TRIUMPH SPEED TRIPLE 1200RX

ON THE ROAD...

- WORDS: BIG MAC

Who doesn’t love a limited-edition bike? Although, I would question just how limited a production run of 1200 bikes actually is, and whether a different set of handlebars, rearsets, steering damper and an end can that doesn’t actually add any extra performance to the engine qualifies as special enough to earn a ‘limited’ tag. Nonetheless, if you set aside the very tenuous status of being somehow special and limited and just take the RX at face value, the experience of riding it on the road is simply sublime.

The riding position which once upon a time would have earned the RX a ‘café racer’ label is genius for many reasons, not least the dynamic experience of riding it, but also because Triumph has done just enough for the RX to still very much serve up the supernaked experience, but with a twist. You get a punchy power delivery in an easy-to-access chassis that doesn’t demand you're a game every time you ride it AND a riding position that, with the tiniest of changes to your arms, shifts enough weight forward to transform how the bike feels. It's genius.

The engine plays the same sort of game that the Yamaha does by being deceptively fast. The three-cylinder drone belies what is actually going on underneath you as the revs climb. The power just builds and builds and then does a very four-cylinder thing by having one last push through the last 4000 revs when it makes you go “wow!” at just how much more violence is metered out in that phase of the delivery. It’s very un-Triumph like... and I love it all the more for it.