There’s a major problem with riding any type of two-wheeled vehicle that goes back to basic physics. If you only have two points of contact with the ground, you’ll need to balance to stay upright. Now this may sound pretty simply, especially as we all do it for most of our lives when we stand up or walk, but it has been the barrier that has stopped a lot of people getting on a motorbike since a petrol engine was strapped to a penny farthing.

Ok, generally people can cope with a pushbike, as for the most part it doesn’t go too quickly. Add an engine and it’s a whole different set of rules. Suddenly you need a bit of skill and a bit of bravery to stay on the thing, which not everyone seems to be able to do. The simple solution is to add a third wheel, thus completely removing the age-old problem of gravity and physics from the mix.

The negative of this is that you then also lose a lot of the dynamic nature of biking and end up with a sort of half way house. The trick is to come up with something that keeps that spirit alive, whilst keeping three wheels firmly on the ground.

The other point to consider is which direction to come at it from. T-Rex for example, built a three-wheeler that was basically a car with a rear wheel missing, but it was still a car (sort of). Now snowmobile and quad expert Can Am has come at it from the opposite direction and built what can only be described as a bike with an extra wheel.

The Can Am Spyder kind of cheated, by taking what appears to be a snowmobile and adding a bit of tricky quad technology to the pot, which makes perfect sense when you think that a snow mobile is really just a three-wheeled vehicle, with skis and a track, rather than some sticky round tyres.

It also handles a little like a snowmobile, with the rider having to hang off it when cornering. Stay in the centre and you’ll be thrown off. You need to counter the forces of nature that are demanding you to remove yourself immediately from the vehicles and enjoy a trip down tangent lane.

On the downside, Can Am is based in Canada, and therefore has a huge complex about being sued. In an attempt to keep the company lawyers at bay, the company has installed virtually every safety feature known to man, with the obvious exception of an airbag. Mind you, I’m sure they thought about it.

This makes wheel spins out of the question, as the traction control quickly tells you off. Rear wheel slides are also off limits for the same reason. As for locking up the rear and leaving a black tyre mark on the road, forget it.

I was in the rather odd position of actually riding it in the wet at one point and then the traction control finally can’t keep up and you can really have some fun, although waiting for it to rain seems a little extreme to avoid the over-zealous health and safety men.

On the plus side, the 990 Rotax engine is fantastic, powering the Spyder with the drive and torque near as damn it to a proper superbike. It also feels like a bike, with the rider sat slightly forward and upright with standard bike controls. The two things that I struggled to get used to were the lack of a front brake (the foot brake works all three wheels) and the fact that I didn’t need to put my feet down when I stopped. Some things are automatically stuck in a biker’s brain for life.

The Spyder is great fun to ride, despite being fairly large in size. You can’t filter through traffic, which is pretty annoying, but on the open road it gives you that big bike feel with the added stability of a third wheel. As a tourer it works, although I’m not sure how big the market will be in the region. As a race machine I think it’ll be a while before we see the stunt guys and speed freaks snapping them up. But on the whole, there now seems to be another option in the age-old battle between two wheels and four.