I took a ride out today to my local Triumph dealer as I had an email before Christmas to say that they will have a Tiger Sport 800 in their showroom this week.
I have one on order for March delivery and actually over the Christmas period I must admit that I’ve been seriously considering cancelling it, so a timely opportunity to view one in the flesh before making a decision.
My reason for considering cancelling is that I want the bike for some light touring, but I really don’t want to have three bikes as I know they won’t get used enough to justify keeping them all - and I will be really loathed to part with either the 400X Scrambler or (particularly) my Speed Twin and I’ve been talking myself into trying some touring on the Speed Twin before committing to another bike!
Anyway, enough rambling…. Onto the Tiger Sport 800….
It’s a very nice looking bike in the flesh. Obviously very similar in style to its baby brother 660, but definitely a bit more substantial and chunky. It looked lovely in the Cosmic Yellow (which is the colour I ordered). I was surprised how small the exhaust was in the flesh, but perhaps that’s because I have become so used to new bikes having huge end cans!
No opportunity to ride it, but I did sit on it and the riding position seemed comfortable and I could flat foot it. It didn’t feel particularly heavy.
A big let down for me was the cockpit area - I do seem to have an irrational hatred of the instruments. If only they had chosen to fit the display from the Tiger 1200/900, it would have transformed how it looked and raised the perceived quality of the bike, which is a shame as the rest of the bike looks very smart and well finished.
So, at the moment I’m still inclined to cancel it, but tomorrow I may change my mind again. The bike as ordered will cost about £12.5k, but for half that I could get a nearly new low mileage TS660 which if I’m being honest with myself would do the job equally well, and I would feel less guilty about having three bikes! In summary, I think that whether I ended up with the 800 or a used 660, either would be tools to do a job (bit of touring) rather than a bike I would love owning. My Speed Twin 1200 is a bike I love owning and riding, so I probably need to get some soft luggage for it and try some over-nighters before committing.
I took a couple of phone snaps while I was there.
