Triumph Scrambler 1200 XE | First Ride

Welcome along guys, well it's a frosty December morning. I haven't ridden a bike for about three weeks. The last bike I rode was the H2, which was probably about three weeks ago I suspect. I'm out today because I have been loaned by Triumph UK the fantastic Scrambler 1200 XE. Now this is the twelve and a half thousand pound version, the XE version, not the XC version. This is more the upper class one for the posh people. There's a couple of extras on this machine worth a quick mention. First of all this one has the arrows, beautiful, gives it a lovely little tone. This one also has the upper mounted front mud guard in aluminium. Normally they're down here, that's mounted higher, looks way better like that. A few other little bits but we'll go through all that on the walk around. So for now, let's get the gloves on and let's head out. Dropsy, roll the intro. It's extremely slippery on this path. So this one, this bike also has the same instrument cluster which is on the Rocket 3. I'm a big fan of this instrument cluster, I know some people don't like it. I'm a bit of a fan. You've also got to pull the clutch before you start it, in the usual Triumph fashion. Just mounting the bike already I feel like Steve McQueen or James Bond. Of course there is a 007 version of this bike. This bike is going to be making an appearance in, I'm going to go left actually. Oh he dropped it already, oh my goodness it's quite heavy. I can tell I haven't ridden for a while, I'm a bit out of practice I feel. This bike is quite heavy, as I say I nearly lost it already. This is 207kg dry, so it's probably 220kg fuelled. How much road do you want love? See as I was trying to say before I nearly slipped off of her, this bike will be making an appearance in the new Bond movie. Whatever it's called, I can't remember, but 007 rides a Triumph, a blacked out one, so they've actually released a special edition of this bike. All black, 007 insignias on it, all sold out. I think there's only 250 globally and they've sold out already, but that was £18,500 and really that bike is exactly the same spec. It's an XE like this, but with some 007 trinkets on it. It's got the arrows, it's got that high level front mudguard, but yeah this is really the same spec as the £18,500 007 edition. Wish money penny. He always did have an inflated opinion of himself. Power, it's got some grunt, this is a 1200cc parallel twin 270 degree crank, so big bang crank if you like. It's 189 horsepower, 210 newton meters of torque. It's slightly down on power than the Speed Twin, even though this is the same engine that is in the Speed Twin. This has been tuned for more torque lower down the rev range. Maximum torque on this bike is I believe at 4,000 revs, whereas on the Speed Twin it's at 5,000 revs, so it's a bit lower, but the torque is lower down the rev range to give you more grunt. So for a scrambler, this type of style bike, that's what you want, grunt! So what about the Ergos, Chopsy? You've been on it 10 minutes, tell us how it feels to ride. Well, it's very comfortable. The seat feels nicely padded. It's, you know, it's just sat at that perfect position really. Very wide bars, really wide bars, a lot of leverage through those, and you feel quite low. My arse feels quite low to the ground. I'm not sure what the seat height is on this bike. I know they're not particularly small bikes. I'll flash it on the screen what the seat height is, but it doesn't feel overly tall. I mean, I'm six foot two, I'm 18 and a half stone, so I'm a big old unit. I can obviously touch the ground easily on this, but it doesn't feel like a tall bike. The arrows gives it a nice throb, nice throbbing exhaust note, but it's not massively loud. You know, these are like the street legal arrows, so they've got all the baffling in. They're fully street legal, so, you know, I'd like a bit more volume. That's not really quite enough volume for me, so maybe you can get those baffles out somehow. I know they normally just tack weld them in, so they are welded in, but just like with a tack weld, so you can bang them about. You can sometimes even pull them out. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. I am on a triumph. Just call me Daniel Craig. Let's go this way. Morning. Yes, I know I'm very cool. I know I feel cool. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. Yes, I know, it's cool, isn't it? That's one thing about this bike, you just do feel cool riding it. Oh, we're getting mucky. Oh, I'm getting sprayed in my face with muck as well. Are you clean? Or have you been splattered? This is, this is ----. This is, this is excrement on the road. This is, the farmers have been excrementing up the field and it's all over this road. It stinks. Oh, oh my word. And because they've got the high mud guard, it's spraying off the front wheel and coming up here. Oh, I haven't covered you in excrement, have I? There we go, I think we're past it now. All sprayed up my legs. Bloody lovely. So tell me Q, what extras does this old girl have? Well, I've been informed by Q Division that the