Triumph Speed - A City Tool

The Triple and I have covered 2500 miles now and most of that has been commuting through London.

Last year I was riding Kawasaki’s ZX-6R and the constant gear changing, braking and acceleration was taking its toll. After 5000 miles the Kwak was feeling loose, rough and generally hard to ride smoothly.

Riding to work this morning I was starting to feel sorry for the Triple’s hard future ahead, but I’ve realised that actually I’m hardly changing gear at all. V-twins are known for being lumpy around town and inline fours for having to work them hard. Because of the torque-y but smooth nature of the Triumph's triple engine you can ride around town smoothly using very few gears.

Because of its wide bars the bikes also pretty flickable and on the move you don’t notice its 215kg kerb weight at all. One thing that holds it back is the mirrors, because wide bars and wider mirrors make small gaps tricky to get through. I will keep the bars but the mirrors have to go. Triumph make some black street fighter type replacements so I’ve order some of those.

So far I’m getting about 130 miles out of a tank and its £17 to fill up at the mo so that’s fairly respectable for  city riding.

By Andy Stevens