{"id":22900,"date":"2023-07-02T00:01:57","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T07:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=22900"},"modified":"2023-07-09T07:22:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T14:22:48","slug":"a-triumphant-change-from-my-bmw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/07\/02\/a-triumphant-change-from-my-bmw\/","title":{"rendered":"A Triumphant Change from my BMW"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Mike Huber<\/h6>\n

The 4th<\/sup> of July is a perfect time to tell my riding story from this weekend spending two days riding a British motorcycle. This was a 180 from my usual chant this time of year of \u201cScrew the British,\u201d but my BMW GS1200 happened to be in the shop for another week waiting parts from Germany so getting on any bike for a weekend was just what my soul needed. My girlfriend allowed me the honor of taking her 2023 Triumph Tiger 900 GT Pro out to tear up 200 miles of Route 299 through northern California.\u00a0 Along this stretch of highway, it is more important than ever to be alert as it is Sasquatch Country.<\/p>\n

\"\" I was excited to ride this portion of northern California but didn\u2019t expect to be that impressed with the Triumph.\u00a0 Previously having test rode several Triumphs I was familiar with them.\u00a0 They are wonderful machines but they never really spoke to me or my riding style, so I steered towards Ducati or BMW. However, one of my favorite guitar players, Billy Duffy (from the band The Cult) is a HUGE Triumph rider.\u00a0 I had the pleasure of meeting him last November and being semi star struck.\u00a0 All I could mutter was \u201cI am sorry I ride a BMW GS, but my girlfriend rides a Triumph, and oh yeah…you\u2019re an incredible guitarist.\u201d\u00a0 I guess there have been worse encounters with celebrities than that.\u00a0 He high fived me, we shook hands, and we had a laugh over my awkwardness (more him than myself I am sure). \u00a0Anyway, back to the Triumph Tiger and Sasquatch hunting along Route 299.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This bike is fast.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t hesitate to go once you twist that throttle, and the acceleration is smooth.\u00a0 Coming from a background where torque is king it was almost a relief to not have to worry about your front wheel leaving the earth every time you go to pass someone, although I have always felt wheelieing by cars as you pass them is just\u2026. Well, it\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n

The Tiger is 60 pounds lighter than my BMW GS1200, and the weight is distributed much lower.\u00a0 This makes it extremely easy to just throw into turns, which I did numerous times along Route 299.\u00a0 There are no longer chicken strips on the tires.\u00a0 The Tiger is also much easier to maneuver due to this, which is helpful in sand, difficult terrain, or having to move it 8 feet into a different parking spot. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Changing modes on the BMW when switching from on road to offroad modes you simply hit the button and shift gears.\u00a0 With the Tiger you need to stop the bike, place it in neutral and switch modes.\u00a0 This is a minor complaint I understand, but I was in the heart of sasquatch country and any delay could result in serious injury or death by being mauled by one of these magnificent beasts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For some reason Triumph didn\u2019t add a steering damper, or weights on the handlebars ends.\u00a0 This can at times cause a wobble at high speeds and it is not a wind friendly design.\u00a0 When bringing this up to the Triumph dealer they stated it wasn\u2019t supposed to go over 85 MPH with a full load and he asked how fast I was riding it.\u00a0 Without divulging the answer in this write up I will say he raised his hands and walked away at my answer (this happens frequently with me when I am too honest).<\/p>\n

Overall, I am much more impressed with this motorcycle now than I was previously. It was a breathtaking 200-mile ride in northern California as the road snaked along the Trinity River and in Six Rivers National Forest. The twisties were a blast and by simply clicking down two gears I was able to rocket past slower vehicles with no problem and put any threats far in my rearview mirror (to include Sasquatch).\u00a0 Speaking of which, we didn\u2019t see any Sasquatch along this route.\u00a0 I swore I could smell them as I dropped into Humboldt County but I suppose that could have just been the marijuana cultivation.<\/p>\n

\n

Disclaimer-<\/strong> I moved the Triumph to the other side of the Starbucks parking lot as soon as I saw several GS riders pull up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike Huber The 4th of July is a perfect time to tell my riding story from this weekend spending two days riding a British motorcycle. This was a 180 from my usual chant this time of year of \u201cScrew the British,\u201d but my BMW GS1200 happened to be in the shop for another week … Continue reading “A Triumphant Change from my BMW”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[96,89],"tags":[3638,1243,3637,94,3636,3307],"class_list":["post-22900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-good-stuff","category-motorcycle-adventure-ride","tag-bigfoot","tag-bmw-gs","tag-sasquatch","tag-triumph","tag-triumph-adv-motorcycle","tag-triumph-tiger"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/20230630_101236-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22900"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23041,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22900\/revisions\/23041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}