Promotional feature: Triumph Daytona 675R

Import bike of the year

What happens when an iconic bike manufacturer takes all its racing DNA and puts it into one epic machine? You get the Triumph Daytona 675R. Take a look at what makes the Daytona 675R a truly triumphant motorcycle.

It sounds angry. It should. The Triumph Daytona 675R is a bike that was built for the race track. Fast, light, agile and easy to ride, this bike takes Triumph’s supersport offering to a whole new level. And without a shadow of a doubt, it is something very special. Little surprise then, that it bagged the Import Bike of the Year 2015 award at the Bloomberg TV Autocar India Awards.

How was it judged?

Judging a bike for an award isn’t as simple as expressing an opinion. It needs expertise and experience. With the Autocar Awards, there is over 40 years of experience and fine tuning of expertise. This fine tuning has led to a methodology that requires analysis of an exhaustive list of parametres. This helps pick a single, decisive winner. Our jury members, each an expert at evaluating bikes and cars with a vast amount of experience on a wide range of vehicles, are not easy to please. Why they’re not, becomes clearer when you see who they are. The Bike of the Year jury consisted of Rishad Cooper, two-wheeler editor of Autocar India along with Kartikeya Singhee, consulting associate editor of the Autocar Show and champion motocross rider C S Santosh. Each jury member rode the motorbikes nominated for the award and rated them on parametres like fitness for purpose, design, performance, ride and handling, driving pleasure, fuel efficiency, safety, ownership experience and relevance to the market. Cold, hard, irrefutable facts and figures on numerous parametres of a vehicle’s performance were obtained using Autocar India’s top-of-the-line data acquisition equipment. This ensured pinpoint accuracy. After they finished, the score sheets were handed over to auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers who ensured a watertight methodology both in terms of eligibility and judging criteria.

It was already a winner

A jewel among the big bikes that came to India in 2014, Triumph’s Daytona 675R had already won itself the best performing sports bike crown in its segment at various bike awards worldwide. It even packs enough of a punch to give bigger litre-class superbikes a run for their money. The Daytona 675R is equipped with a potent three-cylinder DOHC engine that delivers power in spades, and can accelerate in one linear leap, all the way to the 14,400rpm redline. Blistering quick performance is backed by a quick shifter-equipped transmission, aggressive track-focussed ergonomics, race derived Ohlins suspension and solid Brembo brakes with Nissin calipers. It also features the latest switchable ABS with circuit mode system which weighs just 1.5kg. Switchable because it has a race setting which allows rear wheel drift. Ultra-flickability and razor sharp handling allows you to change the bike’s direction almost as soon as you think it. The Daytona 675R offers pretty much whatever you need to excel at a track day. And it’s even well suited to the street, with more torque and smoother power delivery than its contemporaries, combined with balance and stability. It also has a great mid-range for pulling away from traffic and enough top-end power when you find a clear, smooth and empty road in front of you.
The quick shifter, definitely valuable on a track, also makes life on the street convenient. Every upshift will make the rider wish every bike was equipped with one of these. Another plus this version has over the older Daytonas is the upgrade in ergonomics. It manages to find a good balance between aggressive and relaxed riding positions.

And it remains a winner

With so many individual parts coming together seamlessly to create a machine that truly offers a superlative experience every time you get on it, it’s easy to see why the Triumph Daytona 675R has been the bike of choice for the Import Bike of the Year 2015 award at the Bloomberg TV Autocar India Awards.