is far, far bigger than any normal bike can dream
of. In most developed countries, bike licence holders are outnumbered at
least 15-1 by car drivers, and often the ratio is far greater. That
means the 4MC's pool of potential buyers is simply enormous.
And thanks to its four-wheeled design and ingenious suspension
system, which means it can go to full lean, complete with a rider,
without falling over even at a standstill, it's got the extra element of
safety that could tempt drivers who'd never dare venture onto two
wheels. It's no wider than the average bike, so it can still slice
through traffic, and it's bike-derived engine – a Yamaha YP400 scooter
motor in the prototype – means its fuel economy is just as good as a
two-wheeler's.
And its designer, Nick Shotter, isn't the only person to have spotted
that this sort of bike could take off. Piaggio's three-wheeled MP3
scooter is already a huge success, and the firm has recently revealed a
fractionally wider version that uses the same licence loophole as the
MC4 to allow car drivers to use it without any extra training or
testing. And Yamaha's 2007 Tokyo Show concept bike, the Tesseract,
revealed how a future superbike using Shotter's suspension concept could
look. Before that bike was built, Shotter had already approached Yamaha
with his designs, and Yamaha Japan is in direct contact with him
regarding the suspension layout; if they want to put the Tesseract into
production, they'll need to licence the suspension technology from
Shotter, who owns the patents on the layout.
Source: gizmag.com @ By Ben Purvis
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