OZ TRIKE 2.2

by Ian Buckley

Designed like this. Production engineers had other ideas.

Springer front end, twin headlights

Single disc... WTF, the front wheel's never on the ground anyway

Placement of injected 2.2l Subaru donk creates severe rearward weight bias

I always knew I would have a threesome but I never expected it to be with two big bald men. Of course when I say threesome, I mean three wheels as compared to my normal two-wheel love life. Anyway, the two men were Terry Hughes who owned the Oz Trike I was to ride and Closersooner who kindly takes photos for BIKE ME's Melbourne headquarters.

Trikes have never taken my fancy as a rule but neither did Goldwings until I rode one. I don't imagine Terry ever thought his future lay on three wheels either but after a horrific race crash a Philip Island last year saw him with an ankle that restricted his ability to hold a solo bike up, things changed.

The opportunity to ride the trike was never going to be passed up, but the enthusiasm ramped up a touch when I learnt the Terry had decided to throw away the old VW donk for a more modern and undeniably powerful Subaru donk. Imagine a WRX trike and you all of a sudden get goose pimples. Not that this one was turbo charged like a WRX but the sentiment was all the same.

"You just can't use first gear if you want the front wheel on the ground" was my introduction to the 2.2 litre monster. These were wise words because unlike a solo machine, you just can't steer a trike any other way. What Terry failed to point out early in the relationship is that this trike will happily and easily wheel stand in second and third gear. Holy crap!

Traditionally built with the air cooled VW motors of yesteryear and mated to the same gearbox, these things are for all intents and purposes like controlling a car. You have a foot clutch and a four-speed H shift on your left. Other than this, you have a throttle and a useless front brake. I mean the front brake does its job, but the front wheel just locks up and this is because at 700kg, it is never going to do any real stopping. So you use the rear brake for 90% of your stopping which is against the laws of motorcycles but hey! I'm adaptable.

My head was in planet trike, and moving off cautiously was effortless as the clutch is super nice and the relationship to the throttle was much like any motorcycle. Give it some more throttle and all of a sudden, the front wheel that was originally bringing the chassis around is now three inches off the ground and you are going straight for whatever it is that was not on your radar. Let it down and don't back off because we want to actually get out of the car park. Should I mention that I was in second gear?

Accelerate away and leave a big black line in your wake. This became the diet for my hour on the WRX Trike. After a bit of getting used to, I was enjoying myself and when it came time to get some action shots, I don't think I have ever had it so easy. I made an innocent U-turn to set up for a shot while Closersooner dialled in his camera settings and he managed to catch a series of shots that showed an ever-increasing black line coming from the rear end. The man is learning to shoot everything. Maybe he was hoping I would crash like last time?

Permission was granted to pop some wheelies and this also proved as easy as falling off a motard. Drop it into first; roll on the throttle and up she came. Hold the throttle and she will sit there until you let her down. Now I could own one of these. This proved so easy that Closersooner got more than enough shots from three passes on the back wheels. I was Evil Knievel for five minutes and the crowd approved.

Ian reaches for the sky...

I will say that the front end was harsh especially on landing. If you look at the geometry, you can see why just by imagining downward forces acting on such acute angled forks. Terry rightly believes there is a better design but these ones work fine when all three wheels are grounded.

On corners, these trikes will amaze you with their agility and sure footedness. They truly do turn well. You need to offer up some input to the bars because this is not a counter steering exercise. On tight radius turns, the desire to punch out is overturned by the greater desire for the front to lift and take away all steering privileges. Terry appears to have mastered this well and I guess as the owner I should expect no less.

Oz-Trike is based north of Sydney and retails one of these for a cool forty grand. Terry picked this nine-year-old one up for twenty-five grand which was considered a steal. That it blew two VW motors suggests he had a bent con-rod because the same piston kept developing burn holes. The decision to put a Subaru motor in was not a hard one at all according to Terry.

Subaru motors are a dime a dozen and in fact cheaper than a good VW donk. They are a popular conversion into Kombi vans and Beetles alike with all of the adaptor plates and relative electrickery off the shelf componentry these days. The old dak-dak motor was 1800cc of two valve, air-cooled, and normally aspirated cast iron that was never really designed for Australian conditions. The Japanese made Subaru is by comparison, 2200cc, 4 valve per cylinder, water cooled, fuel-injected aluminium splendidness that still sound beatle-like under load. There is really no comparison and given the added features of wheeliness and blackyness on demand, I for one applaud the conversion and hereby declare all who ride a standard trike as 'Hyosonglike Beigeists'.

Terry and his lovely wife Pam are on a 'Grey Nomad' (well Terry would be grey if he had hair) trip around Australia until they decide to stop. They have sold up all they own in Sydney and now own a rig to be envied by all. It consists of a Mitsubishi Pantech that houses Terry's workshop, a spare room and the Trike. Behind that, they tow a caravan to make life as comfortable as they need. The trike is their daily transport and by all accounts a fabulous way to meet people.

"Accelerate away and leave a big black line in your wake..."

I have known Terry and Pam for some years now and I know Terry's original plan was to have his race bike in the truck and attend BEARS race meetings around the country whilst touring. Since the accident and the doctor's advice to "take twelve months off and then retire", Terry could not and would not be without a bike of some sort. He has owned more than fifty bikes in his sixty-two years declaring his recently sold BMW1200GS the best of all and while his bones heal at the rate of a sixty two year old, he is thoroughly enjoying life on a three-wheeler. Talking to his wife Pam, she declares she has never seen so much scenery as a pillion. Something tells me that as a pillion on a solo with Terry, she was likely holding on with her head buried out of the buffeting wind.

So a sunny morning in Melbourne's Williamstown proved very exciting and once again surprising. Should I find myself with a weak ankle I might well buy myself something like this... with a Subaru motor to boot!