The tilting trike theme is being dragged up, AGAIN!
It feels like the tilting and covered trike idea has been around for years, and Helix Motors wants to revisit it - again!
The idea of having something that rides like a bike and protects like a car is nothing new. From the Reliant Robin-powered Quasar of the 70s and 80s, to the cult BMW C1 - cracking the code of making a motorcycle with a roof, and then making a success of it, is a story worthy of a Dan Brown novel!
You may also like to read our Top 10 Motorcycles with Roofs articles
But in recent years, thanks in part to the increase in interest in battery power, tilting and covered trikes have made a bit of a resurgence. If not in the eyes of buyers, at least in the eyes of investment-hungry tech and engineering firms.
Enter Helix Motors, a company founded in 2021 with, according to its website, “a vision to revolutionize [with a ‘Zed’ cos’ Murica] personal transportation.” And if you’re thinking you’ve heard that phrase from a company such as this before, you probably have. Pretty much every vaporware startup that appears on the scene claims these exact benefits - before most of them disappear as quickly as they arrived.
Nonetheless, its website is showing its latest machine/design/idea - or at least Ai-generated images and technical drawings of what it will look like.
If you squint a bit, it looks like the Carver tilting trike with a slightly sleeker and more low-line body plonked on top. Beneath that futuristic skin is an EV drivetrain, boasting in-wheel hub motors, underfloor batteries and a hub-centre steering system. It also features what Helix calls a “Pivot Joint to Robotic Motor”, and while there isn’t further explanation of precisely what that is, I’m guessing it electronically matches the vehicle's lean angle to the amount of steering lock the driver is asking for. And I say driver, because the Helix has a steering wheel and conventional pedals just like a car.
So there we have it, another tilting trike that promises all the benefits of a bike, with all the protection of a car.
I wonder if we’ll ever see it on the road…
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
