cheekygrin
.060 Over
First impressions:
Picking it up at the dealer on Saturday:
1. Looks. It looks fantastic in the flesh. The leather tank cover I have, with the frankly useless pocket bit (only space for a mobile/small sat nav basically) also seems to work and look good too..
The rear mudguard is just stupidly big though, I dont like it, and I dont like the lights. The front end has more chrome than a Harley driving down Vegas whilst wearing liberace's toupe and Elvis' jumpsuit too, which I am not overly fond of.. once sat on the bike, the front end just mostly looks like chrome..
Less is more, ok Triumph? I know your target market was Germany (where they cannot get enough of these bikes - clearly they recognise good engineering!) and the USA but still... This is just a touch too gaudy (and a royal pain in the scrotum too to keep clean) for my tastes, or anyone not wearing reflective sunglasses. We are not all magpies beholden to shiny things..! Which is why I got the matte version, try to tone the **** thing down.
2. The seating position: Comfortable, but its a trifle wide. Even for my fairly muscular arse, it encourages you to scoot back just a touch (this may be my ergonomics) when up to speed, as this is more comfortable. My feet are flat on the floor, if I scoot forward slightly.
The controls: I find the bars just slightly too wide, and my right hand wrist and arm are very slightly uncomfortable - If the bars were about 2-3cm further back, or closer together, this would be much more comfortable. The switches are mostly good. The horn is not easy to get to - which you NEED in London, even a blip of the throttle (and a shake of the bike... love that) from the hand of god on the right is not sufficient - people do not give a toss in London if they are cutting you up or driving like dicks - you need easy access to a horn. And your front main beam. Lights are not as bad as I was expecting - they are twice as good as my street triple's lights. I reckon with main beam on, you might make reasonable progress in black country lanes. So - controls = fairly poorly designed, compared with scooters easy glove friendly designs.
The dials - the computer on the speedo is very easy to use, which is lovely. The clocks feel like cheapy plastic (which is fine as it is lighter weight). The distance left trip indicator on the rev clock is very welcome, but as I found - fairly inaccurate, although this may improve with more distance and the engine loosening up.
2. Switching on: HELLOOOOOO..... if this is the first time on a rocket 3 of any description, it is rather daunting. This is very very heavy. It is so fat, it generates its own gravitational field and sucks others in.. little moons spinning about you... the throttle is indeed called "the hand of god" for good reason.. (if you pin it too much, you may get a ohgodohgodohgod before you stack it and die horribly..) The sound is... better than you imagine. It settles down into a low idle speed of a loud tickover triple mechanical cacophany.. Revving it sounds nice too - you clearly feel like you are in the middle of a sonic shockwave - the exhausts booming on the run over of the sound behind, and the engine roaring ahead of you. This must be what flying a spitfire was like.. supercharged supermarine engine screaming away.. Now where is my cannon!
3. Take off: The bike is smooth, although it does not sound it. The suspension is fairly well damped, giving the illusion of smoothness in London, which is really not bloody smooth at all. Given the damping of the stock units, this Roadster would manage the moon easily, which would be like a holiday by comparison (at least there would be much less potholes, ruts, manhole covers etc. etc.). The steering lock is fairly poor, and turning the bike at low speeds requires a bit of effort. I liken this to turning a supertanker with a saturn V rocket engine up its arse. Its hardly like my street triple. There is no comparable dna in there for other non cruiser bikes.
Gear change - is.. fairly vague compared to every other bike I have been on. Bear in mind I have had an 8 month hiatus, being spoiled by a rather fast, mind bendingly nimble Honda Scooter, which actually has on board luggage space (the rocket has none, despite being twice as big) with rain protection, and a civilized seating position, and no fannying about faffing with gears, clutch etc. Once up beyond 2nd gear (I tried hard to do this, but there was no need to in London. Talk about overkill in a city!) it is fairly solid to shift. 1st, neutral and 2nd are the grey area of shifting though ny comparison.
There is a solid CLUNK occasionally with the shaft drive, but I dont give a monkeys about this - I would rather shaft than the pointless hassle of an 18th century chain drive.. things have moved on mechanically in 250 years, thankfully!
