2021 Triumph Trident Review | Wayne likes it

Triumph Trident Review

Are Triumph ready to shake up the entry level segment? Well, If my time on board the new Trident 660 is anything to go by – you better believe they are. The bike is a cracker. And comes very sharply priced.

Seriously fun for both entry level riders and those with more miles under their belts. We peddled pretty hard up Mt Baw Baw and came away grinning like clowns. I’m sure there’s a line about a LAMS bike being a wolf in sheep’s clothing here, because I doubt we would have been much quicker, ridden as easily, or had more fun on anything else up that road. It proves once and for all that spec sheets aren’t everything. This bike will dent some sports bike owners egos… you’ve been warned.

Let’s take a step back before I get too carried away – what are we talking about here? Well it’s a low(ish) capacity modern-retro naked bike which scrapes in as learner legal thanks to a bit of electronic limiting.

Triumph calls it a roadster. If you think of it as a classically styled, slightly softer and more user friendly version of the street triple you’re probably not far off.

At its heart is a new 660 cc triple with 53 hp (40 kw) and more importantly 59 Nm of torque. It comes with a classy round TFT dash, ABS, Traction control (which you can disable), a dry and a rain mode that are easily switched over – modes are found by one press of a button and switched with the press of another.

The dash allows integration into the Triumph app for phone, music, turn by turn nav as well as go-pro controlling if that’s your thing. The engine is mechanically identical to the full sauce non LAMS version that is available overseas – it’s just limited electronically. Mostly above midrange. In fact I’d suggest it’s probably only limited above mid-range… but more on that in a bit.

The whole package is nicely styled and well finished with quality materials and an excellent build. It’s quite a compact unit and feels much lighter than the 189 kg wet weight would suggest. That figure surprises me actually. I’d have guessed it was at least 20 kegs lighter than that. It’s wrapped up in a tidy tubular steel chassis, with Showa USD forks up front and a preload adjustable shock in the rear.

For stopping power – twin piston Nissins that grab onto a pair of 310 mm discs do the job up front with a single piston unit on the rear. Comes in four tasty colours too (the ‘Silver Ice and Diablo Red’ scheme gets my vote – I like the big logo on the tank).

I dig the styling too. I’ve always been partial to that short overhang tail styling, but you’ll find a lot of other nice design touches the more you look. Repetitions of shapes and surfaces here and there which bring it all together as a cohesive unit with nice clean lines.

Plenty of little things about it such as the simplicity of the headlight mount but there are numerous other nice details to spot as you’re poring through the pics. And nothing looks like it’s trying too hard, everything just looks bang on.

Swing a leg over and you instantly get a feel for the the bike’s size. It’s small, with a nice, user friendly low seat height of 805 mm. It’s not cramped though, in fact there’s plenty of room somehow (I’m six foot fwiw). And as I mentioned earlier – it feels light.

Comfy enough seat, firm without being hard – my buttometer approved after a couple of long days in the saddle. Switchgear feels good quality, good feel. Nice dash design too controlled by simple enough buttons on the left hand side. Traction control de-activation is a matter of tapping to bring up the home screen, then down to bike setup, down to TC, then deactivate.

Ease out the light slipper clutch and you notice how low first gear is, which was great for filtering through a traffic jam as we encountered. That clutch has a pretty effective assist setup to help smooth things out and avoid stalling – so you’ll look like a seasoned pro even if you’re not. Once on the move you become aware of just how good the low speed stability and control of the bike are. On more than one occasion while coming to a stop I started mucking around with ‘just how slow can I go on this thing’. It’s just so well balanced and super easy to ride. Combine that balance with a buttery soft throttle and it’s a recipe for effortless riding.

The real surprise though is the engine. While it’s been electronically hobbled up towards the higher revs – that torque down low through to the mid-range is just a joy to ride. It pulls smoothly and cleanly, harder than any learner bike has any right to. Fuelling is spot on and when on the move, anything above three grand is making decent grunt. Kept between three and sevenish and you’re humming along nicely.

Peak power comes in at just under nine grand but I found myself shifting up below that, riding the ample torque that peaks at five thousand. Ample torque combined with a very low first gear allows some fun lofting the front too.. the surprise was just how low in the rev range the sweet spot is. It’s pretty much right off the bottom!

