Straight from a robot sci-fi movie and into U.S. dealerships this fall, the Yamaha Niken is its first production Leaning Multi-Wheel Vehicle, or LMW. (Photography courtesy of Yamaha)
We don?t often think about the total size of the two tire contact patches that are ultimately responsible for keeping our motorcycles on the road, upright and in control, despite it being just a few square inches of rubber, less than the average male footprint. That?s probably because modern motorcycle tires provide remarkable amounts of traction on clean, dry pavement, enough to produce lean angles of up to 55 degrees on a road-going supersport bike. We don?t worry much about our tires, in fact, until the road conditions are less than perfect, i.e. wet, dirty, icy, greasy or all of the above, and traction is scarce. While not daunting enough to keep the typical motorcyclist from riding (hopefully you just slow down), I doubt there are many who would complain if you could somehow double the area of tire contact and dramatically increase grip up front?where a loss of traction usually results in a 90-degree lean angle?without detracting from or changing the overall motorcycling experience, especially leaning into corners. Based on the 2019 Tracer 900, the Niken will be part of Yamaha USA’s Touring lineup, and its three-cylinder 847cc engine has been revised for more low-end grunt.
Someone from Yamaha must have had the same thought, because after building several Leaning Multi-Wheeled (LMW) ...