Serious Speed Fighting

Triumph speed triple 1200 rs

- Alan Cathcart

Triumph Motorcycles owner John Bloor, and son Nick who heads the company these days, are known for being discreet let-the-product-speak-for-itself industrialists, who largely disdain the kind of marketing hype that some of their marketplace rivals so eagerly embrace. But still, you’d have thought that even in the midst of all 2020’s pandemic-posed problems, they’d have wanted to celebrate the fact that the motorcycle which back in the mists of time - well, 1994, actually – all but dead-heated with Ducati’s M900 Monster in inventing the stripped-out sportbike streetfighter sector, had smashed through the 100,000 sales barrier. Yes, folks – that’s how many Triumph Speed Triples have been built in the past quarter century-plus of sweeping streets and terrorising traffic-lights, while making such a key contribution to Triumph’s bottom line in doing so.

But despite a substantial makeover in 2016, the Speed Triple has since been seemingly sidelined by the ongoing power struggle (literally!) between its various rivals, with 200 bhp-plus outputs - first from Kawasaki via its supercharged H2, then MV Agusta and now Ducati seemingly the entry pass to being counted as a contender capable of serious streetfighting. “We knew we had to lift our game, but we weren’t prepared to do so at the expense of real world rideability on the public highway,” says Triumph’s Chief Engineer, Stuart Wood. “So we focused on providing significantly more power while substantially reducing weight, in order to provide much greater all-round performance than before via a much improved power to weight ratio, from a bike which the widest possible range of riders will continue to feel comfortable to be on.”