There are very few reasons I get up at 6:00 am. If I’ve got an early flight or I’m taking the green flag at an off-road race then fine. I’ll grumble and stumble out of bed, down the first Diet Dr Pepper of the day and get things started. However, most days it’s a stretch for me to rise before 9:00 a.m. It’s just how I roll.
Then the Can Am Ryker Rally shows up at my house. The high desert of California is in the midst of a summer heat wave and it’s nearly 100-degrees by 8:00 am. Not wanting to gear up in that kind of heat, I manage to only hit the snooze button once as I rally for my first early-morning ride on the, um, Rally.
You’ve probably seen a little three-wheeled Can-Am bike rolling around at some point in time, but don’t confuse it with the car-like Polaris Slingshot. The Ryker, and its big brother the Spyder, skew more towards the moto side of things. License endorsement laws vary by state and here in California I don’t need to have any special permission to climb aboard the Ryker. I need a helmet, of course, and I’m not going out there without a leather jacket and boots– oh and sturdy pants – but by and large this isn’t an expensive hobby to get into.
The Ryker base model starts at under $10,000 and features a thrumming 50 horsepower coming from its two-cylinder engine. My Rally model is the top spec with a 900cc three-cylinder engine with 82 ponies and 58 pound-feet of torque. A continuously variable transmission puts power down to that single rear wheel. You start it by— wait, how the hell do you start this thing?
I’ve ridden a few dirt bikes, so I at least have a working knowledge of how motorcycles usually start. Not the Ryker. I have to watch a YouTube video to figure it out. There is a weird claw-like key that hugs a ball on the side of the Ryker. Then I have to turn on the power, press the ignition button, turn the throttle forward until I hear a beep, press the ignition button again and THEN it starts up. So weird.
Getting it into gear is another conundrum. The shifter is on the left side like a regular motorcycle, but it’s much further forward. To get the thing in reverse I have to give it downward pressure with my foot and bring it back towards me. Wait, what’s that beeping? Oh, it’s the parking brake. Okay, disengage the parking brake by flipping a plastic lever, then apply downward and rearward pressure on the gear shift, and finally I can back out of my damn driveway. I’ve spent 20 minutes just trying to get to the street and the hellish sun has scorched the Earth up at least five more degrees.
Scorched pavement
My first day is spent just getting a feel for it around my neighborhood at slower speeds. What makes the Ryker attractive to newbies is how easy it is to ride. The CVT means there are no gears to shift and the two front wheels make it feel extremely stable. There isn’t any leaning into turns or countersteering, at least not at this slow speed. All I have to do is brake, input some steering angle and roll on to the throttle about halfway through the turn. Easy peasy. And if my turn requires signaling, the blinkers cancel themselves so I’m never driving around with an errant indicator.
My next trip I’m ready to brave traffic. Sure, it’s early but plenty of folks are up and driving, getting things done before our predicted 115-degree high reaches its full zenith. At first I’m a little timid, glad for the 40-mph speed limit, but I soon find myself getting braver. While this isn’t the quickest bike ever made, it’s got enough juju to pull away from the normies in their air-conditioned boxes once the light turns green.
I head up to a twisty road that I know well. It is, blissfully, still in the shade and I make a few runs at it. At these speeds my natural instinct is to lean but I’m just not which way. I try leaning to the outside of the turn but that feels all kinds of wrong. Instead I switch my weight to the inside of the turn. Okay, yeah…I can dig it. The next sweeper I hunker down a bit and shift my weight towards the inside, all while using direct steering. This is a weird way to ride but I can dig it.
I take the long way home and by the time I hit the two-lane highway where I can go 65 mph, I feel like I’m just riding through a hair dryer on high heat. However, I feel stable and comfortable at this speed. The seat is soft enough and whatever vibration the engine can dole out doesn’t reach my hindquarters. The soft-grip handlebars have a bit of vibration to them, but it’s not too bad. The throttle isn’t so stiff that my hand gets tired, but the trike has cruise control if I want a break.
There are few other dum-dums out here on motorcycles in this heat and I pass three going the other way. I get the motorcycle wave from two of them, which is frankly surprising. Do they think this is a real motorcycle, despite its three-wheeled stature or are they including me in the club because we are both suffering in our own private helmet sauna? Is their motorcycle wave a sign of mutual respect or the mere recognition of a fellow idiot? I don’t know but being included for whatever reason warms my already overheating heart.
Rally in the dirt
The heat relents just a bit on my last day with the Ryker Rally and it’s time to hit the dirt. The last time I rode anything with less than four wheels off-pavement I fell off so many times I lost count and ended up with a swollen hand and legs covered in bruises. Still, I’m eager to see just how this three-wheeler will behave when the road turns dusty. I throw a few bottles of water into the 4.2-gallon accessory storage box and head out to the trail.
At the trailhead the first thing I do is adjust the shocks. The Ryker Rally has four different suspension settings and so far I’ve been on the stiffest. Being a person of extremes, I dial them up to four and call it good. I switch to Rally mode which Can-Am says will allow me to drift a bit in the corners and set off.
My bike has an extra one inch of suspension travel compared to the other Ryker models. There is also an aluminum skid plate protecting the undercarriage, better tires and reinforced rally wheels. I’m sticking to a flat dirt road today, but it’s nice to know I have some off-road goodies if I need them. There are plenty of washboard ripples out here but maintaining a steady speed over them smoothes out the bumps nicely. When I encounter a patch of loose and deep sand the bike wavers a bit but once I learn to stop panicking, I find I can easily control it.
There is a section of bigger undulations– whoops we call them in DirtSpeak– and at first I take them at 15 miles per hour. I just roll through them and the softer shocks handle the full compression easily and the trike doesn’t get out of sorts on the rebound. On my second pass I double my speed and while the compression stroke is still great, I almost get thrown off the seat on the rebound. Still, this is the one time I giggle out loud during my time with the Ryker.
I find the sweet spot at 25 miles per hour on the third pass and the whoops are now a blast. Just scary enough to get the heart racing but not enough to where I feel like I’m going to go flying over the handlebars. The Ryker Rally has anti-slip foot pegs and if I had more time with it I’d likely get comfortable enough to get my butt off the seat and go a little faster, but for a first go I’m having a keen time.
As for drifting, yeah I do a few donuts out on the dry lake bed and Rally mode definitely allows the Ryker to hang it’s one rear wheel out just a bit, but I’m alone and it’s pushing triple digits. The last thing I need to do is ride beyond my limits. Time to head back home.
I’m pretty surprised at how much I enjoyed the Ryker Rally, even in this summer hellscape I call home. The bike is extremely easy to ride with no shifting or balancing required and it’s got just enough power to thrill, but not enough to intimidate. I wish the weather had been more cooperative and that I’d had someone to head out on to the dirt with me for more shenanigans, but I still think I got a good introduction to what the bike can do.
At $14,599 not including destination, the Ryker Rally is a cheap enough way to get the easy rider dual-sport moto that middle-aged dreams are made of. You might even get some props from the two-wheeled folks. Or maybe they are just commiserating in the heat. Either way, you’ll feel like one of the gang.
