Look y’all, regardless of which side you find yourself, this election is stressful and holds a lot of weight for our country. While we all wait with bated breath, let’s take a few minutes to drop our shoulders and look at something truly unifying, bipartisan, and beautiful; a comically large, semi-truck motorcycle. As a matter of fact, this motor-truck is the largest motorcycle in the world. This may look a touch different than most bikes we’ve ever seen, but if we are honest with ourselves, we can feel that this monstrosity rings true to the spirit of motorcycling. 

It may not look it, but it counts

I know you may be seeing this creation and thinking, “that just isn’t a motorcycle.” To that possible objection, the test driver at RideApart poses the question, “What is a motorcycle?” 

Because of the way America works, that definition changes state by state. Still, according to the National Highway Safety Administration, the definition of a motorcycle is “a motor vehicle with motive power having a seat or saddle for the use of the rider and designed to travel on not more than three wheels in contact with the ground.” Ok! Enough of the boring stuff; let’s talk about the trike.

All kneel before the Tower Trike; the world’s largest motorcycle

The folks at SRK Cycles calls the Tower Trike, “what happens when a semi-tractor-trailer has a baby with a motorcycle.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. To give scale to the monster trike’s size, the Tower weighs juuust under 11,000 lbs. 

RideApart reports that the builder of the world’s largest motorcycle was committed to keeping the weight under 11,000 lbs to adhere to some mysterious rule about motorcycles not weighing over that amount. That rule isn’t something that we are aware of, but again, due to the state-to-state differences in the law, there could well be such a stipulation in the law. 

The mixed-fuel heart of the Tower

Here’s where we start to get crazy, people. This ain’t no V-twin, inline-four, single-cylinder thumper, nope; a two-stroke Detroit-diesel engine powers the Tower trike. Not only is it a massive two-stroke diesel, but it is also turbocharged AND supercharged. All of these many engine descriptors result in a motorcycle making 335 hp and an unfathomable amount of torque at nearly 1,100 ft-lbs. 

Although the Tower trike is the largest motorcycle in the world and looks more like a teenage semi-truck than a bike, it still has most of the bits and pieces we’d expect to see on a normal bike. 

It is a trike, so it has more than two wheels, but due to the Tower trike’s size and weight, it has two car-sized wheels and tires up front. Other than that, it is, well, not business as usual, but has familiar parts. It is still controlled using handlebars, although the bars are attached to a much more complicated, car-like steering column. There is also a heel-toe shifter for the gears if your foot is big enough. 

Honestly, there are far more differences than similarities, as you may have imagined. For instance, the Tower trike has seatbelts, throttle and brake pedals like a car, and even Semi-truck-style air brakes. There is even a huge, truck-stop-style 200-lb cross on the back of the bike that acts as a “roll bar” but is mostly a style choice. 

The largest motorcycle in the world can fulfill two driving fantasies

Many people grow up loving motorcycles and dream of the open road and the wind in your hair cliches of the motorcycle world. It likely fewer, yet some people have dreams plucked from “Smokey and the Bandit” of being a long haul trucker. Well, SRK Cycles has given the narrow crossover of the two dreams a giant and strange vehicle to make those dreams come true for the small fee of $90,000.