How I Took My Triumph Tiger 900 Rally From Stock To BEAST Episode 2

Welcome back everybody to episode two of our Tiger 900 build and in the last episode we added some serious load carrying capabilities. In this one though I want to take this plain black Tiger 900 Rally and just make it look a little more snazzy. All right I'm out. Now a massive thanks to Hex Innovate for supporting the channel and sponsoring this video and on this particular build we're using their Easy Can product but more on that later. One second though before we start with some of the aesthetic modifications it's time to address a little bit of a balls up from last time round. We were going to change the exhaust thanks to Leovince who sent out their Tiger 900 slip-on but I ordered the one for the more recent version of the Tiger 900 that's Euro 5 plus compliant. It's got a completely different link pipe as we found out and so thankfully they've sent out the right one and so it's time to stick it on and see what this does for the acoustics of what's already a great sounding bike. Now a slip-on swap like this is relatively straightforward with a couple of bolts to remove to slide the old one off. Quick cursory glance at the instructions. More parts Tim than I think I was expecting there. Is that more than you would expect? Yeah. It looks relative. We'll get it right don't worry. So on goes the new link pipe then the silencer attached to the original mount point with its carbon band and then it's just the heat shields to put back on. Then out comes the baffle of course and we're ready for a sound check. Rate it Tim? I mean I could literally feel it through my feet so I'm going to say it's pretty good. That's an upgrade okay. So next up we're going to look at jazzing the bike up a bit and I've gone with this kit from SKDA. This is bought not gifted or sponsored and I think it could represent a pretty good value for money way to substantially change the look of your bike. We did a modification series on the Bonneville and had it re-sprayed. That was quite expensive and I guess also with this adventure genre of bike you get a little bit more protection as well so you could swap them in in good shape. First up though we need to get these old crash bars off and the lights off. We're going to replace those with some new SW Motec stuff and then also prep where the stickers are going make sure it's nice and clean so we get a good adhesion. And so the old fog lights come off with relative ease apart from the previous owner's infatuation with cable ties and then it's on to crash bar removal. This will be a couple of bolts we thought but for one the crash bars themselves make the bolts awkward to access. Oh my god this is gonna take ages mate. There's not much space. Are you filming this? Yeah it's a war of attrition. We'll either leave them on or hey. And for two well they're right behind the front wheel which means loads of road spray and therefore they're prone to seizing. One careful previous owner by the way sneakily on these crash bars put some, I mean this isn't the best disguise is it Tim? Bit of black electrical tape on it and it's got a little bit of gravel rash there so maybe the bike's been down at some point but not heavily. That looks like standstill doesn't it? That's like it's a bit tall for me I better sell it kind of job because I dropped it in the car park. I'll go get a coffee while you do the next. Well it's actually asymmetrical so joke's on you. Maybe I'll get a good angle on this one. Nah. So out come the big guns cutting off the bars which gives us a little more room for maneuver with a trusty old bicycle seat tube which has got me out of a few similar situations over the years. What is that? Was that in the bars? Yeah. I thought I'd cut through the coolant pipe. Don't know if there's anything more disgusting than bog water. Let's assume it's been through a few puddles. What looked like a 10 minute job became an hour and 10 minutes but it's the challenges that are all part of the fun aren't they? I'm not sure Tim agrees after filming me cursing for a solid hour but anyway onwards and upwards. I'm just trying to find all the right parts now. We just gave it a little bit of prep with some good cleaning products and then just trying to figure out what goes where. I might not fit all of these Tim because I think it might look a little over the top. If you were doing it purely for protection I think it's good to fit as many as possible but I'm just going to mainly do the ones on the side panels, the tank, the front beak here just to give it a bit of a different look. There's some for the front mudguard and this side part and the side of the battery tray there that I'm not that fussed about but we can always start with the, I think you said Tim, I'm just saying what you said back to you aren't I? You said start with the ones you know you want and then we'll make a call and see how it looks. So yeah, nice clean surface to make sure it sticks well, a little bit of heat gun might be handy and a whole dollop Tim of patience which would you say that's my strong suit? Be honest. You're a little rash, you're a little rash. A moment of patience and meditation. All right let's go. What are you doing? We literally just watched a video on this. You've done nothing that you just said to do. Just going to go your own way so cavalier. You're going to be sorry when this looks brilliant. Now I think my main tips for fitting a kit like this would be to be prepared to