Stoppers - brakes are.... OK. The rear is actually quite good. My front brakes are already squealing like a socialist (in any situation lol!). When up to speed they are a bit woolly - although you can forgive it for trying to stop a lead weight..
Clutch is quite good. The levers are solid lumps of aluminium - just huge things, well milled, but overly large.
POWER: Yes. Straight line, lovely. Cornering? No thanks.. Not yet. Roads were wet the whole weekend and the bike is covered in road grit and dried rain and road juice. It does NOT look good, the bike is better served on dry days, in a warm country.
Having said that, the heat management is fairly poor. Legs of my pillion were getting hot, and I was too..
Traffic - other than the pleasant thing of being able to power past anything (which my scooter also does but less convincingly obviously) it is a ***** and a nightmare.
In fact, I would go so far as to say, point to point, my scooter is far quicker, far comfier, and far more useful and sensible. This just confirms my theory.
Day to day, scooter wins hands down, convincingly with hugely significant clear water between the two. This thing is a PIG in traffic. Not comfortable, hot and unwieldy.
The other thing - the fuel consumption is shocking, eye poppingly appalling. I have a chipped BMW 123D (start stop in traffic) which averages about 55mpg (or 40mpg at 100mph), has 267bhp from a 2litre diesel twin turbo engine, and can out pull a porsche 911 between 100-150mph due to the ridiculous torque.. (a new S porsche too). My scooter gets at least 75mpg if I am caning it (which is easy to do, unlike the roadster) so when I discovered I was getting mid twenties on the roadster (which was like my 480bhp Nissan 200SX) then you can forgive me if I am a lot less than impressed.
But which vehicle had a lot of admiring glances from people in Trafalger Square? Which one had tourists taking pictures of everywhere in London? Which one had every single biker nodding at me (its been a long time since a biker has nodded - even the street triple barely warranted a nod.. even though the litre bikes would routinely get beaten at the GP that is the London Traffic Light launch system... lol)
Which one would be best for posing on? Or occasional jaunts into the countryside? Or for midnight runs through the city when the muppets in their slow boxes have stopped jamming the roads?
Clearly, as another highlander once said.. "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE"..
Picking it up at the dealer on Saturday:
1. Looks. It looks fantastic in the flesh. The leather tank cover I have, with the frankly useless pocket bit (only space for a mobile/small sat nav basically) also seems to work and look good too..
The rear mudguard is just stupidly big though, I dont like it, and I dont like the lights. The front end has more chrome than a Harley driving down Vegas whilst wearing liberace's toupe and Elvis' jumpsuit too, which I am not overly fond of.. once sat on the bike, the front end just mostly looks like chrome..
Less is more, ok Triumph? I know your target market was Germany (where they cannot get enough of these bikes - clearly they recognise good engineering!) and the USA but still... This is just a touch too gaudy (and a royal pain in the scrotum too to keep clean) for my tastes, or anyone not wearing reflective sunglasses. We are not all magpies beholden to shiny things..! Which is why I got the matte version, try to tone the **** thing down.
2. The seating position: Comfortable, but its a trifle wide. Even for my fairly muscular arse, it encourages you to scoot back just a touch (this may be my ergonomics) when up to speed, as this is more comfortable. My feet are flat on the floor, if I scoot forward slightly.
The controls: I find the bars just slightly too wide, and my right hand wrist and arm are very slightly uncomfortable - If the bars were about 2-3cm further back, or closer together, this would be much more comfortable. The switches are mostly good. The horn is not easy to get to - which you NEED in London, even a blip of the throttle (and a shake of the bike... love that) from the hand of god on the right is not sufficient - people do not give a toss in London if they are cutting you up or driving like dicks - you need easy access to a horn. And your front main beam. Lights are not as bad as I was expecting - they are twice as good as my street triple's lights. I reckon with main beam on, you might make reasonable progress in black country lanes. So - controls = fairly poorly designed, compared with scooters easy glove friendly designs.
The dials - the computer on the speedo is very easy to use, which is lovely. The clocks feel like cheapy plastic (which is fine as it is lighter weight). The distance left trip indicator on the rev clock is very welcome, but as I found - fairly inaccurate, although this may improve with more distance and the engine loosening up.
