My wife told me she could not ride pillion on the Road Glide anymore. So I sold it and bought a Can-Am Spyder. Then the dealer charged me three hundred and ninety dollars to change four spark plugs. I am not a mechanic and I am not selling anything. But every man who rides a trike with his wife needs to read this before his next plug change.

If you ride a trike — Harley Tri Glide, Can-Am Spyder RT, Honda Goldwing GL1800 trike, BMW K1600 conversion — and you have ever closed your service manual at midnight wondering how the factory expected you to reach a spark plug under a fairing inner cowl, an airbox the size of a small cooler, and a frame brace, keep reading.

If you have ever ridden two-up with your wife for thirty years and watched the day come where she said she did not want to ride pillion anymore — this is for you.

If you have ever spent twenty seven thousand dollars on a Spyder, a Tri Glide, or a Goldwing trike so you could keep riding together and then realized you cannot do basic maintenance on it without removing half the body panels — keep reading.

If you have ever sat in your garage with a service manual on a tablet and a fairing piece in your lap wondering how exactly the factory expected you to reach a spark plug — this is for you too.

Tom & Janet — Why We Bought The Spyder

My name is Tom. I am sixty five. I retired three years ago from a thirty six year career as a journeyman electrician with IBEW Local 14 out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I have wired warehouses, paper mills, two hospitals, and the entire south wing of UW-Eau Claire. I am not afraid of complicated machines. I read schematics for a living for nearly forty years.

My wife Janet retired from Saint Joseph's the same month I did. Thirty one years as an OR nurse. She has held more lives in her hands than I have wires.

We bought a 2014 Harley Road Glide together back in 2010. Janet rode pillion all over Wisconsin and Minnesota and the U.P. She loved it. Loved the speed, loved the wind, loved the sound. We did the Tunnel of Trees on M-119 together every fall.

Then she turned sixty. Something changed. She did not say anything for a while. Then last spring she told me her back could not take a four hour ride on the Road Glide anymore. She did not want to make me stop riding. She did not know what to do.

I did some research. I went to the Eau Claire Powersports dealer and rode a 2019 Can-Am Spyder RT Limited around the lot. Came back, called Janet, told her to come down and try the back seat. She rode for forty five minutes around Lake Wissota. Came back smiling for the first time about a bike in two years.

We traded the Road Glide that week. Twenty seven thousand for the Spyder. Petrol Pearl Blue. 8,200 miles. Heated grips and seat. The whole package.

Nobody at the dealer warned me about the spark plugs.

What Nobody Tells You About Modern Trikes

Here is the thing about every modern trike — Spyder RT, Tri Glide, Goldwing trike, BMW K1600 — that nobody mentions when they sell it to you. The engine is buried.

The Rotax 1330 ACE in my Spyder is a transverse inline three with the spark plug wells running across the top of the engine. Above those plug wells sits a cast aluminum airbox the size of a small cooler. Above the airbox sits the front frame brace. Above that sits the fairing inner shell.

To change a spark plug on a Spyder RT, the Can-Am service manual instructs you to remove eleven body panels, the entire fairing inner cowl, both saddlebag liners, the radiator shroud, and lift the airbox out of the way. Plug change interval: twenty four thousand miles.

Same story on the Tri Glide. Same on the Goldwing trike. Same on the BMW.

I read that procedure in the service manual the first night I owned the bike and I closed the tablet and went inside to pour a drink.

$390 At The Dealer. Six Days Without The Bike.

At eight thousand miles I started getting a slight stumble at idle. I pulled the fairing inner cowl apart following the manual. Three hours just to get the airbox visible. Got the airbox loose and tried to lift it. The lower edge caught on the throttle body inlet stack. I could not pull it free without disconnecting the wiring harness and the breather tube.

I gave up. Put it all back together. Took it to the dealer.

Spark plug change. Three hundred and ninety dollars. They had it for six days. Janet asked me what was wrong with the bike and I told her nothing serious. I did not tell her I had spent three hours in the garage and could not finish the job.

The stumble came back at sixteen thousand miles. I asked the service writer at the dealer if there was a tool I could buy that would let me do the plug change myself. He told me Can-Am does not really sell that as a DIY service. He said most owners just bring it in. He said it like he was being kind.

Why Every Flex Tool Fails Past The Airbox

BRP, Harley, Honda, BMW — they all designed their trikes to be serviced exclusively at the dealer. The plug wells, the oil filter, the throttle body, the fuel pressure regulator. Every consumable maintenance item lives in a pocket of the engine bay where standard ratchets do not fit and nothing swings clean past the airbox.

