The Quickshift
- The adventure segment has displayed steady growth in recent years.
- Can-Am is eager to capitalize on this with the new Canyon.
- The Canyon gets taller suspension and adventure tires, making it ready for light off-road riding.
Can-Am has always been about its interesting, sometimes odd, three-wheelers. And while models like the Ryker and Spyder have become fairly popular thanks to their on-road capability, Can-Am thought it would be a good idea to take its three-wheelers off the beaten path.
The result is the all-new 2025 Can-Am Canyon, a three-wheeled motorcycle that Can-Am says is their most rugged and adventure-ready model to date. The Canyon sports pretty much what you’d expect from an adventure motorcycle, except for the fact that it has three wheels. So yeah, long-travel suspension, anti-slip footpegs, knobby tires, you know the drill.
On paper, it seems like it's ready to take on some serious terrain, all while being comfy enough for long stints on the highway, and perhaps even a bit of city riding if you ever find yourself feeling frisky on the way to work.
At its heart, the Canyon is powered by Can-Am’s 1,330cc ACE engine. The high-displacement triple churns out 115 horsepower at 7,250 rpm and 96 pound-feet of torque at 5,000 rpm. It sends power to the single rear wheel via a clutchless six-speed automatic tranny.
Depending on how adventurous you are, Can-Am offers the new Canyon in three trim levels—Standard, XT, and Redrock, along with a whopping 25 accessories designed specifically for this three-wheeler. So yeah, you could deck this thing out to do pretty much anything—from hauling your gear, to three-wheeled overlanding escapades, the Canyon’s pretty much got you covered.
But here’s the thing, big-displacement adventure bikes on their own tend to be way too big to fit into single tracks, hence the growing popularity of the middleweight ADV segment with bikes like the BMW F 900 GS and Aprilia Tuareg 660 enjoying great success right now.
So a 1,000-pound three-wheeler like the Can-Am Canyon?
Objectively speaking, the Can-Am Canyon is more like a three-wheeled, street-legal ATV, except it isn’t. It doesn’t nearly have as much ground clearance as any ATV, and surely, its one-wheel-drive rear wheel will easily leave it stuck in any and all sticky situations.
As such, it’s more than likely that folks who buy this thing will ride it on the road 99 percent of the time, save for some gravel roads and fire roads perfect for that adventurous Instagram aesthetic.
At the end of the day, the Can-Am Canyon just might find its niche. It could be a gateway drug for folks looking to get in on the adventure lifestyle, but for whatever reason, just can’t do so on two wheels. Its 400-pound cargo capacity is also a huge plus for folks who carry a lot of gear with them. And of course, it’s bound to attract folks who think a rugged-looking three-wheeler simply looks cool.