2. Switching on: HELLOOOOOO..... if this is the first time on a rocket 3 of any description, it is rather daunting. This is very very heavy. It is so fat, it generates its own gravitational field and sucks others in.. little moons spinning about you... the throttle is indeed called "the hand of god" for good reason.. (if you pin it too much, you may get a ohgodohgodohgod before you stack it and die horribly..) The sound is... better than you imagine. It settles down into a low idle speed of a loud tickover triple mechanical cacophany.. Revving it sounds nice too - you clearly feel like you are in the middle of a sonic shockwave - the exhausts booming on the run over of the sound behind, and the engine roaring ahead of you. This must be what flying a spitfire was like.. supercharged supermarine engine screaming away.. Now where is my cannon!
3. Take off: The bike is smooth, although it does not sound it. The suspension is fairly well damped, giving the illusion of smoothness in London, which is really not bloody smooth at all. Given the damping of the stock units, this Roadster would manage the moon easily, which would be like a holiday by comparison (at least there would be much less potholes, ruts, manhole covers etc. etc.). The steering lock is fairly poor, and turning the bike at low speeds requires a bit of effort. I liken this to turning a supertanker with a saturn V rocket engine up its arse. Its hardly like my street triple. There is no comparable dna in there for other non cruiser bikes.
Gear change - is.. fairly vague compared to every other bike I have been on. Bear in mind I have had an 8 month hiatus, being spoiled by a rather fast, mind bendingly nimble Honda Scooter, which actually has on board luggage space (the rocket has none, despite being twice as big) with rain protection, and a civilized seating position, and no fannying about faffing with gears, clutch etc. Once up beyond 2nd gear (I tried hard to do this, but there was no need to in London. Talk about overkill in a city!) it is fairly solid to shift. 1st, neutral and 2nd are the grey area of shifting though ny comparison.
There is a solid CLUNK occasionally with the shaft drive, but I dont give a monkeys about this - I would rather shaft than the pointless hassle of an 18th century chain drive.. things have moved on mechanically in 250 years, thankfully!
Stoppers - brakes are.... OK. The rear is actually quite good. My front brakes are already squealing like a socialist (in any situation lol!). When up to speed they are a bit woolly - although you can forgive it for trying to stop a lead weight..
Clutch is quite good. The levers are solid lumps of aluminium - just huge things, well milled, but overly large.
POWER: Yes. Straight line, lovely. Cornering? No thanks.. Not yet. Roads were wet the whole weekend and the bike is covered in road grit and dried rain and road juice. It does NOT look good, the bike is better served on dry days, in a warm country.
Having said that, the heat management is fairly poor. Legs of my pillion were getting hot, and I was too..
Traffic - other than the pleasant thing of being able to power past anything (which my scooter also does but less convincingly obviously) it is a ***** and a nightmare.
In fact, I would go so far as to say, point to point, my scooter is far quicker, far comfier, and far more useful and sensible. This just confirms my theory.
Day to day, scooter wins hands down, convincingly with hugely significant clear water between the two. This thing is a PIG in traffic. Not comfortable, hot and unwieldy.
The other thing - the fuel consumption is shocking, eye poppingly appalling. I have a chipped BMW 123D (start stop in traffic) which averages about 55mpg (or 40mpg at 100mph), has 267bhp from a 2litre diesel twin turbo engine, and can out pull a porsche 911 between 100-150mph due to the ridiculous torque.. (a new S porsche too). My scooter gets at least 75mpg if I am caning it (which is easy to do, unlike the roadster) so when I discovered I was getting mid twenties on the roadster (which was like my 480bhp Nissan 200SX) then you can forgive me if I am a lot less than impressed.
But which vehicle had a lot of admiring glances from people in Trafalger Square? Which one had tourists taking pictures of everywhere in London? Which one had every single biker nodding at me (its been a long time since a biker has nodded - even the street triple barely warranted a nod.. even though the litre bikes would routinely get beaten at the GP that is the London Traffic Light launch system... lol)
Which one would be best for posing on? Or occasional jaunts into the countryside? Or for midnight runs through the city when the muppets in their slow boxes have stopped jamming the roads?
Clearly, as another highlander once said.. "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE"..
