Triumph Trophy 1200 review: UK roads

After a mere 250 miles there was a general feeling amongst the assembled scribes that Triumph have pitched the new Trophy’s manners and behaviour in just about the right parameters.

After another 400 miles, their (and my) opinion hasn’t shifted.

We rode back from St Andrews via Edinburgh and then SW through Penicuik to Moffat. If you don’t know this road – the A708 -  there are very few nasty surprises. Visibility ahead is excellent allowing you to use the full width of both sides of the road in many places and thanks to a surface dressing of granite chippings, there’s a massive amount of grip on offer, even in the wet. Which was just as well. 

It was wet.

Along this stretch of asphalt biking heaven the Trophy was really impressive. On less than half a tank of fuel the tendency to sit up and run wide on the brakes was less pronounced than we’d experienced the day before. 26 litres is a lot of gas and a lot of weight so it’s probably not surprising that it can affect the bike’s behaviour. The 708 is the sort of wide open, twisty, undulating and flowing piece of road – especially in the rain - that makes you use mid-range, high gears and big throttle openings to keep your momentum up, to keep things smooth.

It was here the Trophy found its rhythm, or rather, I found the Trophy’s rhythm. With the guttural moan of the three throttle bodies as the soundtrack (I’d long since turned off the tinny audio system) and a really predictable, grip-sniffing wave of torque to ride, the road to Moffat was something of a revelation after the hideous rush hour traffic around Edinburgh.

Not many of our group had nice things to say about the Pirelli Angels fitted as standard to the test Trophys. I liked them, though. The profile (that’s a 190 on the back) suits the bike and the way it rolls from upright to the chosen angle of bank is smooth, progressive and always consistent. High speed stability is good on every plane of the tyre, be it just off the crown or towards the braver edges of the chicken strips. At the end of the day any tyre is only as good as the surface it’s riding on and I was surprised by how much grip was on offer on the glistening-wet A708. Not sure I’d like to have gone much faster even if I was on a full-on sports bike. Other recommended tyre options are the Metzeler Roadtec Z8s and Dunlop Sportmax Roadsmart 2s.

Catchy names, I’m sure you’ll agree.

With the standard seat position (it will adjust 20mm upwards for taller riders and there’s an optional-extra 40mm lower seat for shorter people) the footrests feel high. You’re either going to have to be brave or crashing to deck them out regularly. There’s almost too much ground clearance. Even for a short haus like me, getting your feet flat on the floor isn’t a problem. The bike is narrow where you need it to be when it comes to paddling around at walking pace.

The cast-alloy handlebars are massive and only need light counter-steering pressure to make the Trophy change direction really quickly at high speed. Being 301kgs you don’t so much hurl it into a bend as progressively load it up and into a corner but once you adapt to its ways, it’s a very quick and comfortable way to tramp on. Put it this way, if your mates all ride sports bikes and you go for a long blast out, if you know what’s what, they’re not going to leave you behind on your Trophy. It is deceptively quick and more than a little tasty through the twisty stuff.

You’d never have thought it, would you?

That barn-door fairing is half the problem, there. The first time you clap eyes on its bug-eyed face, the Trophy look absolutely massive. You make an assumption that it’s going to feel like riding a wildebeest on a water bed just because it looks unwieldy..

It’s not.

The weight, in general, feels low-down and the WP suspension (why did they change their name from White Power I wonder?) is surprisingly stiff – even on ‘comfort’ setting. Maybe it’s not stiffness, though. I think it’s a question of being spoiled by a never-ending stream of adventure bikes with their cosseting long-travel suspension.

It rides small bumps really well, isolating the rider from the sorts of ripply imperfections thrown up by stuff like water-filled cats’ eyes. Bigger bumps – in the realms of longer travel, high speed damping territory - aren’t shrugged off quite so capably. If this wasn’t Triumph Electronic Suspension and it was, instead, a fully adjustable race shock, you’d definitely be wanting to soften off the high speed compression damping a tad. But like I said, maybe we’ve all been spoiled by adventure bike feather-bed ride qualities.

As it is, TES allows three stages of rear shock damping – sport, normal and comfort and three stages of spring preload – solo, solo + luggage and 2-up.

TES is complicated to operate if your brain is as small and as damaged as mine. Personally, I’m not sure all the time, trouble and expense is worth it when a simplified set of external adjusters (like on the non-SE spec Trophy) would be far simpler and cheaper and offer much more than just three stages of spring pre-load and three damper settings. Market forces are illogical sometimes.