And so it goes. I'm driving the SportCycle at Castle Combe, a circuit that must have been genuinely hairy before a couple of mid-straight chicanes were introduced to keep speeds down. It's still a genuinely quick track, though, and the power (about 140bhp) from this Blackbird engine whacks the 390ish kg SportCycle up through its gears with tremendous pace. Because it's my first time at the circuit, and this is the only SportCycle that passed the track's 99dB noise regs, I'm loathe to cost anybody any time or expense by throwing it into a gravel trap. Besides which, three-wheelers are generally considered fairly unstable once you start introducing large, gravel-induced roll angles.
During fairly hard track driving though, this thing barely rolls at all. Suspension at the front is by pushrods, connected to a single, centrally mounted damper. The rear suspension is that of the standard bike. The absence of roll means that you could easily forget you're in a three-wheeler. It just feels like a single-seat race-car (which I suppose it is).
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| Rear tyre can spin up easily |
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The steering is exceptionally responsive, unassisted and feelsome (though the turning circle's enormous). Its clutch is razor sharp, brakes are unassisted, heavy but truly progressive, and the SportCycle stops, goes and turns with genuine pace and agility. The gearshift is smooth, too; just lift and pull the left side of the lever on the way up, depress clutch and pull the right (or push the left) on the way back down. The pedals could be better spaced for heel-and-toe matched revs, though. Better still, you can abuse the bike engine's excess power on the way out of corners, straightening the car with a smidgeon of throttle. With little weight on the back, and only one hard road-tyre to apply power to the road, the rear tyre spins up easily. No idea what it's like with serious opposite lock, but on a racing line, it feels superb, extremely friendly and adjustable.
It may feel like a proper single-seater from the inside, but from trackside it still looks odd. It's bigger than you'd think, certainly longer, and from a distance, looks a bit precarious around corners. That may be because it rolls so little (you expect it to just keep on going at the apex of a bend), or because you can see the tall back half of a motorbike cornering completely upright. I'm not sure.
