Best Dual-Sport: Triumph Tiger 800XC
Triumph’s adventurous XC climbs to top.
July 2011
This is as much a nod to the well-rounded capabilities of the newest middleweight adventure bike as it is to the company that produced it. Triumph has made a powerful push to expand its product range, all with an eye on staying true to the modern spirit of its brand. The Tiger 800XC exemplifies this, while also being a damn fine adventure bike. What it gives up in rock-bashing, descend-the-vertical-face off-road capability of last year’s winner, the KTM Adventure R, it makes up for with fantastic on-road (and fire-road) performance, while retaining the ability to torque up all but the most technical trails. The Tiger 800XC just makes you want to ride there. Wherever “there” may be.
Honorable Mention
August 2011
Triumph Thunderbird Storm 1700
Okay, so the two-year-winning Best Cruiser T-bird couldn’t run with the devil this year, but the blacked-out, punched-out, twin-headlight Storm version came pretty damn close with its great-handling, laid-back cruiser chassis and increased engine performance.
On www.motorcycle.com's Best of 2011, The Triumph Speed Triple gets Best Standard
Best Standard
Triumph Speed Triple
From the moment we first rode the revamped 2011 Triumph Speed Triple at its introduction in Southern California and came back beaming, we knew it was going to be a contender for the Best Standard bike this year. Then, in our Literbike Streetfighter Shootout all doubts were erased as the new Speed Triple brought out the inner hooligan in all of us. We’ve been big fans of the previous Speed Triple and were skeptical when we learned that it was being revamped, but the lighter, more powerful and more compact new bike delivers even bigger grins than before.
Thankfully, Triumph made one of our favorite engines even better with relatively simple tweaks. The result is a mill that puts out around 120 horses and 120 horses and 75 ft.-lbs. of torque with even greater useable power and a supremely melodic tune at full throttle. Combined with even sharper chassis geometry and brutally powerful Brembo brakes, the S3 feels right at home at the racetrack, a gnarly canyon, a long stretch of the freeway or even an abandoned parking lot. You know, to practice the wheelies and stoppies that you’ll inevitably want to do. At $11,799, it’s not the most affordable naked bike out there, but one twist of the throttle will justify its cost. Now, about those headlights...
