Triumph Thruxton review, test ride

We took the Thruxton, Triumph's take on the modern cafe racer, for a quick ride. Here's what we thought of it

Published on Sep 12, 2014 12:00:00 PM

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What is it like to ride?

The Thruxton seats the rider quite low with a fairly weight forward stance. There’s a fair bit of lean into the handlebars, that alongwith the rear set footpegs, can get tiring over city commutes. The riding position does come together over long stints but do note, the Thruxton isn’t the most enthusiastic of bikes around bends. It’s responsive to steering inputs, yes, but still it’s not exactly what you’d call flickable. That long wheelbase and old-school double cradle frame are sure to have more than something to do with that. Choose routes with long, sweeping corners and you won’t have much reason to complain.

The engine, as mentioned above, is shared with the Bonneville. However, on the Thruxton, the air-cooled, fuel-injected, parallel-twin makes 1bhp more, taking power up to 68bhp at 7400rpm. Peak torque is marginally higher too at 7kgm at 5800kgm. The figures may not look very special but then remember, this is not an out and out sports bike.

Performance is brisk, with a good spread of power right from 1500rpm to 7000rpm. The engine’s flexibility also means you don’t need to work the smooth-shifting one-down, four-speed gearbox all that much. The Thruxton builds speed effortlessly right from launch and will race past the ‘ton’ or 100 miles per hour (160 kph) with relative ease. But if there was a grouse it would be with the exhaust note. For what is a ‘wild’ bike, the hum from the exhausts is far too gentlemanly. Hopefully, that’s something the optional Arrow exhausts can fix. On the plus side, refinement levels are very good and there’s never more than a mild buzz on the handlebar.

The fairly pliant ride also makes this a bike you wouldn’t mind taking out on the occasional long ride.