AND THEN THERE'S THE R...

If road riding is your greater focus, the R might be your better bet.

- BIG MAC

It’s a great shame that by virtue of being the ‘lesser’ spec’d of the two Street Triples, the R could be viewed as the poor relation to the RS and therefore overlooked. If, just for a moment, you could imagine a world where the RS doesn’t exist and the 2023 Street Triple R is the only option available, I would still be able to write that it’s got more power, better suspension, sharper geometry, better electronics, better gear ratios and a more playful final drive. It’s still a bike that’s had a hefty upgrade over the previous model in all areas – it’s just not as extreme as the RS’s update.

Back to the world in which the RS does actually exist, the engine in the R is mechanically identical to the RS’s but gets different fuel and ignition maps to keep the increase in power over the previous model to a modest 2bhp for a new peak power figure of 118bhp. More significant than the small increase of peak power is that it arrives 500rpm sooner than last year’s bike, and there’s more power from just 5000rpm all the way to the peak on the R. The engine has been set up very much with a life spent on the road in mind, so it makes sense not to go chasing a big peak power figure and instead put the bulk of your gains in the area used the most on the road – the midrange. It still gets the same shorter gearbox ratios and shorter final drive, so, combined with the midrange boost in power, the R isn’t lacking when it comes to ‘get up and go’.