An off-road noob takes on the TAE: Chaos ensues
Riding a Tiger 1200 at the Triumph Adventure Experience pushed me to (and a little beyond) my riding limits.
* Brilliant facilities
* Stunning trails
* And that rock!
* And that mud!
As the bike slides towards the bank on the left, I know I’m in trouble. I've gone over the first underwater bump on this Triumph Tiger 1200 Rally Pro far too quickly, unsettled the bike, and hit the second one at a dodgy angle. I had been warned about both, but apparently not sufficiently heeded the warning.
The inevitable happens next - the front wheel bumps into the bank on this submerged bit of trail with the bike slightly leant over, I'm unable to hold the thing up, and this poor Tiger (and its rider) go for a swim. In front of several instructors and a group of journalists. Ah.
Thankfully, the bike survives the ordeal without ingesting litres of muddy water, as do I, with the only injury being severely wounded pride. Rewind a few hours to the beginning of the day, and the tone is quickly set for what'll be a seriously chunky ride that puts the 'adventure' in 'adventure bike'. It's a media day on the Triumph Adventure Experience (TAE), which will be broadly similar to the Tiger Experience Day a punter might book, but with some content creation stops and a quicker pace owing to the generally more experienced nature of the group. Myself certainly not contributing to that description.
After a short ride from the TAE to the centre's skills area, we're thrown right in the deep end, executing tight turns and bombing down a deep, winding rut that pings the bike from left to right. On the first try, it's terrifying. "I can't do that again," I tell myself, before being directed back down there on the second lap. This time, I give it more gas, relax my death grip on the bars, and the Tiger just laps it all up.
It doesn't take long for a bike to get dropped, and a little later, while trying to turn the heavy tiger around on an uneven surface, I join the party. Thank god for crash bars, which save the bike once more about 10 minutes later when the back end slips out on a horribly boggy corner, necessitating a thankfully painless 'tactical dismount'. In this part of the skills area, we get our first taste of a water crossing, which passes without incident.
We're back on the roads for a longer stint, enjoying the Tiger 1200's gutsy T-plane triple and decent wind protection. heading out to pick up a series of public byways featuring various levels of chunk. It doesn't take long for the going to get seriously rough, with ever longer, choppier water crossings. This leads me to the unintended swim mentioned at the start of this piece.
Thankfully, there's little time to dwell on my embarrassment, or the amount of muddy water now sloshing around my boots, as we need to press on. Next up is probably the hardest feature of all - a steep, rocky downhill slope with deep ruts laced across at jaunty angles. Following the directions of the instructor standing by the trail is key - get the line choice wrong, and it's not going to be fun.
Bum shifted back in the seat, the Tiger's long travel suspension soaks up all the gnar, and I'm down without issue. But my god, do you feel the weight of this thing on a section like that, and the bike’s sense of top-heaviness.
We have a 45-minute section of road riding, followed by some still choppy but far less arduous trails, and thankfully, no more deep water sections. Here, the day transitions from being 'type 2 fun' to type 1. These tamer trails allow the speeds to rise a touch, exploiting the grunt of that burly triple. I'm also now confident enough on the bike to loosen my grip on the bars further, letting the bike writhe around but with a decent sense of control. The Rally mode (rather than Rally Pro) still keeps a lower level of traction control turned on, which stops things from getting too wayward without sapping too much power.
A long road ride back to base gives a chance for the adrenaline to subside. This is replaced with a sense of satisfaction that I've pushed myself beyond what I thought I could manage on a motorbike. Yes, there were times when I would have rather been on a little trail bike that weighs next to nothing, but it's remarkable what the Tiger 1200 can do considering its size and weight while being utterly refined on the road sections linking the muddy bits. If you're going on a big, multi-day epic with some unpaved action, it'd be an incredible tool for the job.
Or if you'd rather use someone else's bike and get some expert tuition, the Triumph Adventure Experience is well worth a look. The customer version of our day costs a very reasonable £350, and there are also skills courses should you want to get more comfortable before heading out to the wilds of Wales. Just make sure you take it easy on those water crossings.
You can find out more about the TAE on the official website.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!