The coolest bike on the road: Triumph Speed Triple 1200 RR review
They say that no greater love hath a man than he lays down his life for his friends.
Nope. No greater love hath a man than he goes out testing a bike for this column when it’s so cold that birds are falling from the trees with baffled expressions frozen on their little faces.
I just hope you lot ap-ap-appreciate it.
Even worse, I’d forgotten Dr Furtwangler’s Law of Motorcycle Thermodynamics:
If you think you’re going to be warm, you’ll be cool.
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If you think you’re going to be cool, you’ll be freezing.
If you think you’re going to be freezing, stay at home.
As a result, I’d not only ridden to the dealers rather than driven there in my nice warm car, but left my thermals tucked up safely in the wardrobe at home. Sob.
As a result, I found myself hurtling around the roads of a wintry Northern Ireland on the Speed Triple RR with two exquisitely counterpointed emotions – astonishment at the power on tap and fear that at any moment my frozen extremities were going to start falling off and tinkling down the road behind like that metal chap in Terminator 2 when he gets dunked in molten steel.
Gorgeous - Especially in that lustrous red colour schemeFunnily enough, the RR looks like it’s been poured out of the same stuff – sleek and sinuous, with stylish half-fairings compared to the supernaked Speed Triple 1200 RS version, it looks fast even sitting still. As opposed to my ancient Royal Enfield, which looks like it’s sitting still even when it’s moving.
Still, it got me from India back to Belfast for my first great bike adventure in 1998 for the book Way to Go, so I can hardly complain.
Although the RR is a full-on flying machine and the bars are actually lower than on the RS, the riding position is sporty but surprisingly user-friendly, pitching you forward, but not aggressively, so that your pinkies rest on the bars reasonably lightly even at low speed.
Compared to the bum up, head down position on the Yamaha R1, the RR is as comfortable as a sofa, albeit a supersonic one.
COMFY - For a full-on sports bike, the riding position is surprisingly user-friendlyEven better, the tank’s beautifully shaped to let you grip it lightly with your knees, allowing you to unweight the bars for exquisitely precise and instinctive handling, particularly since the Metzelers on the RS have been replaced with Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SPs on the RR.
As I said above, it looks fast even sitting still, and the engine mirrors that. Even at idle, its angry snarl tells you it wants to get going.
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And go it does. Even in Road mode, with 178bhp propelling only 199kg of bike, the acceleration made me laugh out loud in my helmet. Supersonic is the word, and also seamless thanks to a slick six-speed gearbox and a brilliant quickshifter which is as good as the ones on the Ducati Panigale V4 and Diavel, if not better.
Supersonic - Acceleration is astonishing, even in Road modeEven more astonishingly, it’s just as slick in first and second gear, which is unheard of in quickshifter world.
The RS I rode last year was twitchy and track-focused, with such firm suspension that all my fillings fell out and I had to ride it to the dentist, but the suspension on the RR is just nicely firm. Goldilocks would like it.
The linked Brembos, meanwhile, make braking as brutally effective as acceleration.
Right, time to toggle a button on the left bar to delve into the 4,867 on-screen menus and change from Road to Sport mode.
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Now, either I’m an idiot (don’t answer that), or this was more complex than it needed to be, for every time I selected Sport and rode off, the bike went into an electronic huff and reverted to Road.
After much cursing and using the standard bloke method of pressing every button in sight until something happens, I finally noticed a button on the left marked M. You know, as in Mode…
So it’s official – I am an idiot.
Neat - The tidy dash with the bike in Road mode, as in the icon bottom centreAnyway, the suspension in Sport is a bit firmer than Road, and the acceleration even more astonishing than in Road, and after half an hour of overtaking assorted Porsches and BMWs with a song in my heart and a smile on my face, I finally realised that all my extremities had fallen off in the cold, and rode sadly back to the dealers.
Clinical - It being a Triumph, handling is beautifully precise and instinctiveThen rode home thanking Biggles’ aunt and the Seven Sainted Sisters of Constantinople that my ancient BMW R850 R has heated grips.
I finally thawed out three days later, about teatime. Thanks for asking.
* Bike supplied by Phillip McCallen’s, phillipmccallen.com.
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