It was a bleak Thursday afternoon and I was at the Triumph factory collecting the 2011 Speed Triple for my long term test.
‘Round the back’ of Triumph's Hinckley base is the press fleet workshop and in there can be found the calm and collected Paul Wallace. Paul is the Triumph technician responsible for keeping all the UK press bikes in top order. I walked through the shutter door and saw the bike all ready to go, Paul greeted me by saying, "You’ll like this one, its amazing. Probably the best Triumph I've ever ridden. It’s like one of those," pointing across the chilly workshop to the dimly lit Street Triple, "But with a much bigger engine."
The 675-engined Street Triple is well regarded as a light and nippy street bike with a reputation of being a little mental - when the need arises. Up to this point the old Speed Triple has been known for being calmer, more collected and composed, basically a manageable Street Triple with a bigger engine. I was really keen to see just how much had be changed on the new bike.
It’s been 4 weeks now and I’ve clocked up 1800 miles. I was a little worried that the engine would disappoint as Triumph have brought across the 2010 Speed Triple engine to the new bike. It’s not a bad engine but it’s not a new engine. To be completely honest as soon as you ride the new bike its obvious that Triumph have worked on the old engine. As a result things are more urgent, snappy with noticeably more torque. It feels like it’s beefed up, like it’s spent some considerable time in the gym, they have made it feel like a new engine.
Last year I had the 2010 model as a long term bike and having ridden 18,000 miles on the thing, my body had adjusted to every part characteristic. In the end it fitted like a well worn leather glove and so I was perfectly placed to play a good old game of spot the difference when hopping on to the new one.
In short - the new Speed Triple is stumpier, wider, taller, uglier, angrier, faster, louder - it’s clearly been on the protein shakes. Another noticeable change is that it finally tips into corners. The 2010 model had to have its front end dragged into a bend, the new one tips in headstrong, not to the same degree as perhaps the knife edge CB1000R, but it’s a definite step in the right direction. Triumph have shifted a lot of the weight placement across the bike to the front. The battery for example, is about 1cm from the head stock at the front of the petrol tank.
On the move everything feels sharper, more focused. The suspension is harder, it turns better and the pegs are higher adopting a race-ish orientated positioning. In terms of the power delivery it is more aggressive, faster low down and with that extra grunt it’s even more wheelie happy than before.
Gas it to the stop in first and second gear from stationary and the front will shoot for the sky, back it off a tad (to keep the front down) and feed in the power and it will literally rip your arms off, shortly followed by a flashing blue light in your face with the gear indicator shouting “change gear”. Change up one and it’s the same all over again all the way up to 135mph. To accompany this flurry of power is that gorgeous triple exhaust note brapping out through the twin arrow exhaust.
As with most new things there are some issues that need attending to. In first gear I’m using a lot of clutch to iron out some V twin-esq lumpiness. Also the power is more aggressive and snappy, a tad on-off for my liking specifically in low gears. Also the new front focussed rider position has made a big difference to the handling but the front feels a bit high up. I’m going to take it to P&H Motorcycles in Crawley get it run on a dyno. They are also one of the few places in the UK that have fully qualified Öhlins suspension engineers so they can set the bike up to my ideal specification, hopefully this will iron out those issues.
The summer is nearly here and we have a long road ahead of us, I cant wait to see how it all pans out.
Last weekend we took both the models down to the south coast for a spot of breakfast. It seems that between us the camp is really divided on the looks of the two bikes. Which do you prefer?
Thanks to Nathan at Blzeebub Motorsport Photography for snapping on a wet and windy Sunday morning.
