X { Text: Ayon Sinha Photos:X Ayon Sinha & ManishX Gupta The road to owning a Triumph Speed Triple & beyond, by a xBhp member in the US of A... s many of you might know from my past articles here in the xBhp magazine that I am an avid motorcyclist and like to ride and own all { sort of motorcycles in all sorts of terrains. That has resulted in me currently owning four motorcycles, a single cylinder thumper Royal {AEnfield 500, V-twin Honda RC51 (a.k.a The Duc Hunter), Triumph Speed Triple and an inline four Suzuki Hayabusa. How did I end up like this and which one is my favorite? To find out read on. Since I’m addicted to motorcycling and motorcycles, I was looking to see what else is out there that I should experience owning and riding. Something that would be considerably different from what I owned presently or had owned previously. My first motorcycle was a Kawasaki KB125 back in 1997 which my Dad had paid for and I rode for a few months before moving to the US for higher education. In 2003, I bought my first bike in the US. It was a used 1998 Suzuki Katana 750. It was a good one to start with but I quickly outgrew it and since then bought, rode and sold a 1995 Honda CBR 900RR and a big fat cruiser the Kawasaki Vulcan 1500 (see article in xBHP issue of June-July 2011). With a 1000cc V-twin torque monster and a straight line powerhouse 1300cc I-4 Hayabusa already in, I wanted to experience something drastically different in ride and looks. So after looking around a lot, I decided I wanted a naked, lightweight and upright bike that would be good for city street riding. The list quickly came down to a few: Aprilia Tuono, Ducati Monster, MV Agusta Brutale and Triumph Speed Triple. Even among these four base models there are an almost infinite combinations of year, engine size, suspension etc to choose from. So I decided that a single-sided swingarm will completely set it apart from everything that I’ve owned. Out went the Tuono, and most Ducati Monsters including the 696. Among the Monsters, the 796 was mostly out of stock from the dealers and the price of a slightly used one would get me a slightly used Monster 1100S. So far you must’ve noticed that I have a penchant for used motorcycles. It is because most motorcyle owners in the US use them sparingly and not as their primary mode of transport. This leads them to having very few miles on them and a steep depreciation from new prices. You can easily bag a few years old, almost new looking bike with super low miles for half the price of a new one. For example, in 2009, I paid $5000 (appx. INR 2.5 lacs) for the 2000 Hayabusa with 11,500 miles on it, with no history of accidents. Having said that, I had to eliminate the MV Agusta Brutale on a few criteria: It is not easily available in the used market in good condition especially in recent year models and it has an abysmal gas mileage. Extra Braking Horse Power | Vol. 2 | Issue 3 | 109 The only difference I felt was that in this ride, I was not afraid of crashing into a stray dog, cow, bicycle, rickshaw or oncoming truck and dying. In general, it was quite safe. On Interstate-5, there were some stretches of dry roads and good visibility when I decided to open up the Surprisingly, my butt didn’t hurt and neither did my wrists, arms or shoulders. That says something about the riding throttle a bit. With a tiny blip of the throttle in a split sec- posture and the seat padding. The ride height is about an inch higher than the Busa and the RC51. The seat padding ond I could get from 75mph to “very un-documentable is thinner than the Busa but definitely thicker than the plank of the RC. The handlebars are much taller than both the speeds” without any struggle. Maintaining such high Busa and the RC51 even when I have Heli bar risers on both of them. This combination makes the ride very comfort- speeds on public roads just isn’t a responsible act, so able with no pressure on the wrists. If you want to get into a race tuck position you can do that very comfortably with I backed off. On my way, I witnessed a car in a ditch, a a very nice folded elbow for the handlebar push. The optional visor kit that it came installed with did an excellent job big-rig stuck on the side of a hill and a 4-car pile-up. The and I did not feel any wind buffeting at those freeway speeds. 4-car pile-up happened right in front of me and when I noticed it I had a split second to react traveling at 75 Next morning was sunny and beautiful. I washed and dried this babe of a motorcycle and started reflecting on the mph. The front brakes with dual 320mm discs with those long freeway ride. Coming to think of it, I realized that the bike was so light, stable and traffic friendly that I almost radial mount Brembo 4-piston calipers made that stop forgot that I was riding it. It had felt like a part of my body which obeyed every command I thought in my head. Hear- safe and easy. Past all that and a total of 9 hrs. of riding ing the Arrow exhaust on this morning was like hearing your favorite musical instrument being played by a maestro. later, I reached home with a beautiful red Speed Triple. I did realize though that this bike had the suspension set up for the track and it was a bit too hard for the street. It would not go over bumpy roads without letting me know about them a bit too well. It was time for a quick suspen- sion adjustment. It does come with fully adjustable Showa inverted front shocks and rear suspension and a screw In the end, only 2 contenders remained: The 2009+ Ducati Monster 1100S vs driver and a wrench is all it takes to adjust the preload, rebound and compression of the shocks. the 2008+ Triumph Speed Triple 1050. The used prices in excellent condition with less than 3000 miles (4800 Kms.) on both of these were around $8000- 9000 + taxes (appx. INR 4-4.5 lacs). And the hunt began. After a lot of look- ing, test rides and deliberation, I came to the conclusion that the Ducati was expensive to maintain ($500-1500 every 7500 miles) and hard to sell in the used market. The Monster is also a V-twin and felt a lot like he RC51 in terms of the low-end torque. The Speed Triple, with its 3 cyl engine felt like nothing I had ridden before. Add to that the dual bug-eyed headlights with an eye- brow like fly-screen, single sided swing-arm, the sound of an aftermarket Ar- row exhaust and you just fall in love head-over-heels. After hours and hours of searching the internet each day, I came across a Press Demo 2011 Speed Triple with 2600 miles on the odometer, dual Ar- row carbon fiber titanium finish slip-on exhausts, the optional fly-screen, rear seat cowl, belly pan kit and visor kit (appx. $2500 worth of upgrades) at a Triumph dealer near Los Angeles, 400 miles (640 Kms) from my home, for an out-the-door price about $5000 less than a brand new one with all those upgrades. I jumped on it and after a quick chat with the sales guy, the deal was done. I bought the plane ticket for an hour long flight to the dealer, ready to ride back the 400 miles home. It turns out that on that very day, it was supposed to rain heavily all day, so I had packed my rain gear along with the regular stuff. By the time I was ready to head out of the dealership, it was almost noon and it had just started raining. I had about 5 hours of daylight remaining and I wanted to cover as much as possible before the Sun said adios. Within the first hour, my “waterproof” gloves and my Gore-Tex water-proof military boots leaked and soaked me to the bone. Riding in the rain at 70-85 mph (112-136 Kmph) with wet gloves and socks in 10-deg C weather with a fogging visor is a reasonable adventure. I was quite concerned about per- manent damage to my fingers and digits but figured that frost-bite happens at sub-zero temperatures. But my fingers were numb nevertheless. A few miles after crossing the LA area, I hit a major traffic backup. It was at least 10 miles (16 kms) long with bumper-to-bumper traffic on Interstate 5. I had to lane-split (its legal in California for motorcycles to go between lanes) with Now I was ready to take it for its maiden ride in the twisties. The Triple comes factory installed with the Michelin Racetec my frozen fingers and rain in my eyes for at least 45 mins to an hour while 120/70R17 and 190/55R17. These tires are on the sportier side of street tires. Their grooves do not inspire enough con- concerned that someone might side-swipe me and I crash and scratch my fidence on wet roads that I can get into extreme lean angles.