He might be lazy, but just like rust, Darwin works 24/7/365

On a long enough time scale, he always prevails.

1978ish?

Attached File


The Honda 90, bored out to 106....

Moved from that to the 185, then the 200x and finally upgraded to the 250R.... Loved em all. Would probably kill myself on one now....

There's this thing called the internet.
There's another thing called Google.

When you use them together all sorts of interesting and pertinent information is found.

Let's ask your question in Google.

"Three wheeled ATV's".
https://www.google.com/search?num=50&newwindow=1&complete=0&hl=en&source=hp&ei=DCbSWtO6JY_W_wSq_4LQCQ&q=Three+wheeled+ATV's&oq=Three+wheeled+ATV's&gs_l=psy-ab.12...1188.1188.0.1875.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.2.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.PfRYpt52qpA

Here's the list of topic titles from the first page (with ebay and craigs list adds removed):
All-terrain vehicle - Wikipedia
This Federally-Banned ATV Looks Like A Freaking Riot On Three
Honda Three Wheeler Still In Crate For Decades | ATV Rider
Fun Facts - ATV History | MotoSport
THE BEGINNING & END OF HONDA 3-WHEELERS | Dirt Wheels

Now let's try this question:
"Federal ban on three wheeled ATV's":
https://www.google.com/search?num=50&newwindow=1&complete=0&hl=en&ei=wibSWtHwEeeB0wK90ongBg&q=Federal+ban+on+three+wheeled+ATV's&oq=Federal+ban+on+three+wheeled+ATV's&gs_l=psy-ab.3...14547.27192.0.27650.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.AnnCQJiTyyc
Injuries, Deaths Prompt Calls for Federal ATV Ban : NPR
Standards for All Terrain Vehicles and Ban of Three-Wheeled All
Safety Panel Confirms 3-Wheel ATV Ban - latimes
When were 3-wheelers banned from sale? - General ATV/UTV ...
The Most Dangerous Vehicle - 04/12/1987 - (Part 1) - YouTube
Federal Judge Approves Decree Regulating All-Terrain Vehicles

Now armed with all of that knowledge you could have asked the question this way:
"Hey, I was wondering why three wheeled ATV's were banned, so I did a simple and easy internet search with Google and I found out that people were retarded morons who didn't pay attention to the manufacturers safety warnings, didn't ride the ATV as it was designed for, rode the early versions of the ATV way beyond the capibility of the simple "big tire suspension", shitty parents who let children too young ride "adult" sized vehicles, didn't wear the proper safety gear and rode drunk."
"What do you guys think?"

Then you would know that more than half of the answers given by ARFcom are complete fabricated shit and the rest will be based on memories of what they rode 33 years ago.

Three wheelers are fucking awesome and quads are lame. They ride TOTALLY different, quads have no soul.

My Honda 125 would float with me on it. I never got hurt bad enough to go to a doctor. If I lost control I jumped off. Good times.

I picked up an ATC 125 a few weeks ago for $350.  Definitely dangerous, but fun to get around the property with.

I grew up on 90/110/185S/250R/250SX/350. Then when quads came out same thing. Raced many hare scrambles on quads and bikes. 30+/vet class. My neck and back injuries still haunt me. Yes I wrecked, rolled and jumped things on 3wheeled death machines. A few stickers and broken foot, but I survived. The worst death machine was a CR 500. I had to lean it against something to start it when out riding, as I am 5’8”.

Ahh, the glory of growing up in the 70/80’s.

+1

Let's compare 4x4 ATVs to 3wheelers. Tell me which one gets through worse terrain.

Another incident of improper riding. Three wheelers were/are one person machines.

Some dumb ass got hurt, I think drunk.  Lawsuits followed, manufacturers quit making them.

They were a blast! Different than four wheelers. More nimble.

Yeah you could flip then easier but same with motor bikes.

I loved them

Maybe some are but I see them on FB all the time for a couple hundred bucks. Not interested in riding one on trails, i have dirt bikes for that, but they seem like a cheap alternative to a 4 wheeler for ice fishing.

My buddy just built this street legal three wheeler.
Looks cool, but I would never ride it.



He wants to build a street legal Honda ATC250R along the same lines, I told him to quit being a pussy and build one with a CR500 engine in it.

