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Cost: about £7000
Insurance: about £500 p.a. comprehensive
Economy: 35-40 miles/gallon in town, 45 over distance
Good points: quick, smooth, reasonable economy for size, looks nice, totally undemanding, understated power
Bad points: nothing (only minor annoyances)
The Triumph Daytona is an excellent bike but, for the
sort of riding I increasingly do, the Trophy is better.
For me, the only areas where the Daytona scores convincingly over the Trophy are in
the stiff suspension and sharp brakes; and both of these can be provided for the
Trophy, at a cost.
Unlike the Daytona, The Trophy is really a touring bike, with few sporting pretensions. The
riding posture is upright and relaxed, giving good visibility, while the
high screen prevents neck and arm strain at high speeds (it's a bit noisy, though).
Among the Trophy's other good features are the huge fairing, big solid panniers
and heated handlebar grips.
However, by far the best feature of the Trophy is the enormous, understated
power of its engine. Despite its middle-aged, middle-class appeal and lack
of sporty image the Trophy is surprisingly fast; from a standstill
70 mph comes up on the speedometer in a shockingly short time. I suppose it shouldn't
really be a surprise, after all the engine is the same size as the one in the
Yamaha VMax, but the Trophy is about 50 Kg lighter.
I am coming to think of the Trophy as the 'Gentleman's VMax:' it's what a
VMax wants to be when it grows up. Where the Vmax's engine sounds like the
clap of doom, the Trophy's is quiet and refined at the same speed. In very wet
conditions, where a Vmax would be slithering around like a greased snake, the
Trophy pulls away as if it were on rails.
And, speaking of nasty weather: on several occasions I have ridden the Trophy in a snow blizzard
and it was no problem at all. Of the bikes I've owned, the Trophy is almost certainly
the only one on which I could have made those journies without extreme discomfort.
Until I tried heated handlebar grips I never understood how much difference they would
make to winter riding. Now I no longer refer to heated grip enthusiasts as 'wussies.'
I think you have to be a fairly large person to enjoy riding a bike the size of the
Trophy in town. Speaking for myself, I don't find it a problem; but other people
I have spoken to say that its height and weight cause problems for slow riding
between queues of cars. You probably won't be able to get both feet flat on the floor
if you're less than six feet tall. However, compared to other touring bikes, like
those made by BMW for example, the Trophy is a lightweight at about 240 Kg. In
keeping with the touring idiom, the Trophy is softly sprung and tends to wallow
a bit in corners.
All in all, the Trophy is an ideal all-weather touring bike, and an
ideal all-round bike if you're tall enough to cope with using it in traffic.
Update
Secondly, I have made a number of 200-300 mile journeys with a passenger. This is the sort of thing
that the
Trophy ought to be good at, and I'm pleased to report that it is. The size of the engine and the shape
and size of the fairing make for quite relaxed long distance travelling, provided the weather isn't too
awful. On one
journey there was a 50 mph side wind for the entire distance, and I don't think it would have been much
fun on any bike (or even a car for that matter). 300 miles only requires one petrol stop, but a larger
number of leg-stretch stops for the passenger.
Update update
Since I wrote the above, a number of things have happened. First, I changed the stock front
suspension springs for progressive ones from WP, and fitted a Triumph six-piston front brake kit.
The brake kit includes new
calipers, rotors and a high-pressure master cylinder. These items offer a modest, but useful,
improvement over the originals. Braking is now sharper, and the front does not 'dive' to the
same extent on hard braking. The negative side of this is the cost: about £600 for the whole lot.
I am currently saving up for a replacement rear suspension unit, which will cost about the same.
The Trophy is dead! On December 15th 1999 I was seriously inconvenienced by a
Ford Sierra, resulting in a smashed bike and a trip to casualty.
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