The factory installs and removes those plugs on a robotic line in Valcourt, in Milwaukee, in Hamamatsu, with a custom spindle no dealer outside that plant will ever own. Your dealer's tech does what you would do. Pulls the panels and uses a flex-head ratchet. The labor on the work order is the access, not the plugs.

• Flex-head ratchet (Snap-on, Matco): folds at forty foot-pounds. The plug is fused to the head from twenty thousand miles of heat. Forty foot-pounds doesn't even budge it.
• Wobble extension: rocks off the plug every time you load the ratchet. Round the hex once and you've added an extractor to your problem.
• Universal joint on a long extension: deflects sideways under torque. The socket goes wherever the universal wants it to go. Anywhere except on the plug.
• Crow foot wrench: too wide. Won't fit between the airbox and the plug well. Close enough to make you angry.
• Spark plug socket on a 6" extension: the standard 3/8" plug socket is taller than the gap between the plug and the airbox. You can't even get it on the plug.

Picture trying to crank a wrench through a piece of cooked spaghetti. That is every flex extension and every universal joint I had in my Snap-on chest the first time I tried to do a Spyder plug change. The plug was not the problem. The plug was just a plug. The problem was always the geometry of the tools I was bringing to it.

Then I Found Bill On Page Nine

Last fall I started reading SpyderLovers seriously. There is a thread there with eleven hundred replies about plug changes. Page nine of that thread, a guy who goes by PNW_RT posted about a chain drive offset extension wrench he had bought from a small company that sells direct. He said he had been changing his own plugs for four years on his 2017 RT-S without removing more than the seat and one fairing piece. He posted a photo. The wrench was a blue steel bar with a chain inside it.

I almost scrolled past it. Most of that thread was the usual arguments about NGK Iridium versus Champion. But PNW_RT wrote something I could not stop reading. He said,

That was the language of someone who had done it. That was not a forum opinion. That was a guy who had sat exactly where I had sat.

I sent him a private message. He told me his real name was Bill. Retired Honda dealer mechanic out of Tacoma. Forty one years on dealer service floors. He said he had owned three Spyders since he retired and the wrench was the only reason he still owned them. He sent me the link.

Eighty nine dollars. The dealer had wanted three hundred and ninety. Eighty nine dollars and a guy named Bill in Tacoma who answered a private message from a stranger because he knew exactly what I was dealing with.

I ordered it that night.

Forty Five Minutes. Three Plugs. Done.

Saturday morning I pulled the seat and one inner fairing piece. Slid the wrench in past the airbox. Socket seated flush on the first plug. No deflection. The plug came loose on the second pull. I changed all three plugs in forty five minutes. Reinstalled the seat and the fairing. Went inside and made Janet coffee.

That was four months ago.

We have ridden the Spyder seventeen hundred miles since. Did the Door County loop in October. Did the Mississippi River Road from La Crosse down to Dubuque. The bike runs cleaner than it did the day we bought it. Janet asked me last week if I was ready to plan something bigger for spring. I told her I was thinking the Black Hills. She did not flinch.

I have used the wrench on the oil filter cap. On the throttle body bolts. On the fuel rail. On a starter bolt on Bill's old Goldwing trike when I drove out to meet him at Sturgis last August. Every fastener that lives under that airbox where the factory decided we did not need to reach.

Why The Chain Drive Changes Everything

What Other Trike Riders Are Saying

Real reviews from Spyder, Tri Glide, Goldwing, and BMW K1600 owners. 78,000+ five-star reviews overall.

What To Expect After You Order

Savary vs. Everything Else In Your Snap-on Chest

What Trike Owners Get After The Bar Arrives

• No more $390-$475 dealer quotes for a forty five minute job.
• No more 6-day shop waits to change four spark plugs.
• No more pulling eleven body panels just to see the airbox.
• No more Janet asking you why the bike is at the dealer again.
• No more service-writer "kindness" when you ask if you can do it yourself.
• No more wondering if buying the trike was the right call.

The Questions Every Trike Owner Asks Before Buying

How Can You Get Your Hands On The Chain Drive Bar?

The maker sells direct from their site only. Not on Amazon. Not at the dealer. Not at any Powersports shop. Demand from trike owners has been at an all-time high since the Spyder community started sharing the link — they've had to delay shipments twice this year already. If you're seeing this page, the bar is in stock right now.