Funny as shit too, you should how many people get hurt and /or killed on snowmobiles that put out 150 hp.

This is true, but stupid can also be very fun.

Actually the design was made by a college student who sold the patent to a manufacturing company. I went to school with his son.

I had a Yamaha 60 for my kids. First time on it, my 6 year-old gunned it before I had hold of the kill cord. He ran it full bore into a chain link fence and never got on it again.

I rolled, wrecked, flipped mine once or twice in the 80’s.

I had one when I was a kid and lived.  Fun little machines but not very wuss friendly.   Most stupid actions had consequences.

Side note,  I dated a girl in High school that her dad had the bad ass 250 one.   He finished that sucker off when he hit a grain drill head on full speed with it.   Turns out it dint turn as fast as he thought it would.  Lucky for him it threw him over the drill.    

I’m a 3-wheel casualty survivor.

In 94’, Yamaha 110. Not enough power to traverse steep incline. Started to roll back. Instinctively hit the brakes, rolled on rear axle, I had my arm on rear rack while going uphill. When it rolled, my left arm hit the ground first, shattered scapula  and broke left humerus. Emergency exploratory surgery for 6hrs, 8 screws and a plate. Surgery again 2wks later as the screws backed out. Surgery again 2 years later to remove hardware floating around in shoulder and joint near corroded artery. Needless to say, I never rode one again. Lost about 1” of length due to braking growth plate, I was 14 at the time.

I grew up riding a 90 and a 200 that had either no or very little suspension.

I survived

I had an ATC250R.

That thing was death on a stick.

I still have both of mine.  An 82 Kawasaki KLT200B1 and an 86 Honda 350X.  After I got the Honda I kept the KLT 200 because it had been such a reliable bike that went anywhere I wanted to go, but it wasn't fun to ride anymore.  I loaned it to people when we went riding.

Why did they stop making 3-wheelers?  The CPSC threatened to sue the manufacturers because they felt 3 wheelers were unsafe.  The reality was, at the same time, that more people got injured and killed on riding lawnmowers every year than had been killed on 3 wheelers in 10 years.  But you know how it is, they couldn't/wouldn't outlaw riding lawnmowers because so many people owned/used them.

My 350X is a scary bike.  Not because of turning over.  I did, in 10 or 12 years of riding it, turn it over three times.  Every time in a mud hole at slow speed.  Get one tire or the other in rut you couldn't see and it was like Artie Johnson on the tricycle on Laugh-In.  You knew you were turning over on your side but it was so slow you felt like you had time to stop it, but never could.  If the water hadn't been so cold it would have been funny.

Why do I feel the 350X is scary?  I weighed 285 lbs. and even sitting so far forward on the seat my nuts were pushed up against the back of the gas tank the front wheel would come off the ground getting the first 4 gears.  Two times, when doing doughnuts in the dirt I've had that damn thing suddenly get enough traction to pop a wheelie.  Nothing gets my attention like hanging down off the side of the bike with my head at handlebar level (I always did those counter clockwise), crouched down on the left foot peg and the right foot up in the air sticking out over the right fender and then suddenly the front wheel is coming off the ground and climbing for the sky.  You've got to force yourself to let up on the throttle but all you want to do it hold onto the handlebars even tighter.

Awesome bike.  Almost everyone I rode with got 350X's of their own after riding mine.

At night, when you're going down the road with the headlights on, you have to let up on the gas to see the road 20 ft. in front of you.  When you give it the gas to accelerate the front end never really comes back down to the "rest" position/height as long as you're giving it the gas to keep going 40 or 50 mph.  Thing only got 32 mpg, so I had to take a gas can with me to keep from running out of gas on our longer rides.

Damn, I miss riding it.  Got hurt doing something else, stopped riding for a few months and during that time stuff going on with the other guys ended up stopping them from riding, too.  I've got the 350X, just don't have anyone do ride with anymore (and at 61 years old that may be a good thing.)

LOL, the ideas in here make me laugh sometimes.

I was a mechanic in a Honda/Kawasaki/Suzuki shop from 1980-1982, was riding since I was ten, and it was last job in college. Raced competitive motocross all along and several years after college.  Not bragging, just establishing experience creds.

