We’ve been going on a bit lately about three-wheelers, I know, and I promise I’ll give them a rest for a bit after this one, which is the first I’ve seen with any decent horsepower. Looking like a V-Max with an old-school lawnmower bolted to the front of it, it’s the latest bike from Tilting Motor Works.
The tilting three-wheeler concept has well and truly broken onto the market in the last 6 months - before that, few of us had seen anything like it. But as early as 2005, Bob Mighell from Stanford, WA, USA, was searching for a way to combine the lean-in cornering of a bike with the front-end stability and grip of a 4-wheeler. He quickly decided on the idea of a three-wheeler with tilting twin front wheels, and made a prototype out of his son’s Lego.
Two prototypes using small-capacity Hondas were built and tested, and finally, in September last year, he put together the V-Max we see today.
Mighell’s home-made front end bolts straight into the engine mounts down low. A new set of rigid fork tubes connects the steering arms to the bike’s stock steering head, and the two theels are independantly suspended from the new front end. Braking forces are fed back low into the bike’s frame, instead of at the headstock like on a normal bike, so stability under the Buell-style rim-mounted disc brakes is very good.
There’s no MP3-style tilt lock yet, although Bob’s working on the idea, and he’s planning conversion kits for Harley and Goldwing donor bikes. A very nifty bit of home craftwork from a guy who makes a living refurbishing surgical operating room equipment.
There’s a slightly tedious 4-minute video of the Tilting Motorworks V-MAX available that doesn’t do much for Mighell’s cred as a rider, but shows he knows how to pick a pumpin’ workout soundtrack. Photos are from TheKneeslider.
Source: http://www.thebikergene.com/custom-bikes/home-made-tilting-three-wheeler-v-max/
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