The weather looked settled so Tanners Point man Lee Gilmour was happy to bring the ‘baby' to town.

'He won't take it out in the rain,” explains wife Yvonne Gilmour.

‘Boom' with its owners, Tanners Point trikers Lee and Yvonne Gilmour. Photo by Bruce Barnard.

They're not overly protective parents as such. But sort of.

And the ‘baby'? – is $65,000 worth of glistening, grunty, custom-built, precision German engineering.

It feels like I'm trivialising this menacing black beast to call it a trike, but that's what it is. A big bloke's and big blokette's trike.

And it's a love triangle story. Lee and Yvonne went to school together, fell in love with motorcycles and then each other, got married and after 35 years of bliss it was 'boom” or rather 'Boom.” They were three.

'We decided to buy something nice to celebrate our anniversary,” says Yvonne. She did her research and they both instantly knew this was right for them – the bike, the trike, the German ‘Boom'.

'They provide you options, you choose, they build,” says Lee. And the ‘Boom baby' was born – all 1600cc of double overhead cam, handcrafted touring excellence.

'We'd always been interested in trikes,” says Lee. But they were always ‘bit of car, bit of bike' – VW engine, with motorbike front suspension and variations thereof.

Not the ‘Boom baby'. It's a thoroughbred, purpose-built complete kit with a 1600 Zetek engine that also powers the Ford Focus, gear box and suspension 'all neatly crafted and compacted into the vehicle”.

And if you drop your left hand off the handlebars it lands straight on the manual five-speed H-shift transmission.

I asked Lee to explain to someone who has never ever been on a motorbike, not ever, just what sets this machine apart.

'Never been on a motorbike, ever? That's sick. You haven't lived.”

But he did go on to talk up the Boom's stability and the fact it was 'extremely directional”. I shall leave that thought with the aficionados.

The Gilmours did try another brand of trike in Wellington. 'But the thing just about shook itself apart idling at the lights. Yvonne hated it.”

But not the baby.

It reeks of romance – from the ‘his' and ‘hers' seats to the ample trunk space, the complete kit and caboodle for the big tour. That appealed to Yvonne.

As did the space age helmet with the GoPro – this appealed to Yvonne the photographer – he drives, she shoots. And the full leathers, riding gloves and boots, all in black of course.

I suppose Yvonne's business card sums them up – the three of them – Lee, Yvonne and the Boom. 'Be yourself and have fun.”

The couple are quietly weaning the baby before ‘being themselves', triking off into the next three-and-a-half decades of marriage and fun.