I put together hundreds of 3 wheelers, serviced thousands. Did more major maintenance than I can recall, some of the repair bills were as much as a new bike.  Average redneck owner, didn't realize it was a three wheeler, not a submarine or stunt vehicle.  But the damn things were rugged, kept running even when the oil sump was so full of water, the engine was smoking oil.  Drain it, flush it, refill it, quick tuneup, good to go again.

Suzuki was one of the first that came out with a 4 wheeler, a 125 with reverse if I recall.  Owner of the shop was like, well..... this is the end of the three wheeler.  And, as events turned out, he was right.

See..... consent decree not withstanding etc, the four wheelers were just so much easier to ride.  The shop owner, who was a VERY good bike rider, couldn't ride a three wheeler thru the shop doors, he'd either hit the door, or slam on the brakes just before he hit it.  He could NOT unlearn the instinctive turning stuff in his head, from 30+ years of two wheeler riding, that even casual riding of a 3 wheeler took.  Everything you do naturally on two wheels, is wrong on three.  Some people never could unlearn that in their heads.  The other mechanic and I, we could ride them with one knee on the seat, sliding them all around on pavement, bringing in the demo units every night.  We raced these things on Saturday night on tenth mile dirt track ovals, long axles in back, and hard tires for drifting thru the turns.  Climbed over those things like monkeys, but oh..... so much fun.  The three wheelers for a skilled rider had so much spirit in them, the quads just weren't as much fun.

We gave quicky lessons at the shop every time we sold one.  Had a small track laid out there, myself and the other mechanic, had these huge berms built up from sliding three wheelers around the track, the owner hated watching us, then seeing a customer launch his new 3 wheeler over a berm, because he couldn't turn it.  Ok yeah, I'm going to show you again..... the fun never quit, some people just could NOT unlearn what was in their heads.  Complicating the thing was that 3 wheelers turn different, depending on how fast you were going, could you slide it rear end out, or not, how much power the thing had....... you got better at it the more you rode it, but the first few hours, were terrifying for the most part, thats also when most people got hurt.

Contrast that with the 4 wheeler, which was so easy to drive, nothing to unlearn, and once suspension was invented ( yeah imagine that ) they simply left the 3 wheelers behind.  The 3 wheelers days were in fact numbered once the 4 wheelers were out.

We were pretty careful also about what sold to who.  Lots of guys came in - got to have that 250R, for a first bike.  We wouldn't sell it to them, unless they had some time on a 185 or 200 first.  That was a critter to be respected, it would eat you up in a second, definitely not a novice bike.  Some guys would get one somewhere else, or a used one.  We would get it in a few days later, to fix the crash damages.

Kawasaki had a 200/250 fourstroke, that had a differential in the rear, it was supposed to make it easier to turn.  Yeah, well for grandpa maybe.  When the inside tire came off the ground, there was no power going to the rear at all, instant high side snap roll.  We ended up locking the rear up ( there was a provision to do this, had to take a cover off the differential to access it ) on all the ones we sold.

I've still got a 400EX Honda 4 wheeler, damn thing is plenty fast still, but prefer to ride my XRS SxS more often.  That thing is a beast, yet I have managed to roll it once right after I got it too.

I put 60 miles or so on my 200S one Saturday 2 years ago on the Hill City trails here in Minnesota. On Sunday I did 30 more.

My quads were sore for a day and my shoulders ached a bit, but it was still fun!

That’s what I grew up on!

Three wheelers with two wheels in the front are actually pretty stable.  Three wheelers with two wheels in the back are not very stable at all.

I don't know how well a two wheel in front would do off road, but on pavement, they work much better than one wheel in front.

It has three wheels, let's put 7 year old's on them.  It's just like their pedal bike we got them when they were 4 except it has an engine and gearbox and is fast.

People thought one wheel in front three wheelers were stable.  Thing is, I remember how easy it was to tip one over when I was a little kid.  Arte Johnson made a career out of tipping over tricycles on Laugh-in.

Morgan made three wheelers with two wheels in front since at least the early 30's.

If you find one for a couple hundred bucks, do me a favor and IM me the link.

There are a hell of a lot of people riding motorcycles who have no idea how they turn.  To turn right, push on the right side of the handle bar.  It's that simple.  I can remember the first time I figured that out and then wondered how I never noticed that after riding bicycles my whole life.

