TRIUMPH 675

BIG MAN, SMALL BIKE

By Mick

Why this has been voted motorcycle of the year I have no idea. I'm not saying it's a bad bike, but I can think of more deserving steeds. Maybe, like the Academy Awards, every so often they feel obliged to nominate a black actor whether he's any good or not.

Before even sitting on it I felt a distinctive 916 vibe going on, maybe because it is red and slanted at the front with lovely anodised yellow forks; maybe its frame looked flimsy -- I don't know.

You sling your leg over and it's a tall seat height, pushing weight onto your wrists, in my book that's sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad. The sitting position feels good with plenty of room for my power packed 6ft 3 carcass to move around on.

I fired up the beast, snicked first and pulled away. The note from the underslung pipe was nice, it needed to be nastier, louder and more obnoxious as I looked at its 14,000 rpm red line and could hear the note at 6,000. I know, standard bike for you, Mr Hodge. The 675 triple cylinder motor has a 74mm bore and a 52.3mm stroke so I figured it would need to rev? really hard, to generate its supposed 120 odd bhp. I thought back to my first image of a 916 and its bogus power claims. Hmmmm, if this has got 123bhp my gran can lap at the same rate as Biaggi (when he's not crashing in pit lane... burk).

A run down the freeway told me that the theoretical top speed is somewhere approaching 280km/h however my run up the BIKE ME! stretch of private property points to a top whack of 240km/h, which also suggests that it doesn't have 123bhp.

The riding position comes into its own at 120km/h plus, all weight is gone from the wrists and the seat peg distance is lovely. It would be very easy to bang out a long haul on this little puppy.

After my blat down the freeway it was into the twisty bits. And that's where you find there is no power band, it just pulls in an average sort of way from 6 to 14, there really was no super-sweet spot that had you hurling chunks of tarmac or shredding rubber? Hmmmm.

The gearbox felt like it belonged on the track, with short ratio climbs, yet the power delivery was as wide as Madonna can spread 'em.

The suspension needed a few tweaks and turns here and there and then began to start working properly, like a good submissive it began to respond the harder I treated it. The suspension, frame and geometry far outgun the power and weight they have to contend with, my only criticism was that the front end felt like it had a steering damper set one click too stiff.

Then again, it was still an absolute blast splitting lanes in heavy traffic.

The brakes were glorious, front 308mm and rear 220mm, and had no dramas pulling me back from the dark hooliganistic side that I seem to spend so much of my time frequenting.

It says 165kg dry on the packet, but moving it around and tipping it through corners it felt heavier. I think the weight could have been hidden lower down to make it even sweeter. They have achieved the light weight with copious splatterings of carbon fibre all over the place.

It's only a gnat's cock under a 55inch wheelbase yet needs some provocation to loft its front end. It still did the BIKE ME! 'Ago Leap' flat knacker in third and flew, so there is hope yet.

If I had to race a 600 then this would be some way down the list, any fool could tell you a GSX-R, R6, CBR600 and even the green 636 will whup its arse around the track and in a straight-line. But if you wanted something a little different; that you had to live with as a sporty road bike; that is a sensationally good all-rounder, then the little one from Blighty gets my vote.

If I were an artistic sort of gentleman and needed to photograph it with something aptly British, I would not pick it emerging from an Indian jungle; nor would it be leading the charge of a mass of football hooligans, no? It would be a picture of a pork pie -- an all-round meal that is neither offensive nor grand, yet pleasing to a belly in need.