The Triumph Street Triple is a TDH favourite. It has always remained our go-to choice when the topic of a middle-weight Street Naked arises. The combination of its ease of riding and supersport performance is a deadly combination. We love its precise handling, its relatively low weight and the sweet sounds of its Triple. When given a chance to spend some time with the new Street Triple RS, we had a conflict within the team for the keys to the bike. And once I managed to steal the keys, I spent some quality time with the bike to find out if this Street Triple RS improves upon all the qualities I loved with the previous bike and if I’ll fall for this bike all over again.
It all starts from the looks
When you look at it, you know it’s a Triumph from the street triple family. I personally dig the new headlights, they’re smaller, bug-eyed and well-placed units, which let you know that this bike means business. The angry eyes and the new sharper body bits everywhere make it look like a focused weapon, ready to attack.
Triumph has also restyled most of the bodywork like the belly pan, tail section panels and the area around the radiator shroud, resulting in a sleeker-looking machine. This Street Triple looks fresh and better than before and the fantastic quality we expect from the British brand on the motorcycle has remained constant.
The TFT display on the front is nice and informative. It gives all the necessary information and you can toggle through the display to see more details of the trip, the rider modes, turn-by-turn navigation and even music. You can operate your phone and even a GoPro via the Five-way joystick on the left switch cube.
While the GoPro bit is reasonably fancy, in today’s day and age, Triumph should have at least offered Bluetooth connectivity as standard. Nevertheless, when you fire up that sweet, in-line triple motor, everything else is easily forgotten.
The Engine
The 765 motor has always been a hoot to push around but the mad lads in Triumph’s Moto 2 Department found ways to dig even deeper into optimizing the “RS” to Euro 5 Norms. Peak Output at 123HP is exactly the same, But the peak torque has gone up to 79Nm from 77Nm. They have also enhanced power and torque in the mid-range by a very noticeable 9%.
This engine is so damn sweet. Heck, it’s addictive. You tend to squeeze harder and harder just to enjoy the symphony of the triple. It is very tractable and its sweet midrange also helps to make quick passes on the highway while staying in the powerband before a corner. Safe to say you can keep higher gears at reasonably lower speeds and use all the mid-range grunt on offer to zoom past traffic without the need to shift. The swiftness of its power delivery along with being Euro 5 compliant is impressive. Going through the village roads it was easy to cruise at 50-60kmph in 6th where the display also shows the real-time fuel consumption. Triumph even refined the electronic rider modes (Road, Rain, Sport, Track and Custom) to suit the new character of the engine.
The electronics have gotten major updates too. We now get a bi-directional QuickShifter (Previously only up) that lets you go all out on the throttle and band up and down the gearbox without using the slip and assist clutch. On the track, this will be very handy as you won’t have to worry about your clutch use specifically while upshifting.
The Ride
Triumph thankfully has not touched the brilliant Twin-spar aluminium frame or the fully adjustable Showa forks and Ohlins STX40 monoshock all of which are from the previous model.
The ride was surprisingly better than I anticipated it to be. The roads to Lavasa aren’t in the greatest shapes and the RS bent through bad patches comfortably. There were instances I had to be careful not to scrape the belly pan or the exhaust. With the suspension set right, The RS will hold onto the line while you are holding onto your life as the bike just carves through the corners at mind-bending speeds. A few fast corners, slow chicanes and the inclined hairpins did a bit throw off the RS’s rhythm as it just flows corner to corner. After each corner you take on this bike, you are just tempted to go harder and harder every time. It inspires confidence to push harder while still remaining forgiving in the hands of a newbie. It’s very easy to correct your lines and posture mid-corner.
The Pirelli Diablo SuperCorsa SP tyres that the RS comes from the factory deserve a lot of credit for giving me so much confidence to push. It was the first time with this bike on the twisties, instead of worrying about the bike going out of control, it had all the grip in the world and I knew the tyres had my back all along. The traction control in race mode lets you have a little slide in the corners, which kept my ride more entertained. There’s nothing more assuring than a set of great brakes and Brembo’s M50 Monoblocks on the RS deserve praise for their ultra-sharp performance.
Final Verdict
The 2020 Triumph Street Triple RS has won my heart again and still remains a fantastic all-around machine for those who simply want their motorcycle to do it all. From tackling traffic from the depths of hell to cutting loose on a racetrack, the RS can handle everything you throw at it without compromising on comfort, build quality or equipment.
But priced at almost 13lakhs on road it is more expensive than the z900, but comes with much better equipment. It is better than the other 650s in its segment. But before I can assure you that, I need to fight for the keys of a Duke 790. These are exciting times in TDH and for you, our readers. So stay tuned for more such content.
