One of the more fascinating start-ups we’ve seen in a long time is Oruga and it's rather unique single-track all-terrain-vehicle. Indeed, you will NOT have seen one of these before. There are three wheels with massive balloon tires inside a proprietary monotrack system, a big battery and an electric motor with oodles of grunt. The Oruga is designed for non-expert ease-of-use in very rugged conditions: very steep hills, snow, mud, sand.
The Oruga Unitrack is set to be one of the stars of TechChill 2024, the annual technology and startup conference beginning tomorrow (April 18-19, 2024) in Riga, Latvia.
Oruga SIA is a Mobility Tech startup established in Latvia in the summer of 2023, with the Oruga name derived from the Spanish word for caterpillar.
The company’s point of difference is its proprietary patent-pending monotrack technology and the company intends to develop and manufacture products “designed to conquer diverse challenging terrains: from hot sand and muddy forests to rocky climbs and snowy landscapes.”
Oruga’s headquarters is located in Latvia’s capitol, Riga, and the first batch of 100 Unitracks will be manufactured in Latvia beginning in mid-2025 and sold online, with pre-orders being taken now.
Clearly there are more applications of the monotrack technology that we have yet to see and understand, so we reached out to the Oruga team, and apparently the track is designed to bend on the sections of the contact point of the lower front wheel when you steer, giving the bike a rather wide turning radius of around 6 meters.
Now this massive turning circle can be reduced by leaning, but I'm having trouble getting this to translate into a compelling experience in my head, so we'll
This approach is unique but it is unlikely to offer sufficient turning ability for many circumstances it will invariably encounter.
Even with the Unitrack's ability to drive in reverse making manoeuvring in tight spots a little less physically demanding, the huge turning radius will limit where it can be taken, and with all that extra weight on the front end (it's the first steering system we've seen that turns a wheel that's a foot off the ground), I'm tipping it will handle very differently to the featherweight, exquisitely suspended forks of a thoroughbred dirt bike that most motorcyclists would prefer when they are seeking front-end traction to keep it all sunny-side-up.
One other rather obvious missing feature required if you do intend to push the boundaries of where the Unitrack might take you, is grab handles - strong points on each corner of a motorcycle where a hand or line can be attached to coax this thing out of difficult spots.
Finally, whilst the likelihood of a track failure appears slim, most things on a traditional motorcycle can be fixed with a bit of ingenuity and determination. I'm tipping that this will not be an easy bike to work on when things go wrong.
Now most of the adventures that the Oruga Unitrack appears to have been built for are already catered to in the marketplace by motorcycle industry veteran Rokon.
Rokon has catered to this niche since 1957 and although it offers a meager seven horsepower, the Rokon’s two-wheel-drive system and those huge balloon tires combine with an automatic gearbox to get you to all those same obscure places the Oruga Unitrack is destined for. Rokon has a range of models ranging from all-round pack mules to the mototractor for the man on the land, with special editions for preppers and hunters.
The full capabilities and the numbers behind the Oruga Unitrack are still unknown, but it clearly has some advantages over the 200cc four-stroke Rokon in that it offers an eco-conscious tool for paramedics, first responders and the military. Ecological responsibility is not of paramount concern for the military, but the off-road mobility offered by the Oruga Unitrack is also completely silent.
We’ll wait until we have more details, but while this might be a niche product, the prosperity of Rokon and its dedicated legion of followers has already demonstrated the need for a product just like this.
It’s the capabilities of the bike that will decide its fate, with how it rides, but that third wheel sticking up at the front like a unicorn’s horn really does have me intrigued.
I’ve been riding off-road bikes for more than 40 years, and I bet there are a few like me wondering about the positioning of the higher front wheel and at what angles it becomes engaged with mother earth, and … anyway, I’ll suspend disbelief until I’ve either thrown a leg over one, or spoken to someone who has.
More details as soon as we have them.
Source: Oruga
