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Let’s start with the scenario and scene setter to this post. A Swiss friend of mine, Arnaud, decided to do a big road trip as a 40th Birthday celebration. This would involve a round trip of over 6000 kms/4000 miles on his Triumph Tiger 1200. The route would include Switzerland, France, UK, Isle of Man and eventually back to Switzerland again. During his time in the UK, we would both visit the Triumph Factory Experience in Hinckley, which I would recommend (link below), I would show him around the roads of North Yorkshire (in the pouring rain as it turned out!) and then following his return from the Isle of Man, I would meet him for a tour of North Wales. For the North Wales tour, I thought I would rent a bike, and one that I hadn’t ridden before, so this leads us into the next paragraph…….
It is possible to rent any motorcycle in the UK, but the locations of these rental businesses are around the main cities and not near where I live, so getting to collect and drop off the bike is a hassle. The brand that I had never ridden or owned before is Triumph, and I thought it would be good to rent a Bonneville. If I Google-search for ’Triumph’ in the UK, I get two main options. One is for women’s underwear, and the other is for motorcycles. I obviously chose the latter. There is a Triumph dealer in York, A1 Moto (link below) close to where I live, so I emailed them to see if I could rent a Bonneville. I got a quick email back from the Sales Manager, Stuart Patrick. He said that they don’t rent out the Bonneville, but they could rent me the new Tiger 660 Sport, so I called him to discuss it. Stuart told me about the bike and the deal and asked me if I wanted the bike suspension lowering, or the engine detuning and a number of other options including the full hard case luggage and phone mount. I agreed to take it exactly as standard with the luggage and signed up for a 4 1/2 day rental, which cost £500. It’s pleasing to report great service and response from a dealer as Stuart made the process simple, and signed it all off with a confirmation email straight away.
Fast forward a few weeks and I’m standing inside the impressive A1 Moto Triumph dealership in York, and getting very distracted with the new Triumph 250 motocross bike. I meet Stuart, do the paper admin’ with him and then we go out into the sunshine to see the bike. Stuart wheels the bike over in its ‘Korosi red and graphite’ colour with matching luggage, and it looks impressive. He talks me around the bike, which is just a few months old, and its capabilities and controls, then we have a ‘team photo’ (below) and I head off into the sunshine (Yes, really! The sun was shining amazingly!).
As a reminder to this plot, I would ride over to North Wales, meet Arnaud, and then spend two days showing him around the amazing countryside and roads. It would be boring for me to recount the whole trip here, so I’m going to do it slightly differently. Here are the two ‘lift pitch’ conversations that I had with another guest at the hotel. Remember, in a ‘lift pitch’, you only get 30-40 seconds to deliver your story, which needs to be impactful and memorable, and for the right reasons of course. Here’s how the two coversations went……..
Other hotel guest: I see that you rode up on the new Triumph Tiger 660 earlier, what do you think of it?
My response: I’m very impressed! I’ve rented it for the weekend and after half a days riding on both motorway and twisty roads, it really does feel like my bike already. I’m surprised how easy and fun it is to ride. It’s comfy, agile, manoeuvrable and responsive on all types of dry roads and surfaces, and unlike some of the taller adventure style bikes like my friend’s 1200 Tiger, it feels really safe in rain conditions due to it being a bit lower and lighter, which brings me to the luggage, because none of the boxes leaked in the torrential rain either. I’m looking forward to getting on it again already, and I’ve just got off it!
We both leave the lift, and then meet again a day later, in the same lift………..
Other hotel guest: So, after a day’s riding, what isn’t good or what would you change?
My response: The bike is very nearly perfect out of the crate for me and I haven’t even touched any of the settings since it left the shop either. If I was keeping it, I would want to adjust the hand guards to raise them a bit to keep all of the wind off the tops of my hands. Also, I know that the standard exhaust hides a special tune that only a Triumph triple engine can make, so maybe a different silencer just to raise the soundtrack a little bit, but one which is a similar, well fitting shape to the standard exhaust.
Other hotel guest as he pauses before he get’s out of the lift: If you couldn’t change those two things, would you still buy it?
My response: Absolutely!
Riding the Triumph Tiger 660 Sport, to give it its full title, does generate the question: Why do we buy big engined bikes when something this capable provides more usable power, size and weight as well as being big fun on the busy roads of today? It’s a very good question, and apart from the answer “because I want the biggest!”, there isn’t another answer. Over the course of the weekend, there was nothing this bike couldn’t do on fast motorway runs, twisty mountain roads (including a tight 25% gradient hill!) or just in towns. This last bit is important, because Wales has implemented the 20mph/30kmh speed limit in its towns and cities, so a bike engine needs to be super smooth and tractable from low speeds, and that was just another area that this Tiger 660 excelled at.
Finally, what I love about motorcycling generally, is the shear diversity of bikes and brands, and using them in different scenarios from going to the shops, riding off road or a mini adventure just like this one that I’ve just had with this truly capable Triumph Tiger 660. I last rented a bike in Arizona and it was a Harley Davidson, and renting a bike does provide a great insight into other bikes and brands as well as being fun. Many thanks again to Stuart and the team at A1 Moto for the rental of the bike, and of course to Arnaud, for a great road trip in North Wales together.
Link to A1 Moto https://www.a1moto.com
Link to the Triumph Factory Experience https://www.triumphmotorcycles.co.uk/for-the-ride/experiences/factory-visitor-experience
All photos by the Author.
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