REVIEW
Gavin Foster
Triumph Speed Triple, R84998
It’s called evolution. The British built relatively crappy motorcycles and the Japanese first copied, then perfected them. Triumph, BSA, Norton, AJS, Matchless, Velocette and a dozen other manufacturers went to the wall while the Japs carried on making machines more suited to the racetrack and less street-usable. The Poms just loved ’em, and the United Kingdom became the world’s biggest market for Japanese superbikes. Nothing else but a race-replica was good enough for the British motorcyclist.
But there was a price to pay. All those fancy fairings and body panels cost a fortune to replace, so bikers started leaving them off when repairing accident damage. Stick on a couple of after-market headlamps and a set of higher bars and off you go. Thus was born the streetfighter a high-performance, mean-looking machine that handled like a superbike and turned every biker yobbo into a wheelie champion.
Now the wheel’s gone full circle. Triumph is back in the motorcycle business, and one of their best sellers is, well, a replica of a crashed, repaired Japanese superbike. The Triumph Speed Triple looks mean, it sounds wicked and it goes like a scalded cat.
At the heart of the Speed Triple is a fuel-injected 108 horsepower water-cooled three-cylinder 995cc 12-valve engine, tuned for midrange rather than out and out power the same basic unit in the new Daytona puts out 148 horsepower, but needs to be revved harder to get there. A six-speed transmission gets the power to the ground via a massive 190/50 ZR 17 Bridgestone Battlax BT 56 hoop, and a pair of 320mm floating discs with four-piston calipers look after the front braking. Twin-piston calipers put the bite on the single 220mm rear disc.
The Triumph’s alloy rims and brakes come from Brembo in Italy, and the electrics, switchgear and Showa suspension are Japanese sourced, as are the tyres. A Sagem MC 1000 electronic engine management system keeps the fires stoked, and a lightweight 12kg oval section, fabricated perimeter tubular aluminium frame and single-sided swinging arm hang the lot together. Overall weight is 196kg dry.
On the road the Speed Triple is more practical than any of the superbikes it cocks a snook at. There’s also an aural bonus the noise of the three-cylinder engine slurping and burping all those litres of richly fuelled air is something that just can’t be matched by any in-line four cylinder unit. The riding position is comfortable, and pillion passengers don’t suffer the indignity of having their knees packed behind their ears. Surprisingly, the lack of a fairing didn’t prove as much of a disadvantage as we expected. I had the Triumph up to 230kph without getting blown about too badly, and found the bike capable of cruising at around 160 in comfort. Perhaps the large instrument pod deflected enough of the wind away to make a difference. Top speed? Somewhere between 250 and 260, at a guess.
Handling is very good, if slightly twitchy, thanks to the short wheelbase. A big handful of throttle results in a super-light front wheel and rapid acceleration just what you’d expect from a bike with this much attitude. It may not be as quick in a straight line as the big-horsepower superbikes, but it’s not far off, and for most people it’ll be just as much fun and a lot more comfortable. About the only thing we could really fault about the Triumph was the brightness of the idiot lights in their special panel they may shine clearly in murky England, but in our crisp light it’s difficult to make out whether they’re telling you anything or not.
With the Speed Triple Triumph has given the Japs something to think about. There are other production streetfighters around offering equivalent or even better performance, but none of them have quite as much attitude. At R84 998 it can’t exactly be called cheap, but it’s a lot more fun than any car you could buy for twice the price.