3 Year Triumph Street Triple R Ownership Review

If you want to commute, if you want to do track days, if you also want to adventure ride, if you want to cruise, and if you're just kind of a rider that's all over the place and you just want to try a whole bunch of different types of riding and you really haven't decided which one you want to focus if ever, I think this is a great bike for that. So it has been three years that I've had this bike. I got it in March 2018 after test riding over 10 bikes in 2017, finding out that Triumphs were the smoothest bikes I had ever ridden, and realizing that this was the zippiest, smoothest, most fun little bike I found. Now it's been three years. This is a 2014 Triumph Street Triple R, 675cc. Triumph discontinued the 675 engine and switched to 765, which I have also test ridden. I test rode that last year. I'll talk a little bit about that later, but you can see that review video right down below. I didn't have my audio recorder when I rode that bike. It uh, I ran over it before I could test ride that bike, so I had to talk about it after the fact. I wanted to make an update video on this bike because since my last review video on it, I have since raised it back to stock height, taken it to a track day, started commuting with it, and test ridden its replacement, the 765 engine. The 675 engine was discontinued in 2017, and so now it's just the 765 if you want to go brand new. So I'll tell you what I think of this bike now, the mods I've done on it, the cons for this bike, and the big question. Is it time for me to upgrade? And if I did, what would I get? And my priority when I first got it was mountain riding. That is my absolute favorite riding ever, and it still is. Unfortunately, I just don't have time anymore on the weekends to do as many mountain rides as I used to, so that's why last year I started commuting with my bike. So what I like about this bike over other bikes in this similar cc range, the Street Triple R is probably one of the lightest 600 to 700 cc sport bikes you can get, and I can tell you it's definitely and this is just a triumph thing, it's definitely the smoothest. It's also just really flickable and nimble. I think because it has a shorter wheelbase than other bikes in this cc range, but at least for curvy mountain roads, I found that it's just really nimble and flickable. I do have a friend that does a lot of track days, and she's done them on the Street Triple RS, the race version of this bike. I'm on kind of the middle range version, the R, and she says that it is harder to get her knee down on her Triumph than it is her Kawasaki 600. Now, I've only done one track day on this bike. There's only so much time, and when I have had the time to do a big riding day, I've chosen to go up to the mountains. If you're looking for your first bike, people will often say that you should stay in low cc range for your first bike. I think the only reason that is is because it's a matter of discipline. If you're a disciplined rider and you're not going to go above your skill level, then you'll be fine with a higher cc bike. Otherwise, some people just aren't disciplined, and sometimes it's not just a matter of discipline, it's just a matter of accident. Like, this bike is really twerky. The first time I rode a Street Triple R, I had just ridden a Honda Grom and a Suzuki S40 Boulevard, and it's one cylinder. So, when I first got on it, it was so twerky, I felt like I almost fell back in my seat. I was test riding a girlfriend's bike, Kate. She told me to start with it in second gear so that I wouldn't be so surprised. Which was good advice. What I really like about this bike is that it's a great bike if you're a rider who wants to try a whole variety of riding styles. Some people are pretty exclusive in their riding, whether it's in-town cruising, or track days, or mountain riding, or adventure riding, or commuting. I really like to do a little bit of a lot of things, so this bike has been great for that. If you want to commute, if you want to do track days, if you also want to adventure ride, if you want to cruise, and if you're just kind of a rider that's all over the place, and you just want to try a whole bunch of different types of riding, and you really haven't decided which one you want to focus on, if ever, I think this is a great bike for that. It's dippy and twerky, and it is technically a sport bike, a naked sport bike. Some people are going to argue with me about that, but I just go with what the nada guy says. Then you can take it to the track, and if you want to just cruise, it's pretty upright for a sport bike, especially the base model, which is the S, I think. I'm on the R, and then the more aggressive version is the RS, but even the R is probably one of the most upright sport bikes I've been on, so it's pretty comfortable. Your knees do bend at less than a 90 degree angle, so if you have any knee problems, or if you're a very tall man who doesn't do yoga, it's probably not going to be comfortable for you, but I am a 32 year old girl who likes to stretch until it hurts pretty consistently, so for me it's really comfortable, and I've also just cruised on it many times, and I have taken it on some weekend trips, and of course you do have to do some modifications to make it work as a more adventure type bike, like add some saddle bags or a tail bag. I don't have any handlebar guards, that would be great. I just use battery powered gloves right now, so that's probably my favorite thing about this bike is how versatile it is, especially if you're kind of like an all over the place kind of rider like I am. I just want to do a lot of different types of riding. Now I'll tell you about the mods, and then I'll tell you about the cons I have of this bike. So some of the mods I've done on this bike, I haven't actually done any visual mods. They've all been for either function or drop protection, so I added the windscreen pretty much when I first got it, and I've added plenty of drop protection. I've added spools on the back so that I could lift it up on a pit bull rear stand, and when I first got it, I did lower this bike, but I've since raised it back to stock height now that I realized all I had to do to be stable was put one foot down instead of two, and then some other tricks to back it in and out of parking spots and move it around that just weren't intuitive. But now that I know those things, it's really easy for me to handle even though I tiptoe on it. So it is light enough that, mostly guys, I think you don't need to have the proper skill to lift it. You can probably just figure it out with some upper body strength, but for me, I do, if I'm rusty on how to properly lift it, I won't be able to. So that's probably one of my personal cons. That and also the stock mirrors, at least on this old one, are not adjustable, which I don't understand why some side mirrors are not adjustable. That's just crazy to me. I think how insignificant those cons are just shows you how much I really love this bike. I'm really just looking for cons for the sake of having them in this video. And now the final question is, do I want to upgrade? And if so, what would I get? So that's a loaded question. Probably the only thing that I miss with this bike is that it doesn't really have off-road capabilities. So if I got another bike, I wouldn't want to, instead of replacing this, I might want to get a bike that I could go off-road on. And I have toyed with the idea of an adventure bike, but I would want to go to California and learn from Jocelyn Snow about handling big adventure bikes properly. Unless Triumph comes up with a smaller adventure bike version, like the Honda CB500X, because right now I think all they have is the Tiger 800. That's their smallest adventure bike, which is the same engine as this bike. It's just a different chassis. Chassis? Chassis? I don't know. We'll see. Now, if you want to see more reviews on the newest Triumph, other Triumphs, this Triumph, or other bikes, just click this playlist right over here. And if you're new to this channel and want to see what else this talk show of this channel is about, you can click right over here, and I will see you in the next one. Oh my gosh, look at that man!