Okay, I’ve loved my Thruxton since the first time I rode it on the Sandia Crest road here in New Mexico. (That’s a road about 10 miles long with a 120 turns, ranging from long sweepers, to good chicanes, to hard switchback, with an altitude climb of about a mile. It’s like PIke’s Peak, but less deadly.) I’ve ridden the hell out of Trixie — named for Speed Racer’s girlfriend — putting almost 30,000 miles on her in 4 years.
So, of course I’m interested in the new Thruxton, the green one which is now officially approved by my five-year old daughter:
So at a birthday party for the 13th year of the local Triumph shop, I got to be the first to ride the white one behind her for about half an hour.
It’s powerful. It’s not Panigale or Aprilia sportbike powerful, but it’s easily pulling no punches. I popped the front tire up coming out of the parking lot into a right hand turn because I treated it like my old Thruxton.
Don’t do that.
The 1200cc water-cooled mill churns out 112 ft-lbs of torque at 4500rpm…which is right where it seems most comfortable. The 97hp hits about 6500. This thing moves. I was doing 60mph in second gear before i realized it. Getting it out onto old Route 66, I played with throttle response and it is sharp, brisk, and the bike wants to run. Normal secondary highway speeds are easily acquired in third or fourth gear. I only got into sixth on the interstate, where I got up to 115mph in a stretch with no traffic. At that point, the Thruxton got pretty light up front. I suspect the top end is somewhere close to the indicated 140. It does, however, get a bit finicky at 4500rpm, and feels like it can’t decide it it wants to go faster, or slower. It disappears if you back off a tad, or hit it just a bit harder. Fuel map, I suspect, and the fly-by-wire clutch.
Handling is very smooth, immediate, and the bike turns very well. The seating position is slightly forward, and my arms (I’m 5’9″, so averagey) drop straight to the bars, the pegs leave more legroom than my 2010, and I never got close to scraping anything. It’s about the same weight as my bike, but feels lighter; the weight must be lower.
The brakes are good. Not Ducati stop right now! great, but very quick and responsive, without the Ducati desire to have you do an Olympic-level sitting long jump.
So is it any good? No — it’s tremendous. It looks great, the clutch is very light, the bike does what you want when you want it, but no more — just like every Triumph, it’s polite. Is it worth $12k? Yes.
Scott Rhymer 