After the John Bloor resurrection of the Triumph brand and some experimentation with both three and four-cylinder engines, it became clear the triple supplied the right blend of weight, power, and perhaps most importantly, character that provided an alternative to the run-of-the-mill fours then dominating the sportbike scene. The original Daytona used a spine frame…
The 2002 Triumph Daytona 955i Centennial Edition is a sneaky beast, as at first blush it’s just Triumph’s big, hairy-chested early 2000s bruiser in a smart shade of green. It takes a real Triumph aficionado to see and feel the differences between this one-of-200 special and its less exotic counterpart. This bike has seen very…
John Bloor’s new Triumph engineers had a modular solution for their line of of four-stroke engines – all had 76mm bores and strokes were 65 or 55mm depending on multiples of 250 or 300cc. The big 1200 was their atom smasher and had two balance shafts in the crankcase to smooth things out. This time…
In the 90s, it was foolish to take the Japanese Big Four head on: they were on a roll, and if you wanted to compete, you needed to offer something else, something different. They had the high-tech theme down cold, but no one can be all things to all people, and there has always been…
The owner of this 2006 Daytona bought it as a long-term leftover in 2014, from the unlikely sportbike haven of Denmark. Since then his travel schedule has only allowed 2,510 miles, presenting the auction winner with a virtually new Triumph liter bike. 2006 was the last model year for the 955i, and it has some…
Fully-faired sportbikes of the 80s and 90s from Japan are almost without exception festooned with jagged graphics, huge logos, hilariously technical-sounding acronyms, and retina-searing colors. They’re pretty cool now in a retro way and some of them, like the famous Rothmans designs, are truly iconic, but they feel like rolling billboards. Which of course is…
The first generation of Triumph’s new line of motorcycles that followed their resurrection by John Bloor seemed calculated to avoid direct comparison with products from the Japanese manufacturers. They’d obviously learned from their past mistakes trying to match the high performance and low cost of their Big Four rivals, and the new lineup filled in…
Triumph’s Speed Four was introduced in 2002 alongside the 955cc Speed Triple, the Four incongruously displacing only 599cc. Reaching back to the 1938 Speed Twin for its name, the Speed Four used the TT600 sportbike frame and drivetrain and boarded the naked / streetfighter express. 2003 Triumph Speed Four for sale on eBay With…