2021 Triumph Bonneville Speedmaster | First Ride Review

Right, you lot, it's Wildlife Moto here out on a bit of a test ride today actually, I thought I'd bring you guys along. I'm in the market for a new bike and this is a Triumph Speedmaster and that's part of the Bonneville range and for all intents and purposes it is a bobber but it's got a little bit more of a practical side to it as well so let's jump on take it for a ride. I've only literally taken it around the corner from the dealership so pretty much my first time on this bike. Let's see what it's all about. The very first thing you'll notice is the keys, well they're down here but we can't see that there. The other thing you'll notice is that the controls, your feet, they're all the way out in front of you. This is Triumph's answer to Harley Davidson in some ways. This is about as cruisery as they get and we're spinning all over the place and although it is a little bit unusual having to get just used to having your feet out in front of you, I actually think it's something I could get used to pretty blimming quickly if I'm being honest. It's actually really comfortable so the reason I'm trying this bike out is I'm not just doing that YouTube thing of taking bikes out for first impressions rides and all that. There goes my mirror! I'm actually looking for a bike of this kind of style. I've been doing a bit of research and just trying to think of something where I've got a little bit of classic style but also something practical enough to take my girlfriend out, go down to the beach, have a little weekend away or something and the thing I love about this bike is that it can do all of those things. There used to be a bus lane, it's now a cycle lane so as you can see it's doing a great job of solving the pollution problems in London by making all the traffic stop while the cycle lane remains completely empty. So what Triumph have effectively done here is taken one of the least practical motorcycles in the world and they might just, they might just have somehow turned it into one of the most practical motorbikes in the world because this definitely feels like a bike that you can do some long miles on, it's very comfortable, you can get luggage on this one and of course the key difference between this and the Bobber itself is that you can take a passenger. It's got a subframe, it's got a passenger seat, it actually looks like quite a comfortable passenger seat. There's various options for it to change its profile and things like that but yeah there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't take this bike and actually you know go and tour on it and cruise a little bit have a bit of a long weekend away and uh you know treat it like a vehicle rather than a toy which considering this bike actually manages to hold on to most of its Bobber good looks it's kind of the best of both worlds and even sat here in London's horrendous traffic it's not getting hot i'm feeling relaxed i'm feeling chilled out even this flappy mirror isn't annoying me i think that's what i'm enjoying about this bike it's just very easy very very relaxing now a lot of people have complained about the suspension on these bikes being a little bit harsh and yeah look it's uh it is a little bit lumpy and bumpy now this road is horrendous yep suspension is a little bit a little bit rigid but it's to be expected it's got it's got monoshock on the has it got a monoshock it's quite bouncy the fueling is absolutely dreamy for a big 1200 oh that bottomed out it's either that or there's not much air in this tyre god that felt like it properly hit the rim anyway um oops yeah fueling as i say really nice considering it's a big punchy 1200 i'm actually going to go this way it's uh nice and smooth parallel twin so it doesn't have that v-twin kind of lumpiness to it they're definitely inherently just smoother engines but no the down in these uh lower rpms and all that off the line really nice lovely smooth clutch gearing seems quite tall as well well first gear certainly does he can seem to just burble around in first gear in these sort of 20 zones doesn't ask for second i swear that tire's low on air over that which is the nature of these massive marshmallows that we're riding on big old balloon tires on this bike look brilliant almost cartoonish and the cornering not bad either actually get it around the corner without touching too much metal down on the street come on mate come come on buddy you're welcome so we can just get through here you're going to let me go yes you are yep you can kind of squeeze through traffic no problem at all it's just starting to kick up a little bit of heat now we've been sat in traffic for a good half an hour or so but it's a hot day as well actually it's so easy just to you can literally just stand up on the bike between my legs brilliant the other interesting thing to note on this bike is despite it being a big old 1200 it's really quite quiet it's got a bit of a growl to it but yeah the stock pipes do a brilliant job of attenuating all the noise i don't mean i don't know what your opinion on that is whether you think it is brilliant or not but if you i suppose if you're doing bigger miles on a bike like this you don't want it to in your face and shouty all the flipping time i would definitely describe this bike as being on the more refined and sensible side of the cruiser market