Earlier in this thread we had at least two people saying the inside wheel should be unloaded by leaning the opposite direction of the turn.  I have never rode a powered three wheeler with one wheel in front but there does seem to be much more logic to your method.

Not saying they should have been banned or outlawed, but they are/were definitely sketchy as fuck.

See I never did that. I just leaned hard towards the direction I wanted to turn and used that and the throttle to turn.

Simple economics

Quads could do everything 3-wheelers could but with a ton more stability, which meant a ton less accidents per X amount of riding time.  For a while there were both 4-wheelers and 3-wheelers being made, but the production price was about the same but no one was buying new 3-wheelers because duh they were a lot more dangerous. There were enough injuries on the 3-wheelers though that .gov wanted to ban all ATVs.  Business could have fought it, or could have rolled over and abandoned it, but instead they saw the writing on the wall in terms of sales, and so they tossed the 3-wheeler to it's doom in federal regs and went forward with 4-wheelers exclusively.

So for about 5 years there was dirt cheap market for used 3-wheelers, but eventually even that all but dried up.

Now, there are some small amount of used 3-wheeler that people buy for nostalgic reasons.

In what ways are they superior to quads?

The safety mother's of the  yoga mothers that now want your guns gone too screamed foul to Congress

Those people never even road the things, it was just an exercise toward larger goals

I don’t think they’re superior or inferior. They’re just different. They ride and handle different so there’s not really any reason to compare them.

Do you people get hurts on 3 wheelers? Yes. Do they get hurt on quads, dirt bikes, scooters, and side by sides? Yes. People are just dumb. Trust me I know, I’ve been hurt on all of the above.

Got an '82 ATC 185s brand new for my birthday that year ( I was 11).  Rode the wheels off of it, never hurt myself.
Lusted after a 200X for years, then turned 16 and my attention turned to trucks.  Would absolutely love to have a 350x, even today.

Technology. What happens to 56k modems?

I never had a problem with them but then again I'm not a dumb ass either.

You were doing it right.

Besides the fact that it's awfully hard to lean your upper body in AND push the bike (handlebars) out.

They were neat but they were perhaps Honda's worst engineering disaster, so many deaths so many paralyzation's

See text in red.  Bullshit.  The things were unstable so they had some guides of 'don't go up or down or sideways on hills of X angle or steeper' and 'lean in this bizarre fashion when doing a turn at speeds Y or over'.  Things that were technically correct but impossible to actually do in a real-world riding environment.  (Who measures the slope of a hill when riding?  Lots of machines didn't even have speedometers, etc).  Then you look at an accident and say 'oh, he didn't lean sideways far enough for his speed...rider fail' or 'it rolled, well, the hill was too steep, and he didn't counter-lean far enough forward/backward...rider fail'.

Nope, design fail.

OR, the rider was 15, 16, 17, and they said 'oh this is a machine for ADULTS'.  That's like a car manufacturer saying 'oh, we could put in seat-belts and air bags, but look,it's 15, 16, and 17 year olds who are crashing, and these cars are for ADULTS!.

Regarding that... they basically declared ALL machines 'adult size' yet they were marketed to teens and up.  That's how they were used.  Heck, look at Honda's lineup.  Started with a 90cc version in 1970, then offered a 70cc 'kids' size in 1974, then went for years 'improving' the adult version (110cc, slightly bigger engine and in many other ways more better, then the 185, 250, and the 200cc 'Big Red'...all with various improvements but all the same adult size, no improved 'child' version).  Next 'for 12 and up' machine didn't come out until 1994, and it was a 4 wheeler...10 years after they had been making 4 wheelers.  Can't say the teens were riding the wrong machine when there wasn't any 'right' machine.

P.S.  Side note.  Honda cranked out a new 3-wheeler design every year from 1979 foward.  Honda hit the pinnacle of its 3-wheeler with 'big red' in 1984, and the same year they came out with a 4-wheeler using the same engine and never revisited 3-wheeler design again.  And for the next 6 years churned out a new 4-wheeler design every year.  This was 4 years prior to the 1988 agreement to stop making 3-wheelers.  The market winds had spoken.  4-wheelers were better.

Join any of the WI ATV/Dirtbike for sale groups on FB. They pop up on other for sale groups also, like local groups ect.

