Ask the Editors: What’s a Quad-Bike?
The term quad bike is rarely used in the United States to describe an ATV (though “quad” alone is certainly common enough in reference to the vehicle’s four-wheels much in the same way trike was used to describe three-wheelers). However quad bike is a popular vehicle classifier in parts of Europe, particularly the UK as well as Australia.
England’s version of Wikipedia provides this nugget: “A Quad bike is recognised by UK law as a vehicle with four wheels and a mass of less than 550 kg.”.
At its core the term is a bit contradictory by nature as “bike” is a derivative of bi meaning two; hence “bicycle” referring to a machine with two-wheels. In essence combining “quad” with “bike” is like saying four-two-wheeler but alas the classification is indeed simply a generic term for an ATV in certain parts of the globe that probably was never meant to be analyzed so thoroughly.
