As much as I like my Fireblade there comes a time where you want something easier to live with so with that in mind I have been looking at other styles of bike. After a while I've narrowed it down to the Honda CB650r or the Triumph Trident 660. I love the look of this style of bike, always have since I first had a ride on a Suzuki bandit 600 back in the late 1990s and my very first bike was a Yamaha RD50 with a single round headlight.
I took a test ride on the Triumph and loved it. I've always wanted to own a Triumph, so paid my deposit ordering a brand new one in white and added a few bits via the configurator, selecting the heated grips, the lower fairing, the quick shift and a couple of other bits that are cosmetic. Also added a short screen above the headlight, swapped the mirrors for bar end ones and changed the brake levers for adjustable black ones.
We have completed over 1500 miles together which means its fully run in, and now its time to share some of my thoughts and findings. I do like sports style bikes, its all I have ever owned for the last 25 years so can only compare it to those when ridden on the roads.
Coming from a 1000cc bike with 145bhp to a bike with 660cc and 81bhp was a bit risky as I didn't know if it would be powerful enough to be interesting. So lets deal with that first. The Trident is definitely no slouch, from 0 - 60mph is plenty fast enough, the figures say its about 4 seconds, following Col he is a fraction quicker up to road speeds and beyond but its not massively different if you want to keep your licence. It runs out of revs through the gears quicker than I am used to when getting up to 60 but the quickshift helps out in that area. The Trident comes with traction control and 2 modes, 1 for rain and one for.... when its not raining...
The handling however, I do prefer over the Fireblade's, the Trident feels so easy to ride, you can change your line around a corner, lean it in more and the power delivery works with the handling, Triumph really have got the mix of power and handling balanced perfectly.
The bikes built to a price, so no adjustable front forks which is a shame, but the ones fitted do work fine, and the brakes have plenty of stopping power, even ABS is included. The rear shock is adjustable in case you are heavier or have a passenger.
Mine has quick shift, it does make the bike for me, you only need the clutch when you pull away or stop, it will change up the box under power and down when you are off the power, just by pressing your foot up or down. It just keeps the power to the wheel when accelerating, no drop of power between the gears.
Mine is showing an average MPG of 66.9 I cant quite get it to 67, but this is riding the same as I would ride the Fireblade, not taking it easy. When I fill up Col tends to put about 4 pounds more than me for each tank full for the same journey, so owning this bike is saving me a little money in fuel.
The TFT is very easy to read and use, it has a number of "trays" Triumphs word for screens and you can set these up how you want them. It always shows which gear is selected which I find quite useful. When you get it you can enter your name, theres a big section on how to do it in the manual, but after the update it cant do it, the dealer couldnt explain it either, but that is not really a concern at all.
The seat is softer than the race bikes I have owned and the handle bars higher, this makes long rides so much more comfortable. I don't suffer with any of the complaints that I have done over the last 10 years, such as knee and leg ache, neck ache, wrist ache and hand ache, infact when Col has had enough I could do the same ride again. Its rekindled my love for biking it really has.
The lights are all Led and give a nice bright light, there is also self cancelling indicators, how I have longed for such a thing. There is 1 missing button, the flash button, you have to press the main beam button twice to flash, but that's nothing major.
Not everything is perfect, the throttle is fly by wire and has a small amount of lag when you first pull away, it makes me think of an automatic scooter I once road. There is no storage space under the seat, it would have been nice to get enough room for a disk lock, I have managed to get a smaller disk lock which will just fit on top of the battery. And the bit where the number plate lives is a love it or loath it part. It seems a lot of brands are building new bikes with a similar feature, I do quite like it but I can see it might look better with the number plate fitted under the seat, however, for now its staying as is. One thing that has improved it is to paint the back of the number plate black as it doesn't stand out so much.
It had heated grips as one of the options I ticked. They didn't work for 6 months, even though the light came on to say they were working. However, It was Triumphs fault, to do with a problematic update. Its fixed now. The grips get luke warm at best. Compared to the Oxford ones on the Fireblade, they are about like 50% so the faster you go the more useless they become. If I had of known I would have had Oxford ones and not worried about having the light on the dash.
The sound from the 3 cylinder engine is nice, and the exhaust is not loud at all when you are riding it. I do think about changing that but having seen the alternatives so far, they dont sound that great. If they could make it sound more like the street triple rs it would be more my thing.
Overall if you are after this style and size of bike, I would recommend you take one for a test ride. I enjoy mine and it makes me smile when I see it. Its more fun and comfortable than the bikes I have been used too and costs less to maintain too.
