250 Miles with the Triumph Bonneville T120 Ace

Well it's a stunning day in England and I've got some things I need to sort out over on the coast so I'm going to be riding from southeast London over to the coast back again and then I've got to come back into central London early tomorrow morning so that's about 250 miles or so in the next 24 hours so I'm going to take you with me because this is a great opportunity to test out the T120 on a big range of different boats. New versus my 2010. This new one may be so much better and more superior than my old 865 in every aspect but you still see the similarities very clearly. Triumph stayed so true to the original design of the Bonneville but I hope with the T120 today because I've got my quad lock fitted there but on my 865 I've got the wireless charger and I'm really hoping that because this is a 2019 model there may be a USB port built in so I'm going to see if that's the case and hopefully hook up my phone so I can charge it on this first leg of the journey. If anyone knows if there's a USB port on the T120 please do let me know because I can't find it. I gotta lay down, think I've done enough for today, did what I had to do and this is enough for me that is pretty good going 56.3 mpg and I love the fact it's got this fuel gauge so you can see exactly how much fuel you've got left in the tank this is it first fuel stop about 60 miles to go good going so far and look look at what we've just stumbled across this brilliant looking old petrol station and this for sale Francis Barnett motorbike I've never heard of that Francis let me just check that yeah Francis Barnett wow incredible and then a couple of classic old Triumphs over there as well really special place and the weather's holding out where it's doing more than holding out today what a day I love finding places like this little motorcycle dealership repair shop because we usually take the motorway which is half a mile that side and we do it twice a month but we never come on this road because we don't usually turn off motorways and this is you just don't get it anymore in England old school motorcycle kind of semi-dealership they've got three vintage bikes there as well as a service shop we just saw a man who pulled in with his java it turns out to be a 2018 java it looks like it's about 50 years old or something I didn't even realize they sold them in the UK but apparently one place does so he's pulled in there if you've got quirky bikes this is the place so we've just arrived at monica's mum's allotment and behind us is something I haven't seen in a while our old trailer that we took with the Fiat from London 5000 mile tour of Europe and because it's aluminium look at that no rust nothing it looks looks almost like it's being washed it's in such good condition we've just stopped for a coffee and in the past week or so since I've had the overlap of the Scout Bobber and the T120 I've never been stopped so much on any bike as I have with these two I was in London dropping actually funnily enough dropping off the T120 for a photo shoot for the gentleman's journal and they needed it what a perfect bike for it dropped that off in London and I was riding back with the T120 three guys just waved me down stopped me asked for their photos to be taken on the bike and now we're at the waterfront in Ipswich a couple of miles away guy comes over to us actually pulls over his car comes back walks back to us just to have a look at the bike I think it's just about even the Scout Bobber and the T120 it's just the interest they generate is off the scale so the 1200 engine compared to the 900 engine in the street twin or the T100 if you put the T120 lined up next to the T100 and they've got three miles of beautiful winding roads and they've got a race but it's a real world race so you could have a pedestrian that you've got to look out for or some loose gravel on the ground the T120 it won't leave the T100 or the street twin in real roads it won't leave it but where I found the difference to be is that if you're in third gear on the T120 doing 20 miles an hour it's got so much grunt that it will give you a proper surge in power even at 20 miles an hour in third gear however if you're on the T100 or the street twin you have to drop down you have to drop down from third gear to second to get that real surge in power so you have to be a bit more mindful of the gear you're in to get the most out of the 900 engine and that for me in my mind is the reality of the difference on real roads between the 1200 and the 900 it just gives you more flexibility because it's got so much extra grunt I spent the past week and a half trying to find some negatives in the interest of impartiality because in my mind now this is pretty much my dream bike but I have to try and be impartial so I found what I think is my first negative and that is the front mudguard see in my mind this should be metal maybe aluminium but it's actually plastic and I really would love to have seen that in some kind of metal and one other point the throttle when you're committing to a corner and you're managing your throttle you want to power out of the corner a bit it's quite it's a little bit snatchy the throttle just a little bit so for example going around the bend throttle on it's it's not a very very smooth throttle off and then gradually on it's a very definite jerk when you give it some throttle even if you try and give it the lightest possible throttle and what that means if there's gravel on the road or if it's a bit wet I am a bit mindful that oh I don't want the back end to slip out because it gives you a very sudden jolt of throttle so I'm really clutching at straws here I'm trying my best to find something negative maybe that could be a bit smoother the throttle response just initially but I'm struggling to find anything negative well it's only about eight degrees today and I'll be riding back actually and it's going to drop to about three and the last time that I rode back this exact journey it was two degrees and I had the Royal Enfield Himalayan and I was close to tears it was so cold I had to stop about six times and it was almost unbearable I considered just sleeping on the side of the road so this time though the big difference I've got heated grips and these are a game changer so I'm really really hoping that's going to save me otherwise there's there are going to be some tears later but the gear for today next XG100 helmet I really like this I've had it about two months looks great but this is a good thing fully removable armor but just with velcro take the whole thing up put it in the normal wash with normal clothes 40 degrees absolutely fine Garibaldi heritage jacket you may remember I wore a Triumph Beck II jacket there's twice the price of this and also twice the weight but this is a brilliant value version it's super warm even down to about freezing and it's got removable liner and it's got a classic heritage look which ones are these these are the Hood Jeans SK11s which I've shown you before and then these are the Steel Martin UROX really like these boots and that's it this hopefully hopefully will keep me warm this evening it's three degrees I've got thermals, jeans, waterproofs on and this Garibaldi jacket is 100% waterproof and windproof so I really hope I'll be okay with this but I've got 80 miles to get back to London here goes well that's it journey done couldn't have been easier those heated grips they just transform cold riding so it's three degrees riding at 70 to 80 miles an hour and it was 80 miles to get home and I get off the bike and my hands completely fine no feeling of cold at all no having spent 10 to 15 minutes trying to warm them up if I'm ever lucky enough to buy a new bike I'm specking it with heated grips well it's the next morning in central London I did about 250 miles yesterday this morning at 7am I went into London done about 20 miles so far I'm just about to head home but before I do I checked what the mpg was for this 135 miles that I've done on the tank so far and the average mpg for all types of riding was 56 which I actually think is pretty good it's about 10 mpg more than my 865 so I think that's very respectable but in general it's just a supreme bike it does everything in its stride and it's going to be really hard giving this back in about a week or so but that's it I'm about to get kitted out helmet on head home but thank you so much for watching this vlog please do give the video a like subscribe to the channel if you can and leave a comment what are your thoughts on the t120 I'll see you soon