And it sips the juice pretty gently too. Even being hamfisted, we were seeing around the five litres per hundred Kms mark. Given it’s 14 litre tank – that translates to close enough to 300 kms per tank if you’re not getting up it all the time.

It feels weird to say that just on 60 Nm of torque is ample. But this package proves that it can be. And of course it comes with that distinctive triple cylinder growl that so many of us love. The stock underslung muffler has a nice bark to it without being offensive. I like my exhausts a bit rorty so I’d probably be looking to liberate some more decibels, but it’s pretty bloody good as is…

Triumph make no bones about the fact that they’re aiming at the MT07 LAMS. And I’d suggest Yamaha should be concerned. Without riding them back to back, my memory of the MT07 (which I liked quite a lot) is that it isn’t as all around capable as the Trident. And is perhaps a softer all around proposition than the British bike.

As mentioned above it’s a relatively small package. That results in a relatively short wheelbase, which is not only nimble but planted. The steering is superb. Light, accurate and intuitive. It will happily change lines mid corner at a mere thought, but isn’t at all twitchy or nervous. On the contrary, it manages to instill huge amounts of confidence and lets the rider explore their own limits and just have fun. It loves a corner, and is a joy to flick through a series of bands. Quite nicely balanced front to rear. It really is bloody capable out of the box on smoother roads.

On bumpier roads which arguably wouldn’t be much fun on a firmer sportsbike, you will find the limits of the suspension when pushing harder. Just not quite the level of control you’d see on higher spec kit. It’s probably the only reminder on the bike that its been built to a price. Under very hard braking you’d feel the front pogo a little and the rear would let any solid hits through to your backside. To be fair we were slipping along at a fairly rapid pace which I suspect would have been well in excess of anything else in its class – and it was really only evident on quite rough surfaces. I’m 85ish kilos and found that throwing a little more preload on the rear certainly helped both ends for me. What helped even more was just braking a little gentler, a little earlier and getting on the gas sooner so the suspension was sitting a little higher in the stroke mid corner. Which is a good habit to be getting into and what you want younger riders to be learning anyway. Slow in, fast out, control the bike on the throttle, grin, repeat. On smoother roads it wasn’t really an issue – even at decent speeds. Your favourite section of twisty, smooth, grippy tar would have your face looking like a Cheshire Cat.

Accessories-wise you can throw on a whole swathe of options including heated grips and a quickshifter. And while I’m sure a quickshifter would be great, it doesn’t need one, the box is fine. It’s not a super slick shifter, but our bikes had less than a thousand Kay’s on them and I’m sure that box will loosen up nicely. Never had any issues with missed cogs, its just a solid thunk shift as opposed to a snick. There’s also a heap of other styling, security and luggage accessories. Even has an option of pillion grab handles which might be handy for strapping down some luggage – I’m not convinced there’s a heck of a lot of room for a pillions bum on that seat though…

So… nicely styled, nicely built, nice soundtrack, terrific engine and throttle feel, excellent on road capabilities, easy to use, super fun to ride..? What’s not to like? And to top it all off, the price. Ride away from a bit over 12 big ones. Amazing value. On top of that, it comes with 16,000 km service intervals so owning costs are kept down too. Not sure you’ll find anything more engaging for that sort of money. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it – we don’t know how good we’ve got it as riders. Learner riders – even moreso!

At this point it doesn’t look like Triumph will be looking to bring the full fruit version in, simply due to the volumes it would likely sell in comparison to the LAMS model which is fair enough. Though I can’t help thinking the full fruit 80 hp, 64 Nm version would be a proper scalpel if it also came with better suspenders…

Final thoughts. I think it’s a winner and probably the new benchmark for the entry level segment. Triumph should be confident that they’ll sell a bunch of these. It really could be the bike to put the other LAMS to the slaughter…

Why I like it

• Big fun, in fact, huge fun factor.
• Proves you don’t need big power for a properly engaging ride
• Great engine and throttle feel (especially bottom and midrange)
• Very competitive package overall for the money
• Modern-Retro styling gets a tick. Make mine the silver and red.

I’d like it even more if….

• Suspension is good, and probably beyond the capability of anything else in the segment, but I can’t stop thinking that this could be an absolute scalpel with a slightly higher spec’d kit
• Ummm?

Triumph Trident Specifications