it's not loud and shouty it's not obnoxious it's kind of the uh the grown-up rebel the sensible the sensible bikers choice it doesn't have that kind of you know that slightly kind of aggressive gnarly kind of look and feel to it something a lot of cruiser riders like you know that harley market you know big aggressive loud v twins loads of vibes and rattle but uh you don't really get any of this on this bike it feels incredibly civilized very gentlemanly uh just very polite machine really it's not going to cause any outrage i mean you can barely hear it sounds like a scooter almost a little verbal to it but just just very very yeah very british i suppose let's pull up here and have a quick little look around the bike getting into neutral very easy keys i have to remember are down here right big old beast isn't it look at that so as you can see the only real difference between this bike and the the bobber as i said is is this rear section here so subframe and the tail that's set up for a pillion to take their place on everything else on this bike apart from the bars is a bobber black so that means got the twin discs rather than the standard uh original bobber which only had the single disc um but look at it it is absolutely beautiful it's got everything you want in terms of the look with a little bit of practicality thrown in as well it's liquid cooled so they've done a pretty good job of hiding that radiator i think it's not too big and chunky it's quite low profile um no no center stand that's a bit of a bit of a downer you've only got a side stand so you need to find some way of getting the back wheel up for your regular maintenance stuff but yeah and of course the engine cases are only in the uh brushed aluminium i think at the moment there's no black version of this you could get it powder coated if you wanted but actually quite quite like that it looks pretty good quality bit of kit that anyway let's jump back on finish up this test ride if you only have a key difference between this bike and the and the bobber is of course these these handlebars as well now they're not a massive deal if you don't like them it would take you minutes to change them out but i actually think they're really nice these kind of they call them the beach bars californian beach bar and uh they have a kind of swept back now looking at you're probably looking at this for you thinking they probably look a little bit uncomfortable it doesn't mean your wrist is bent slightly um and i suppose it is a bit but it's uh it's not uncomfortable by any stretch of the imagination it's not in fact it's quite the opposite it's incredibly comfortable it's a bit of a weird one because you you'd also think well does this change how you'd go around corners does it affect the bike's handling and honestly no i don't think so from what i've done so far it's uh despite its slightly awkward look pretty easy to get on with i'm not going to try and squeeze through not today nice little fuel cap sits on there and this one's got the new paint the split black and white i personally prefer the all black for me that's the one i would probably choose despite my full appreciation for this beautiful coach line that you've got down here apparently it's hand painted and signed as well by the person who did it very cool nice little touch i like that appreciate little things like that i'm getting hot ankles now your ankles are right next to the engine casing so picking up a little bit of heat where it stops not uncomfortable though trying to work out where the power really kicks in on this bike but there isn't a uh attack that i can see how do i get that up so yeah so it does have a rev counter but it's only a digital one and obviously that's virtue of the fact that it's a single clock up here uh i don't know how i feel about that actually i mean i quite actually quite like the single clock look almost vincent-esque but i think i'd probably prefer twin clocks to be honest so if i did get this bike it's a couple of little things i'd probably change i think things like the pegs and all that they could be changed up something a little bit nicer i want to do something with this or this cabling here let's try and get an inbar solution uh mirrors are okay they do their job quite a nice kind of chrome look to them i guess they are chrome plated probably would stick a pipe on it as well if i'm being completely honest apart from that i don't know i'm sure there's a whole plethora of goodies that i can get busy with you know what i'm like i'm a nightmare with this stuff would it need risers i don't know if it would actually if my hands were here i'm not sure about that i guess you can change the pitch of these bars slightly i feel pretty good where they are to be completely honest and then there's some other really nice things you can get for this bike i actually i've kind of been in love with this massive massive touring screen you can get for it it's huge it's proper like makes you look like a cop from miami massive great big touring screen so i might be tempted to stick something like that on it anyway for now i've got to give it back uh it's been a real pleasure taking you out on this little test ride sorry it hasn't been the most information packed video it's just yeah my first impressions but do let me know what you think of this bike down in the comments below and until the next one ride safe