2024 Triumph Scrambler 900 Review: A Do-Anything Motorcycle, and a Fantastic One At That!

This is my 2024 Triumph Scrambler 900. I've had it since the beginning of June and I've put 3,000 miles on it. So far it's been fantastic. There's one small problem. It doesn't start. Of course I'm being overly dramatic here. It does start, obviously. It just doesn't start on the first try, in the morning, when it's cold. And when I say cold, I mean it's, you know, in the 60s or 70s here in Portland, Oregon. It's not a major problem. It doesn't really affect things too much. I just figure, for a $12,000 motorcycle, it should probably start on the first try. I've reached out to Triumph for comment. I haven't heard back. I'll either learn to live with it or go crazy trying to fix it, but that's enough with the negativity. The truth is, it's an excellent motorcycle. If you're thinking about buying Later on in the video, I'll tell you a whole bunch of stuff you need to know before you spend your money. I'll tell you about the tires, the headlight, the fuel tank. Just a bunch of small stuff that you should know before you head off to the dealership. I think this bike is fantastic. I think it's great for just about anyone. An older rider, a beginner rider, someone who's looking to do some adventuring, someone who's looking to do a little bit of off-road, someone who just wants to hit the twisties on a Sunday afternoon. This bike is perfect for just about anything. The Scrambler 900 is a 900cc water-cooled parallel twin. It puts out horsepower. I don't know how much. I don't care. It's enough. It's got torque. It's got plenty of torque. This is one of those kind of bikes that the numbers don't really matter all that much. It's more about the experience than the performance. I traded my 1200cc T120 for this. In the process, I gave up a gear. This is a 5-speed bike as opposed to a 6-speed like the T120. I said it in my initial review and I'll say it again. The 5-speed for me seems to be just about the perfect gearing for an engine this size. In the month and a half that I've had this motorcycle, I've probably tried to shift into 6th maybe three or four times. So far, I've done just about everything I've wanted to do on this bike. I've gone on long highway rides. I dumped it on a gravel road. I've hit the twisties and I even did some touring. I recently got back from a four-day road trip with a bunch of friends up to Washington State through the North Cascades. I used this Lone Rider bag for pretty much my entire storage. It fits on the back of the bike pretty great and caused no problems. It was perfect. A lot of the complaints you'll hear about this Graveler 900 has to do with the high pipe on the right side. During the four-day tour, temperatures got up above 107 degrees. Sure, the pipe got hot but it was never to the point where it burned me. It was never to the point where it seriously irritated me. I knew it was there but it was no biggie. One thing I will say though is the stock pipes are very heavy. They're so heavy that they actually caused the bike to pull to the right. This might sound a little crazy but I actually proved it because the new pipes I have on here now are probably half as heavy and the bike barely pulls at all now. I think this is kind of a design flaw on Triumph's part. They shipped a bike that doesn't track straight. To me, that's the bike's one job. Track straight. Anyway, this is the point in the video when the nerdy Triumph fanboy makes an appearance. I am ridiculously, hopelessly, 100% in love with this. I feel the same way about Triumph as a brand even if they don't return my email. The way I tend to judge a bike is if it got stolen or totaled tomorrow, would I go out and buy a brand new one? And I think the answer is yes. That's how much I like this bike. I can't really see myself riding anything else at this point. I've ridden just about every bike in Triumph's current lineup. That includes the Scrambler XE, the big one, the Scrambler 400X, the smaller one. I've ridden the Rocket 3, a handful of Tigers, a couple others that I don't even remember. Out of all of them, if I had to choose right now, I'd still choose the Scrambler 900. As an older rider, I don't have as much of a need for speed as I maybe did when I was younger. What I do have is a need for fun. The Scrambler 900's fun because it's torquey, because it handles so well in the curves, because it looks beautiful, and it sounds freaking amazing. Just listen to it. Earlier this week, I installed these British Customs shotgun slash cut pipes. They're slip-ons. They don't cost too much. They're easy to install. They make the bike sound like a hot riot. It's something. I don't think they're obnoxiously loud. They're pretty loud. I do wear earplugs now when I'm going long distances just to, you know, keep the hearing. But they sound amazing. They bring the bike to life. They definitely add a little bit of performance, or it could just be up in my noggin. I don't know. They're fantastic. I love them. They're staying. Here's what you need to know if you're thinking about buying a Scrambler 900. First and foremost, and I've already mentioned it, the high pipe on the right side. It's not a big deal. Don't worry too much about it. Go take a test drive. If it bothers you, it bothers you. Chances are it won't. It gets warm. It doesn't get to the point where you're going to burn your leg off. You'll be fine. If there's two things that I could change, first would be the tubed tires. I would swap them out for tubeless. Tubed tires are, for the most part, terrible. The second thing I would change is the size of the fuel tank. You get about three-point-something gallons, essentially 150 mile range. It's not great, especially if you're doing any kind of touring. The Scrambler 900 doesn't ship with a center stand. This might not seem like such a big deal until it comes time to clean your chain or fix a flat tire. Adding a center stand isn't cheap. It kind of junks up the look of the bike slightly, adds weight, but for me, it's a must-have. Speaking of must-haves, another thing you should probably know is that the Scrambler 900 doesn't have as many aftermarket parts available for it as, say, a 1200 XE or other bikes in the Triumph line. I'm not exactly sure why this is. Maybe it's just not as popular of a bike as I think it should be, but just know that going in, you're not going to have as many choices as you would if you picked a different bike. You should know that the Scrambler 900 doesn't ship with an LED headlight. It's not a big deal. It's just not as bright as you would find on a bike that had an LED headlight. It's also a little bit on the yellow side. I have to say that it kind of complements the bike in my eyes, especially since my bike is already yellow. It's a win-win for me. Another thing I hear all the time is the wind is actually going to kill you if you drive over 60 miles an hour. It's bullshit. This is essentially a naked bike, and that comes with the territory, but I've had this bike well over 60 miles an hour, and the wind, to me, is actually less than I would expect. It's not a problem. That said, though, the lack of aftermarket parts make it nearly impossible to find a good windscreen for this bike, so you got to kind of just live with it. The Scrambler 900 is sexy as hell, so get used to people stopping you and asking you what kind of bike is that, and how old is that thing, and stuff like that. And if you put the aftermarket slip-ons on, they'll say, what the hell is that noise? But in the end, if you ride this bike like I do, for the same reasons I do, you're not going to miss the extra cc's, you're not going to miss the extra horsepower, and you're not going to miss the 6-gear. Everything you gain is worth any of those trade-offs, including the small fuel tank, the tubed tires, and whatever else. If you can get this bike started in the morning, you're going to have one hell of a day. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, I hope you will consider subscribing to the channel and hitting the like button, and I'll see you on the next one.