AGV Backmarker: Fat Like Me

A few weeks ago, Triumph offered me the use of one of its brand-new Thunderbird cruisers, suggesting that I might want to ride up the coast with the bike’s designer, Tim Prentice, of Motonium.

About a year ago, I rode from SoCal to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on a Honda VTX1300 and found it to be a surprisingly pleasant experience. That wasn’t even Honda’s “top” cruiser. Since then, the Triumph T-bird’s been chosen cruiser of the year by a few websites and magazines. I was curious to see if it was that much better than the Honda, or a couple of others I’d racked up miles on: the Yamaha Midnight Warrior and the Suzuki M90. I was also interested in spending some post-ride beer time with the designer. Designers are always sworn to secrecy, and I thought given time I might trick him into leaking a scoop (he didn’t).

I’m still a committed sport bike rider, so I always take on rides like this worried that I won’t enjoy them—or, even more worrisome, that I will. What would that mean? I guess that mirrors don’t lie, and I really am getting old and fat. [Ed. note: Mark may be old, but I bet he still has to hop around in the shower just to get wet.]

At 1,600cc, the T-bird is nudging power-cruiser territory. In fact, it’s hard to really get a handle on this bike’s motor. There’s a lot about it that’s unique. It’s got a 270 degree crank, a choice Triumph made in order to give it a Harley-ish sound. I guess that instead of saying “potato, potato” like a 45 degree V-twin, this 270 degree parallel twin says something like “tom-ah-to, tom-ah-to.”

I was amazed that a parallel twin with massive 104mm bores could possibly be so smooth. There’s got to be some serious balancing shaft watusi going on down in those cases. Although I occasionally felt a pleasing rumble, it was never tiring or bothersome. Usually, it took the form of a gentle rocking couple (not to be confused with a swinging couple, which puts out an altogether different vibe). The view in the mirrors was almost car-like.

Unlike most cruisers, this one’s got a relatively short stroke. The peak power is in the 80s, with over 100 foot-pounds of torque. Given the bike’s overall heft and, specifically, what feels like a lot of crank inertia, the net result is pleasant but relatively docile—in short, they wanted a Harley-Davidson feel, and they came close in terms of power feel. They went too far in the balancing act.

While the T-bird’s perfectly happy to trundle along in almost any gear at 1,500 rpm, if you feel the urge to ride at all aggressively (a relative term with a bike like this), you still need to work the shifter. Luckily, the clutch pull is light and the gearbox has been flawless in over 1,000 miles of testing.

For a bike this big, it handles well. A stout, conventional Showa fork and twin shocks, adjustable for preload only, worked fine as delivered. I never felt the need to adjust the fork, so I didn’t miss the lack of adjustment. The shocks were a tad oversprung for a flyweight like me. [Ed note: See? Told you.] The whole ride is on the firm side, suggesting that Triumph anticipates a slightly more sporting rider.

On corner entries, the twin 310mm Nissin four-piston front brakes were adequate, although I would’ve felt a lot better if the oversized brake lever had been adjustable for span. The brake setup requires a firm grip, and I couldn’t get quite enough of a grip on it to feel really confident. Of course, after a few days on cruisers I get a rear-brake habit going and realize they slow down fine. Unlike sport bikes, there’s always lots of weight on the rear with bikes like this, so you get used to really using engine braking and the rear pedal.

The raked out (by my standards) front fork and long wheelbase are pretty easily overcome by the nearly yard-wide handlebar. The T-bird corners well, and once I’d ground off the peg feelers I found that I could lean it as far as I want to without any nasty noises; I’d just feel the heel of my boot touch down. The Metzeler Marathon tires are, likewise, a balanced choice; I don’t think the chassis can use any more grip than they provide. Once in a while there’s the slightest bit of tire-harmonic weave, but it’s never bothersome.

When it comes time to pick up the throttle, the mapping is almost flawless. I don’t think I ever experienced a serious fuel-injection glitch all the way up Highway 1 through Big Sur. That’s a lot of on-and-off the throttle. Come to think of it, though, I should’ve said “no glitches when it was rolling.” The bike I tested was one of the few modern fuel-injected motorcycles that had a problem with stalling a second or two after it was started.

Although, as noted above, I still think of myself as a sport bike rider, in the last ten years or so I’ve broadened my riding tastes somewhat. I love the big adventure bikes (I recently raved about the BMW K1300GT as a sport touring mount), and I’m an advocate for sensible commuters. I think I could even find a place in my heart for a Gold Wing.

Still, I struggle with finding a raison d’être for cruisers. I suppose most of them are used for short trips in town. There, a low seat height is a plus, but really, no 800 pound cruiser is anywhere near as practical around town as a scooter (for really short hauls) or a competent middleweight naked bike if you need to take to the freeway.

Like all bikes of its type, with lots of steered mass and kicked-out geometry, the T-bird has a tendency for the front wheel to trip itself in slow-speed maneuvers. So you’ll turn, turn a bit more, then the thing suddenly feels like it wants to keep turning tighter on its own. Once, in downtown San Francisco, I actually had to get help to back the thing out of a parking spot that had not seemed nearly so sloping when I pulled into it.

The T-bird I rode was decked out with extra lights, a windscreen, a seat with (dual!) backrests, luggage rack, and saddlebags. That actually made it a pretty comfy way to spend four days on the road. As when I rode up PCH on that Honda, I found the bike’s relaxed natural pace makes it easy to tolerate heavy tourist traffic, and to appreciate the spectacular scenery, so I was putting it to the best possible use. The cavernous (nearly six gallon) tank gave me a 200+ mile range in normal riding—perhaps thanks to a clever ECU that uses two different fuel maps, depending on throttle position.

It’s not stopping to smell the roses, as much as riding slowly enough to smell them as you pass. On one stretch of the 1, north of Oxnard, I was riding through rich farmland and small towns as the dusk turned to darkness. I couldn’t place the sweet smell on the night air until I saw a sign pointing to the town of Betravia. Then I realized that I was smelling a beet harvest.

I got used to Harley riders giving me a little hand wave, probably before they realized I was on some foreign bike, or noticed my full-coverage helmet. But when I pulled into a campsite and saw a BMW R1200GS parked nearby, I suddenly felt inadequate. And when I instinctively gave sport bikes a little wave, I always felt rejected when they ignored me.

All in all, the experience left me pretty conflicted. The bike was comfortable and competent. Those Cruiser Of The Year awards don’t seem out of place at all. I think designer Prentice and Triumph’s engineers have done something none of the Japanese manufacturers have ever managed. That is, create a motorcycle that a dyed-in-the-wool Harley rider might like as much as—or even prefer to—a Harley. (That’s in the unlikely event Triumph can ever get those Harley riders to try it.) At $12,500, it’s competitively priced, too.

But rather than see myself on it just yet, I think I’ll hit the gym. [Ed note: The guy’s going to get so skinny he disappears!]