remove panels to get a good fit. It's definitely worth the two minutes of wrenching to give you full access to some of the parts and the other is to get comfortable with the heat gun especially where the corners are concerned. It doesn't need a lot but a little bit of heat can help to stretch it over some of the contours and also work some of those bothersome bubbles right to the edge. Truthfully though I wouldn't say we absolutely nailed every line on this bike. There's definitely a knack to this but on the whole I think not a bad job especially on the first time of asking. This is definitely starting to have an impact on the look of the bike. Are we liking it Tim? Yeah. I think it looks pretty smart. I think there are definitely going to be trade-offs with this sticker kit. There are some gaps that are not consistent partly down to perhaps the experience of the particular fitter in this instance. Part of that is just the nature of sticker kits that you'll have these lines where it needs to fold and you will see a little bit of the original paint work so I think you've got to find something that matches the base coat of your bike. Thankfully mine's black so it looks all right but you know if we painted this bike the thing that's really difficult with adventure bikes is you've just got so many panels that if you want a custom look you've got a lot of stuff to paint. For example on the Bonnie like I say I think for a new tank like that with a little bit of detail you're looking at four, five, six hundred quid nowadays so you can imagine if you try to do something similar to an adventure bike like this it's going to be, I would imagine anyway, a grand and above whereas this is 228 quid I think at the moment and then realistically four, five, six hours to fit yourself if you want to do a good job and so I think when you consider the cost it's just a great way to give your bike a new look. Right this is the part of this particular episode that I've been really looking forward to and it's time to install these Lone Rider motorcycle lights. Now of course when you're using the bike for working you're filtering, you're doing u-turns, you're parking the bike in lay-bys and things like that and so for me the more visible it is the safer and the better and they've got a whole bunch of extra functionality which we're going to control and explore with the Hex Easy Can so we'll get into that in a moment. I have fitted some new crash bars from SW Motec, not as expansive let's say as the ones that were on it before but they do give a little bit of protection on the side here and ultimately we're not really building a hardcore off-roader more of a utilitarian camera bike and so these should do the job nicely. It does mean though that we don't have anywhere on the bars to mount these lights and so we've gone with a little under the nose bracket which came with some of the SW Motec stuff so it's time to get these on the front there and then we'll show you how to configure them. So on go the motorcycle lights I might neaten up those brackets later but I will say overall it's looking pretty clean from the front end and it's definitely going to help to bring up those visibility levels. Oh do you want to get the satisfying oh beast mode well it actually has a beast mode you know that the Lone Rider rides. Lights sorry. And how does that look? I think it'll probably blind you but it's for like trail riding you know at night. You want to test it in here? I don't look at it. You'll land the plane with the back up. We've routed the cables over the radiator behind the side panels and then along the frame and then to under the seat where the Hex EasyCan is located and it's just a question then of plug and play. That means it's time to hook up my laptop to the EasyCan software with a USB cable and get them properly set up and configured. So like I say it's just a case of plugging a USB cable into the back of the EasyCan up there and then fire up the software and you can see all the different settings for these particular lights although there are other accessories that are plug and play with the EasyCan that's the whole point as an accessories manager. But let's have a look at some of the features of these Lone Rider lights. We've got the DRLs around the outside you can set those to either amber as you can see now or white for a more traditional sort of fog light look and you can also change the intensity of these so you can have them whacked up to 100 or anywhere in between. Now these have a few settings so you can flash them with the turn signals so stick on your indicator and it kind of doubles up and also you've got a feature where when you put the hazards on it kind of inverts them so again extra visibility if you do need to stick the bike by the road. Now when you've got the bike in low beam or dip you can also add in some of the bigger LEDs on these lights so I'll turn these up to about 10 percent again adds to the visibility and you can also get these to switch off when you do put the indicator on so it helps to make the DRL part that's now part of the indicator a little bit more visible again. Now there's a couple of other settings for these wide lights so you can strobe them on the horn and you can also tap four times on your flash button on the main switch gear here and it'll give you some extra flashes on those lights so if you do want to grab someone's attention while you're filtering or coming through then they'll probably do the trick. As for