XC version, the XC version has an IMU, which the XC version doesn't. This one's IMU'd up. The bigger longer travel suspension. You've got an extra off-road mode as well on the XC. You have a, what's that there? I think that's off-road there. I'm not going that way. On the XC, you have, um, a rider mode where you can, I think it's called off-road pro, which is either one where you can turn off the traction control fully, or you can just turn it off on the rear. It's also got a horn. What mode are we in? Let's go for sport, sport with traction control, map sport. Yeah, we'll have a bit of that. It's got a good bit of shove, a real good bit of bit of torque on it. I do love a torquey bike. The engine actually feels, even though it's a parallel twin, because of that 270 degree crank, it's got a real V-twin sort of nature to it. There's a few little vibes when you, when you start to rev it a little bit, I can feel a bit of vibe through the seats. Not excessive. There's also a little bit of vibration in the, uh, in the grips, the end of the bars, because they're quite, you know, because it's quite a wide bar, I guess it's amplified because it's a wide bar as well. There's a little bit of vibes there, but it's nothing to worry about. It's no worse than, say, the Africa Twin, you know, another twin, or any other parallel twin, basically. I'd say it's no worse than any of those other parallel twins from a vibration perspective. I must say, with a high mudguard, it is like a dirt bike. You get a lot of water coming up over you. So, I think if you're going to ride one of these all year round, even though that high mudguard looks fantastic from a practical perspective, or, you know, weather protection perspective, I don't think it's the best option. If there's water on the roads, like there is today, you go over sort of 30 miles an hour, and that starts spraying up into your face. And let's be honest, nobody likes a golden shower. Well, unless you're TMF. Yes, well, you get your clothes on, and I'll buy you an ice cream. Yeah, there's definitely less at the top of the rev range. Let's see where the main, where it feels like you've got sort of the most drivability from the engine. As you rev it, it runs out of puff, unlike, you know, the Thruxton RS, which I borrowed and I loved from earlier on in the year. That kept on pulling right to the rev line, red line. This, you can see, is definitely tuned for lower down, and as you rev it, it's almost like, why am I revving it? I might as well change gear. It's that sort of feel, because everything's at the bottom. So this is 2,000 revs. That's where you've got it. That's where the power is. Let's put it down. So third gear, 2,000 revs, just over. Yeah, that's where it's got the grunt. That's your rideable rev range, I would say. It's probably from 1,000 revs to 4,000 revs. That's the sweet spot. Handling on the road, actually, it's got quite a nice feel to it for a bike which is obviously set up to do a bit of both. It's obviously a bit of a compromise, but on the road, if it wasn't quite as slippery and treacherous as this, it slid a bit then, the actual handling feels really well planted and actually rather nice. Quite well weighted. Suspension is also lovely and supple for going over all these bumps and stuff. It's not hard, it feels supple. There we go, just bang on over here. We'll do a walk around here, shall we? Might as well, aren't we? Good as any, innit? I love bikes where it's easy to find neutral. There's nothing more frustrating than a bike that when you stop, you've got to paddle up and down on the gear lever trying to find neutral. It's a pet hate of mine. I hate that. And there's a lot of new bikes out there these days which are like that. You'd think things like that would be things of the past, but there's a lot of new bikes where it's very hard to find neutral. The Triumph's really nice gearboxes, very easy to find neutral. All the Suzuki's are always the same. The gearboxes on Suzuki's are beautiful, really easy to find neutral. BMW's can be tricky, Kawasaki's can be tricky, my H2's a bit tricky to find neutral. I love a nice gearbox. Top marks on the gearbox, Triumph. There she is. How good does she look sat there? That sun there. I mean, these bikes look amazing. I think, honestly, I think it's the best looking scrambler. I prefer it to the look of the Ducati scramblers. I think Triumph have really nailed it as far as the looks are concerned on this, especially like this high mudguard. Yes, it may not be the most practical of things when you're getting covered in water if you're out in weather like this, but it looks 10 times better than the lower mounted mudguard. This one, let's just go through some of the extras I think this bike's got. Obviously the arrows are non-standard carbon tipped arrows. I'm not too sure you can get those baffles out actually, and obviously I'm not going to try now. This one has the sort of headlight guard. Stopped getting chips on the head guard for off-road. It also has the nice LED indicators, the optional LED indicators. I think the radiator guard will be an