Triumphant
It’s been almost a year since my 2002 Triumph Speed Triple was totaled. I miss that bike. The Triple was a fun bike every way you could slice it. It was way more bike than I need, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? Believe me, it gives me pause to remember that the 1980 Bonneville that my father sold because it was too damn powerful peaked at about fifty horsepower. The Guzzi, though more than a hundred pounds heavier, packs about half again as many horses. Its power-to-weight ratio is about 20% higher than the Bonnie’s and I was calling that my slow bike. The ’02 Triple was playing with dynamite: at 118 horsepower, its power-to-weight ratio is three times higher than the Guzzi’s. Ouch.
It wasn’t just the power that made the Triple so seductive. The Triple’s power curve was smooth. I’d assumed that an inline-three motor would have all the worst characteristics of a V‑twin and an inline-four, that it would be a «half-measures» bike. Well, you know what they say about assumptions. The ’02 Triple’s 955cc motor was easily as torquey as the Moto Guzzi’s 1064cc motor. Compare the Triple’s claimed maximum 73.5 foot-pounds at 5100 RPM with the Guzzi’s claimed maximum 65 foot-pounds at 5200 RPM. It wasn’t just my imagination: the Triple had the low-end grunt associated with V‑wwins.
What was spooky about it was that right about the time that a V‑twin would start to say, «OK, that was fun, but you can upshift any old time now,» the Triple was saying, «come on, keep twisting that throttle… you know you want to.» I swear, the Triple was begging for more even at the threshold where the electronic limiter wouldn’t allow the RPMs to climb any higher. Mysteriously, the Daytona with the same 955i motor was allowed over 2000 higher on the tach than the Triple. Why would the same motor be given different limiters? I dunno, but I’m sure there’s some logical explanation.
No, the Triple was not capable of running six-digit RPMs like the Japanese inline-fours, but I didn’t say it was exactly the best of both worlds, just that it didn’t carry the drawbacks of each world. And really: 118 horses is enoughno, far too muchfor anyone who isn’t on a racetrack.
I didn’t mean to load the above paragraphs so heavily with numbers and stats. I hope it’s clear that I don’t miss the Triple for how its measurements read on paper. I miss it for being a bike that was a joy to ride.
Secondary but not insignificant was the attention it drew. On the Moto Guzzi, no matter where I go, guys strike up conversations about the bike. Gay guys hit on me when I’m on the Guzzi, and guys of all persuasions want to talk about the unusual motor and marque. Nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s great to have a conversation piece when passing through a strange town. By contrast, I hadn’t had the Triple more than a couple of days when I parked it in front of Cycle Gear where I was to look at tank bags (didn’t ever get oneplastic gas tanks limit one’s choices there). A woman’s voice behind me asked, «is that your Triumph?» I smiled and said yes. She was a lovely young thing. «I like your bike,» she said with the most delightful inviting lilt to her voice. She kept walking but it hit me like the proverbial load of bricks: the Moto Guzzi never got that kind of attention.
It didn’t stop there, either. This was the pattern. In fact, the woman I was dating when I had my accident joked when she arrived at the emergency room, «you had to wreck the fun bike, didn’t you?»
Of course the fact that my dad rode a Triumph helps. I know that John Bloor’s Triumph Ltd isn’t the same Triumph that made my father’s Bonneville. The Meriden factory was torn down and Bloor took a lot of cues from Japan when setting up Hinckley. Not that it’s such a bad thing. In fact, I’m quite certain that we wouldn’t want a Triumph like Harley-Davidson is today: never having gotten out from behind its history. One of the smartest things that John Bloor did may have been not producing Bonnevilles for over a decade. When the Bonneville did come back, it was (and continues to be) a nod to the past from the present rather than the model that kept its company stuck in the past.
So I’ll be replacing the Speed Triple with another Speed Triple. I’ve been planning to do this for some time. I gave some thought to trying another kind of motorcycle but I haven’t been able to generate the same kind of enthusiasm for another bike that I have for the Triple. Friday afternoon I put down a deposit on a 2008 Speed Triple. I’m told that the 2008 models shipping now are the same as the 2009 models will be. Triumph doesn’t look at the calendar when updating their models and they don’t change the model year based on design changes. Mine should be ready for me to pick it up Thursday, which will make it 52 weeks exactly from the day my old Triple was wrecked. Full circle?
I shouldn’t say much about the new Triples. It’s probably better if I wait and report on what it actually is rather than go to any length about what it ought to be or might be. I will say this: I’m surprised, looking at the statistics, at how similar the new Triples are to my old one. The differences are obvious: a 1050cc motor, dual silencers, more horsepower (as if I needed more horsepower), radially mounted Brembos instead of the old Nissin brakes, and the upgrade I’m really looking forward to: upside-down forks that keep the unsprung weight where it’s supposed to be. Even with all these changes, the 2008 model’s spec sheet says that the wheelbase, seat height, rake and even the weight of the bike are exactly the same as the 2002 model. My hope is that this means it will feel a lot like my old bike, just a bit more.
And of course, this is a totally practical decision. The Speed Triple’s around-town fuel efficiency is much better than the Guzzi’s. I figure if gas prices stay where they are, the new Triumph will have paid for itself in twenty years.
