Potential Ryker Buyer - concerned about the Understeer? Any ideas?

[r6roadracer]

Hello All,

New to the forum here. Looking at Rykers and Spyders to get my wife back on the road and out of a cage. She used to ride two wheels and has had some health issues and surgeries that make her less than comfortable on two wheels these days. So we thought we would give the Spyders and Rykers a look and a ride.

We went to our local dealer who had some used units. We first test rode a 2012 Spyder RSS. She rode it around their facility and then we went for a two-up ride with her as passenger. It was nice. It felt a little "darty" to me on the road, but the road surface seemed to have a lot of impact on that. Also was a very heavy wind day, so it was hard to tell how much we were being affected by crosswinds as well. After the Spyder, she tried a 2020 Ryker 900. She liked the riding position a bit better and preferred the simplicity of the CVT. And she preferred it in her parking lot ride.

I then took the Ryker out solo to see how it compared in the "darty" category to the Spyder. It felt a bit less so to me. And I did my testing on the same loop, so the roads were the same. The one thing that completely surprised me was the understeer that I experienced on corner exit while picking up the throttle. I've road raced and track ridden two wheels on and off for 30 years and force of habit is rolling on throttle after apexing on corner exit. What I experienced on this specific machine was that if I picked up the throttle moderately, it quickly resulted in a severe understeer experience that would allow the front to push excessively, I am talking a few feet, not inches. It was entirely stable the whole time, but as soon as I was moderately back in the throttle, the machine just refused to continue turning until I rolled back off. I was not going at speeds that I thought were remotely excessive and it didn't feel like the inside tire was anywhere near lifting. It just felt like that once the rear tire started driving the machine forward it overpowered available traction on the front and induced the severe understeer. The first experience was a semi tight right hander where my left front wheel was probably a good 18" from the center line and by the time I backed out of the throttle to allow the front to regain traction, I was probably 12-18" over the center line. I did this multiple times during the rest of the test ride to get a better feel for it and it was definitely tied to how much throttle input there was. Neutral to light throttle I never experienced it at similar corner speeds. As soon as I started picking up the throttle moderately it would push. This happened at lower speed 20-30mph turns and also at higher 40-50mph turns, although not as pronounced as the lower speed turns.

My concern is that this happened at what felt like a very modest pace to me and with only moderate pick up of throttle, nowhere near heavy or full throttle. I would be concerned that if it happened to my wife who has much less experience, she may not intuitively recognize what is happening in time to correct and could find herself either in the oncoming lane facing down a vehicle, or off the road in a ditch.

It just felt like the front lost traction way earlier than I ever would have expected. Has anyone else ever experienced this? I am wondering if it was something as simple as tire pressures being way off and just losing traction way sooner than it should have. The dealer was swamped when I got back, so we didn't check any pressures or what not, but their suggestion was to just try riding a new one and see how that feels, which we will likely wind up doing.

From what I have read on the site here, it certainly seems like these take some learning to adapt to if coming from two wheels, but this just seemed excessive. I've got enough time with bars in my hands to never be in the death grip, but even that would more likely manifest in perhaps some of the dartiness, not a full-on understeer slide from broken front tire traction.

Other than that, they were fun machines! Hope someone else has perhaps experienced this and could share their thoughts.

Thanks!