A Leaning Spyder?

A LEANING SPYDER?

IN LATE FEBRUARY, THE NEWS EMERGED THAT Can-Am had patented a leaning three-wheel design, triggering speculation about what this might portend. Having a lot of miles on Can-Am Spyders (including the CW long-term test RT-S), I, too, wondered, so I contacted Can-Am’s Chaz Rice, spokesman for the Canadian company at its Valcourt, Quebec, headquarters, about the patent’s implications.

Rice had noted during a conversation with me in early March that Bombardier Recreational Products, corporate parent of Can-Am, patents new designs “every day,” and that there were no

“leaning Spyders” in the product

pipeline at the moment. He then added, however, that Can-Am recognizes some potential customers for the innovative three-wheeler prefer to turn by leaning, and thus, the company wants to have all its options open if/when producing a leaning Spyder makes sense. There already are other leaning three-wheeler designs out there (see Piaggio MP3, p. 26), so it’s not surprising that Can-Am wanted to ensure that, in the event it decides to expand the Spyder lineup with a “leaner,” it would not have to license anybody else’s design.

Given that the most common criticism of the Spyder by motorcyclists is that it doesn’t lean, and given BRP’s history of innovation and the guts to market it, the bottom line is that anybody betting that Can-Am won’t be making a leaning three-wheeler based on its recent patent is probably betting wrong.

—Steven L. Thompson