I bought my 2009 R3T new from Mark McCaffrey, then owner of Rocket Motorcycles in San Diego, in 2009.
I was moving from a Kawasaki Nomad and wanted a “real” motorcycle that not everyone had, not a big plastic road sofa like the Goldwing. I really wasn’t interested in a big Harley, either, as those were everywhere.
After quite a bit of research, I narrowed my choices to either the Honda Rune or Valkyrie, or the big Triumph. I chose the Touring model as I do a lot of long distance riding and thought the R3T would be better suited for that than the Classic.
The crew at Rocket Motorcycles received the bike in a crate from England, put it together over a couple of days and displayed it on the showroom floor until I picked it up.
I’m coming up on 10 years and 55,000 miles on this big, fat girl and I still love it. I had some electrical issues the first year or so and they were covered by Triumph. No mechanical issues since. I’ve ridden this bike all over the USA, Canada and Mexico and it’s still a pleasure to ride down the street. I’d trust it to take me anywhere and it still gets looks and comments from other riders.
I’ve done a few mods to make the bike my own, such as (several) seats, a backrest, windscreens, bars, Highway pegs and grips. I tried other chrome and exhausts but ended up with the stock set-up. I even added the de-restrictor...but took the unit off after bringing the front end up too many times!
There’s no bike quite like the Rocket III...as you know if you’ve seen or ridden one.
