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High up in the Austrian Tyrol, the Niken is cutting and carving its way through the Großglockner High Alpine Road. Perfectly surfaced and blessed with grip that seems at odds with the melting of its roadside snow, Yamaha’s divisive threewheeler is in its element as it flicks from peg-to-peg. Alive and animated, the chassis floods with feedback and good vibrations. The familiar, nasally whine of its MT-09derived triple is accompanied by scrape of metal meeting tarmac and an almost-audible sigh of relief from Yamaha top brass watching from a layby. This fleeting dream of near limitless grip and riding pleasure is what they’re trying to sell.
Few bikes have split opinion as much as the Niken. Unveiled at the end of last year, Yamaha’s LMW (Leaning Multi Wheeler) wasn’t, as some thought, for disabled riders (it’ll fall over when its stationary, just like any other bike) or an easy way for motorists to become bikers (its track is too narrow to be ridden on a car licence). Instead, it was all about trying to enhance riding pleasure. Yamaha’s engineers wanted to come up with something that gave more front-end confidence. Their reckoning was that losing the front was a biker’s biggest fear – and the way to allay that was to increase grip. Yamaha have history with LMWs. Back in 2007 they produced a leaning fourwheeled concept bike and currently sell the Tricity 125 – a scooter that works on a similar concept to the Niken. The key to the Niken is the parallelogram front that mounts to the pair of fork units (see separate story). This allows it to pretend it’s a ‘normal’ motorbike and gives 45 degrees of lean, but does add weight and also increases the frontal area significantly. The question is, are the advantages of the extra grip worth the price you pay to achieve it? A day’s riding on everything from motorways to Alpine D-roads should provide the answer.
The first few miles
Riding a Niken is a bizarre mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. Take it off the sidestand (you feel its 263kg instantly) and you can rock it from side-toside like a two-wheeler. With broad tapered bars, wide upper bodywork and a sense of mass than never really leaves you, anyone familiar with an adventure bike will feel at home. Once you’re rolling, only subtle clues let you know the Niken has two front wheels. Slow-speed riding is a bit wobbly thanks to the amount of weight being carried up high and there’s a slight resistance to your inputs. It isn’t surprising really. Each time you turn the bars you alter the trajectory of two spinning wheels, plus what must be a good few kilos of castings, bearings, linkages and rose joints that all pivot on the Niken’s cast headstock.
But pilot a Niken and you’re a celebrity with a ready-made audience. Everywhere you go people look at you. Kids wave, cyclists nod, pedestrians smile. It can’t help but brighten your day. Non-bikers love it, but strangely, Austrian bikers don’t seem to want to know.
The upsides
As we roll out of Jochberg’s near-dormant ski resort and head for the chocolate box vistas of the Kitzbuhl scenery, first impressions are good. Get on the gas and it responds with refinement and enthusiasm. Compared to the other bikes that share the Niken’s 847cc triple, the crank has 18% more inertia and there’s revised (read softened) fuel mapping. This is enough to significantly change the character of the motor. It’s smoother and slower revving but you do find yourself on full throttle and waiting for the engine to catch up more often than you’d imagine, especially in higher gears. The quickshifter helps, though.
Flowing from one 90mph corner to the next on a dream Austrian A-road, the Niken feels great and you get so much joy from hustling this
bizarre machine. The gyroscopic effect of those two spinning 15in wheels imbue it with peerless stability. On roads that don’t require sudden direction changes there’s a neutrality and accuracy that has you believing the hype.
And at high speed it shrugs off mid-corner bumps better than most, doesn’t get upset by camber changes and doesn’t tramline over ruts. On these roads the quality of the suspension is obvious – there is little in the way of the weaves and wobbles you’d get on an MT-09 or a Tracer. All of this points to the bike working well when the first Nikens hit the UK this summer.
With 45 degrees of lean, groundclearance can become an issue, though. Once you understand the Niken’s capability’s it’s easy to run its lean limits, grinding pegs and toes with impunity. It’s fun and frustrating in equal measure as you’re still far from the limit. According to Yamaha, the outside wheel will lift at 50 degrees. What’s most surprising is that the Niken is a closet sports-tourer. Wind protection is good enough for 100mph in comfort and the relaxed nature makes it a perfect companion for clocking miles. If I owned one I’d fit the optional topbox, find a taller screen and dream of traffic-free runs on the Route Napoleon.
But there are downsides
Sadly, things unravel a little as the roads get very tight. By now we’re snaking up the kind of single-track, filthy road that is meant to be the Niken’s speciality but it’s easy to lose your way in slow corners. It starts when you brake. Yamaha opted for 15in wheels in a bid to make the Niken more nimble, but the downside is you can only fit small 265mm discs inside. The result is less mechanical bite than normal. A 20mph first-gear uphill switchback looms, but there is little chassis feel at this speed, you just have to trust there is grip. Sadly, it’s harder to get the Niken to turn than you’d hope, too and as I lever on the bars, the Yamaha isn’t tracking the line I want. This isn’t the cornercarving dream!
But when you examine the physics it isn’t that surprising – with so much weight at the front, Yamaha have moved the rider backwards. It makes the weight distribution correct at 50/50, but it’s like trying to turn your shopping trolley with a crate of beer at either end, It’s the opposite of mass centralisation. Slow-speed corner exits aren’t great either. While the front grip is stunning, if you’re cracking on it’s too easy to unsettle the rear and while the support of the extra wheel at the front means small slides at the rear seems less of a drama than normal, it’s still disconcerting. It’s partly down to the Bridgestone Adventure 41 tyre – in the wet it’s especially numb and loses traction too easily. All this mars an otherwise impressive ride – we’re just glad the UK doesn’t have many big hairpins, because that super-slow stuff aside – the Niken delivers.
‘At high speeds it shrugs off midcorner bumps’