Spring/beginning of summer is a terrible time to find good deals but this is what popped up on a quick search. All these would be popping up at half the price in December. Yeah, I know they aren't mint. They're 30+ years old, none of them are unless restored and at that point you know nice stuff doesn't come cheap. If you check em out good before buying you can get most of them running with next to nothing in parts. they're tough machines and a little TLC goes a long ways. Yet, some of the ones I posted are running and at a premium because of the season. I've also always found that the best deals are people selling from way up north, maybe they need to due to a limited market? I don't know but that's the trend I notice, and just like anything you have to keep an eye open for the good deals when they pop up since they wont last long. I picked up a RM125 from somebody up north for $300, started first kick and runs like a raped ape. Anything similar to it sells closer to $750-$1000 down here. I picked up two non running RM80's and made 1 nice running one & a parts bike for $500. I could sell the running bike for a small profit, the parts bike would be the icing on top. I only spent an afternoon in the garage to do it as well. With a little more luck I can turn that parts bike into another running bike.

I had a Honda 3 wheeler for a long time. That thing was a blast.
Sold it after owning it for 5 or 6 years to a guy that had a few broken down ones. He used mine and used the broken down ones as salvage bikes to keep the one he bought off of me in running condition.

I don't know, but I will wildly speculate!

They were coming at it from a bicycle/motorcycle mindset.  3 wheels were a hell of a lot more stable, so all of a sudden you have this thing that is a hell of a lot easier to ride than a dirtbike, making it much more of a 'work vehicle' than a 'travel from point to point' vehicle.

It wasn't until they got really popular and were being ridden by teens with little experience in all sorts of terrain in farms and ranches and woods (rather than dirtbikes which still tended to stay on trails) that they realized that being 10X more stable than a two-wheeler made them 'just stable enough' to do lots and lots of stuff, but very risky.

Kind of how all the gunpeople from today look at the fact that some blackpowder cap-and-ball revolvers had removable cylinders think 'oh if I was in the old west, I'd not upgrade to a metallic cartridge SAA because you have to load single-ly, I'd stick with a cap and ball but just have 5 or 6 pre-loaded cylinders in my pocket, just drop a fresh one in when I'm empty!'....but no one from the period actually did that.  They just came at it from a different starting point, so it never really occurred to them.

This! I had a Honda 125 with high low transmission it was fast for me at the time, never got hurt on it learned to ride it when I was nine or so

ETA it’s been a while but you would have to shift you ass in the seat to the outside and lean your body to the inside

A three wheeler is the only thing ive ever rolled at walking speed on level ground

I'll stick to my dirt bikes.

This.  Not to mention not wearing helmets or any other protection.  Or more machine than the rider, or experience level of the rider.  Pretty much a lot of the same reasons why we no longer have lawn darts.  One person loses an eye and spoils it for the rest of us.  

They were great for a Darwin purge though.  

Well, to be fair, instability can be harnessed in 'exciting' ways.  Early pilots figured that out with pro-planes.  You tap into that instability to do rolls and such.

3-wheelers were front-light so gunning the engine too much and you could flip front over back, but really only when you were going up a hill.  This made them much easier to pop a wheelie on than you could with a 4-wheeler, BUT it was also the kind of 'feature' that made them fun. (and the kind of feature that killed a lot of folks).  In some ways because it was so unstable you could 'discover' tricks for it pretty easy.  Ride one for half an hour and you could do a wheelie or kick your back and back-and-forth to spray gravel at the guy behind you.

4-wheelers, being more stable (part of that is being more heavy in the front) you couldn't really do wheelies and spray the guy behind you.  You actually had to have a ton of riding experience to get it to do fancy slides and shit (stuff a 3-wheeler could never do).  You could take a 4-wheeler over much steeper jumps and hold em together.  3-wheelers would jump just cresting a steep hill, no way to do an actual jump with one, your front end would come up way too much and you'd hit with just your back end.

First video I found of sliding and two-wheeling on a quad, note what they can do on a tiny little 80CC machine, you should see what can be done with a 200cc machine (actually a bit easier than the 350cc, as it's lighter)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbnL9AE8jGU

Yep.  Another 20yrs and there will be threads started about AR15's with accessories and how dangerous they were and how thankful and better the SAFE Act guns are for everyone to enjoy, because anything more than 10 rounds at a time is just wasteful anyway.