T509 Speed Triple
T509 SPEED TRIPLE
New bikes '97
Influenced by England's streetfighter craze, Triumph gets weird and wild
SAY WHAT YOU WANT ABOUT THE folks at the reborn Triumph motorcycle company, just don’t call them conservative. As reported in our November issue, Triumph will launch a new T509 Speed
Triple alongside its redrawn T595 Daytona for ’97. But while the Daytona evoked long, lustful moans from the first CW staffers who saw photos of it, the Speed Triple elicited more than a few sharply raised eyebrows. As one editor said, “Is that it? Where’s the rest of the bike?” Patterned after stripped-down streetfighters now
all the rage in Britain, the T509, with its funky, bug-eyed headlamps, Buell-like mini-fairing and radiator-mounted turnsignals, is, to say the least, visually jarring. But the bike’s mechanical pedi-
gree is quite attractive. Its 885cc, dohc, inline three-cylinder engine benefits from much of the development work Triumph put into the revised Daytona. Slimmer, lighter engine castings and a new, higherflowing downdraft cylinder head fed by a sophisticated fuel-injection system let the Triple pump out a claimed 108 horsepower and 63 foot-pounds of torque. Spent gases exit through a 3-into-1 exhaust system that ends in an attractive, oval-shaped, matteblack muffler, while a wide, wide radiator and an oil cooler that nestles up to the right-side exhaust header keep a check on operating temperatures.
The chassis is the same swoopy, ovaltubed aluminum piece developed for the Daytona, with a cast-aluminum singlesided swingarm, Showa suspension, Nissin four-piston front brakes and sportbike-standard 3.5 and 6.0 x 17-inch wheels carrying Bridgestone BT56 radiais. Weight is said to be less than 440 pounds; price $11,795.
Word is that the Speed Triple roadracing series will be run using the updated model from now on. That in itself should assure sales of this curiously styled streetflghter. Perhaps we should refer to it as a Triumph rraeTcfighter? -Brian Catterson