optional extra on this as well. I think that's all the options on this machine. Standard both versions have the M50 brakes, so really, really good braking on these. Shower, upside down, forks, fully adjustable. The rears are an Ohlins unit, as I say, on the XE. A bit longer, a bit bigger, more travel. Another fantastic thing about the Triumph is the quality of paint finish. Paint finish is really, really nice and I'm pleased to see a Triumph with a, you know, an interesting colour scheme. A nice metallic blue. Also has the strap, you know, the detailing of the strap over the tank, metal strap. It's just there for looks, don't think it does anything. And then the fuel cap, you've got a conventional sort of key cap. But the great with the Triumphs again is, as this bike's keyless, you can just leave, this is locked at the moment, but you could just leave that unlocked. Who steals petrol these days? I've never heard of anyone having petrol stolen in years. But you see, you can leave that unlocked, you don't have to get the key out to open the fuel tank and you don't have to worry about having a keyless fuel tank, fuel cap. I hate keyless fuel caps because they malfunction. What are you going to do? Another thing the XE version has is the MCS master cylinder, the Brembo master cylinder, where you can adjust the capacity of the, of the, of the, uh, the piston. Well, the fluid in the actual master cylinder to adjust the brake feel. So you can twiddle that little twiddler and you can adjust the brake feel. Let's power her up. Good morning, rider. Oh, they've not even customised it for me. They put good morning Richie on when Richie had one. They've not bothered with mine. Now you've got all the info on here about your fuel range. I can't find outside air temperature, but I think it's one of those bikes where there's so much info on here, you just have to go through and play around with it all until you find out everything. So I'll have a play around with that and I'll see what else we can discover. Right, let's hit the road again. I love that grunt. I love that shove it's got. Oh, it's going to be fun. It's going to be great fun. Three weeks riding around on this scrambler and I will take it off road and I'll do a couple of other videos on it as well. Why not? It's nice to have something to ride in the winter because, uh, I want to get on the dirt again. I will be borrowing some enduro bikes at some point. KTM, Husqvarna, they've all, all their bikes aren't ready yet. So I don't know, it must be due to COVID. You know, they're just, I don't know if it's the manufacturing delays, but all of their 2021 press fleet is still not here. So they're the main bikes I tend to borrow during the winter. There's also going to be some gas gas bikes as well because of course KTM owns gas gas now as well. So we should be able to get on one of the new gas gas range. Also I'm speaking to Honda UK and I've got myself an Africa Twin for January. I've only ever ridden the Africa Twin briefly in short stints. I've got that for the whole of January. So I'm going to do a few videos on that. Take it for a bit of a trip. Maybe I'll pop up north to see Richie if we can with the lockdown and everything, if we're not trapped in our houses for the whole winter. So I've got the Africa Twin for a month. I'm also hoping to get on the new CRF300. Again speaking to Honda and as soon as they've got a CRF300 available, we'll take that out for some laning and we'll see, you know, if that bike does everything you need it to do on the budget for just doing green lanes. Do you need to spend seven, eight thousand pounds on a proper hardcore enduro? Can you make do with five grand, six grand, whatever it is, for a CRF300? And the big thing with that bike is, of course, maintenance intervals. Six thousand miles, not six hours. So that's a massive difference. So CRF300, let's see what she's like off-road. But there we go guys, thanks for watching as always. Have a good Christmas. I'll be out on this bike again quite a bit. I've got this for three weeks to play on, so I'm quite excited. I've got this the whole Christmas period. So I'll be out messing about on this again. So if you're not already subscribed, press the subscribe button, tick that bell. We will get this bike off-road as well, I promise. Nothing too serious, but it's going to go for a bit of laning. And yeah, so I'll catch you next time. If I don't speak to you before, have a fantastic Christmas. If this video comes out after Christmas, then I hope you had a good one. And I will see you later guys. And take care, ride safe, enjoy yourself as best you can when you're locked in your houses, or if you're, you know, a lot of Germany's gone into lockdown again, you know, it's a nightmare this. But try and make the best of it, have fun, be merry, and I will see you soon. See you later guys. This is power level one, which is full power. I could do that all day. What have you done here? I told you I was scared back there. I've never dropped a bike before in my life. Listen to this. Never mind, get veered up. Give me this any day of the week.