In the world of three-wheeled motorcycles, the latest Yamaha Niken is arguably the bike leading the whole super niche scene, but Kawasaki is planning to enter the game strong with their latest filed patent. As weird as it may look, this future Kawasaki will use horizontal links to couple up the front wheels instead of using conventional forks.
These linkages will allow the bike to tilt and lean into corners by pivoting different alignments according to riding conditions and rider inputs that works similarly to a parallelogram. This new system has been stated by Kawasaki to save a lot more weight thanks to its simplistic design which also offers higher levels of efficiency.
We know what ‘simple’ looks like and the patents filed by Kawasaki is anything but. The abstract of the patent starts off with:
A saddle type vehicle includes two front wheels, a left front wheel supporting member and a right front wheel supporting member which are turned around a left front wheel turning axis and a right front wheel turning axis respectively, and upper lean arm and a lower lean arm which are rotated around an axis perpendicular to a vehicle width direction, and steering rod.
The upper arm is connected to the left and right members via first and second connecting parts which are provided on the left front wheel turning axis. The lower arm is connected to the left and right members via third and fourth connecting parts which are provided on the right front wheel turning axis. The steering rod is arranged forward of the steering spindle. In a front view of the vehicle body, the steering rod is arranged between the upper and lower arms.
A serious amount of thought had been put into this particular design but coming up with something like this in real life requires supreme levels of engineering to work out the actual mechanics and physics of being able to function properly in real-world riding scenarios. Thinking about how much the patents will affect the front end feel alone is an R&D of its own.
Whatever the case may be, Kawasaki definitely has something amazing in their books. Whether it will emerge as a winner remains unknown but judging by how people perceived the exotic Yamaha Niken (and how well it turned out once it went on sale), we’re pretty sure that Kawasaki has the ability to pull off the same thing with their three-wheeler.
