They boast that they were the first and still are the biggest company in the world building luxury three-wheeled motorcycles.

If you’ve never heard of the Alberta company called Lehman Trikes Inc., it’s probably because 90 per cent of their customers are outside Canada.

And they must be servicing a different kind of clientele to boast that they are trying to keep their prices higher than their competitors.

Photo courtesy Lehman Trikes Inc.
Company founder John Lehman is an easy rider on his trike.

“This is very much a luxury recreation product (and not a commodity, per se),” says president Larry Strilchuk. “No one in the world needs a trike . . . I believe what we really sell is image, lifestyle, and fun.”

The trike in question is a far cry from the three-wheeled training bicycle most of us learned to ride as children. It’s a (sometimes) $60,000 motorcycle that happens to have three wheels – the rear two being car wheels.

Dispense with any notion of all-terrain vehicles. These are converted Harley-Davidson, Honda, and Suzuki touring bikes. The least expensive model is $15,000. All Lehman-adapted motorcycles and kits are created in Westlock (84 kilometres north of Edmonton), a town with just under 2,000 residential postal addresses.

Lehman Trikes buys brand new, high-end motorcycles, converts them into three-wheelers, and re-sells them with a Lehman warranty (the original manufacturer warranty is void). The company also sells conversion kits to bike shops.

The engineers at Strilchuk’s company are always upgrading and refining the product line and trike components, emphasizing stability, ease-of-handling, and style. Partly thanks to a large R&D department, Strilchuk says his company has not faced a single product liability claim and meets worldwide safety standards.

This safe record is also likely due to the clientele. Young punks and stunt-happy ne’er-do-wells (Mike Tyson notwithstanding – he bought five Lehman-adapted Honda Gold Wings, one for each of his houses) tend to spurn these relatively safe machines.

Since its inception in 1984 – in the founder John Lehman’s garage-– the company has grown dramatically, and steadily. Now a public company (listed on the TSX Venture exchange), they had $4.4 million in sales the last quarter, up 14 per cent over the previous year.

Strilchuk ventures one of the reasons – apart from the weather – that these expensive toys are selling so well in the United States, is attitude.

“Americans have a different attitude, a different culture towards buying frivolous things,” he says. “In Canada, most people who spend $40,000 on a bike, their friends and neighbours will think they’re crazy. In the United States, they think that it is cool.”

THE SKINNY
* Name: Lehman Trikes Inc.
* Website: www.lehmantrikes.com
* Employees: 92
* Business: Building three-wheeled motorcycles.