full beam well you can change the intensity on here you can also link the wide and narrow beams you can do speed blending as well so they try and project further ahead above a certain speed which you can set in the extra settings and also you've got the ability to tie in the bike switch gear the turn signal cancel in order to switch the lights on and off. I'm not going to do that though because I've got Hex's own easy switch which is an extra button that you just plug and play again it zip ties onto the bars there and I've got that set up in the software here to be linked to the motorcycle light so you can switch them on and off with that and it's just super impressive this whole system that's super simple to set up no splicing into the bike's existing wiring so it's simple to install but also you're not gonna put your warranty in jeopardy on your nice new adventure bike so it's a brilliant product like I say it doesn't just work with these lights it can manage sat navs and you know heated gear other lights from other manufacturers and many more items so do have a look down in the description below to find out more and once again a massive thanks to Hex for their support and making this build possible. Anyway I think on to some finishing touches now. So first up we're upgrading the radiator guards with the standard plastic ones making way for the official aluminium accessories standard fit on the rally pro but optional on this rally version and then we took off the old sump guard which is about as protective as a serviette. Safe to say mate that's more of a finisher than it is any serious protection don't you think? On with something more hefty from SW Motec slightly awkward to get it fitted but worth it in the end and it gives it a more substantial look as well as the extra resilience under the belly. Often think of my role as a documentarian in the same way that nature documentaries. Oh don't get involved. Don't get involved it's uh you think you're being kind but ultimately. He's struggling but it's unethical to help him. Exactly yeah. Up top we've got a guard for the headlight which Tim reckons looks a bit like a pair of specs. Tim says it looks like that glasses on the end of the nose and he's just popping up a bit. Hang on. I don't know. I think that's all right mate now that it's not because it's reading glasses. Oh looks mean. And then a tinted windscreen and deflectors from power bronze which i think is actually one of my favorite visual mods we've made so far. Very nice. Then it's time to focus on the cockpit. We've removed the old Barkbuster hand guards got rid of the standard and slightly tatty looking mirrors and the stock levers also make way for something a little more special. These levers from ASV, one of our partners, are amazing in terms of how they function. They give you more adjustability. You get a five-year guarantee as well. The look of them, the way they're made, the precision of it, the details on them, I think is fantastic too. But with these ones specifically I actually got them on the Bonneville launch with Triumph last year in December. We went out to California and I was actually lucky enough to get time to go out with Bob the founder and CEO and inventor as well at ASV and he gave them to me to bring home for this particular build. So these are straight from ASV in California and not only will they make it look better, feel better, ride better but a cool memory as well. So next up back on with the hand guards with a sturdy support from SW Motec that's going to give you knuckles a bit of protection and then some sleek looking covers for a bit of windchill reduction on the motorway. The cockpit is topped off with the Motec sports mirrors, a really premium build on those, very nice indeed and I will say the shape ties in nicely with some of the other SW Motec stuff like the hand guards. Do you want to do the honors? Can I do it? Yeah, I'll shoot you. You enjoy this mate. Oh so satisfying. Smudge. Now you can run these with some mirror extenders which we did try out but I think for someone of my moderate height let's say they're not really necessary and I also think it looks a little bit cleaner without so we've just gone with the mirrors straight into the mounts there. Finishing touches included some new heel guards, a larger footprint for the side stand and Motec's awesome looking Evo footrests which have a huge surface area, a chunky build, removable rubbers and I think most impressive of all an adjustable position through many increments and so you can get them dialed in for the exact sort of riding that you like to do. So that my friends is that and so the only thing left is to get her outside in the sun for some b-roll. What a transformation, a massive thanks to SW Motec in particular for sending out so many parts, not a sponsor of this series but very generous of them indeed. I think I said in the first episode if you want to see this bike in the flesh and you're in the UK, we'll have it on the SW Motec stand at ABR this year, ABR festival and so do swing by if you want to see this bike and also the Bonnie with a few future mods that we've got planned. There's more to come on this one, we've got a bit of a tech video, we've got a video about camera mounts as well so if you want to see more of what we do with the Tiger 900 then do hit subscribe. Another thanks to Hex for supporting the channel, sponsoring this video and series. Massive thanks for watching today and we'll see you in the next video.