2020 TRIUMPH DAYTONA MOTO2 765
Surely one of the most eagerly anticipated bikes of 2020 has to be Triumph’s Moto2 765. Ever since the Hinckley lot got the Moto2 contract we’ve been crying out for a street legal, 765 powered Moto2 machine, and we’ve finally got one. With a chassis from the old 675R Daytona, and a claimed 128bhp from the 765 Street Triple derived motor, this little puppy was always going to be a weapon.
I say “Street Triple derived” but there are plenty of differences inside the lump, like titanium valves, higher compression pistons, longer duration cams etcetera, etcetera, that mean you can have a higher revving, harder pulling engine that, with its taller gearbox ratios, is just downright faster.
Before you even think about climbing aboard the Trumpet, it’s crystal clear that this is one special motorbike, with its full carbon fibre fairing setup and trick-as-you-like Öhlins suspension. It is a true thing of beauty.
I’ve spent a bit of time on the old Daytona (I raced a Daytona 675R over at the Isle of Man TT) so when I swung a leg over this one, I felt more than at home. The seat, bars and tank felt very ‘Daytona’.
The dash sparks into life with a sexy Moto2 logo and when you press the starter button, your ears are greeted with a saucy
sounding three-cylinder buzz. At tickover, the deep, throaty induction noise is as loud as the exhaust note and with every blip of the throttle, there is a subtle, almost electronic sounding whine – I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but I’ve certainly heard Triumphs making it before.
Riding the 765, you very quickly come to realise that it is a lot nearer the Daytona from which it stole its frame than the Street Trip’ from which it stole its engine. In fact it felt like a fully sorted race bike that I should have been hooning round Brands Hatch on, not bouncing round the streets of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. That is probably me being over-critical of the suspension, as it did seem a little stiff when I first jumped on it, but it’s all fully adjustable, so I can’t really hold that against it.
Once we got on the faster, smoother roads, the chassis and suspension seemed to start making a whole lot more sense. The things that the bike could do were nothing short of astonishing. All you had to do was think about turning, and the Triumph would be on its ear, flying round anything you could throw at it as if it was on rails.
I suppose that’s what you get with top of the range suspension, a top of the range chassis and 188.5kg (fully fuelled). It was seriously impressive.
The motor, too, was a proper little peach. It was a far cry from superbike power (or torque) but the way the 765 dished out its ponies was buttery smooth. The initial throttle pickup was instant, and as I twisted the grip I was rewarded with power that built in a beautifully linear way. And the more the revs rose, the better the thing sounded.
But while it’s hard to knock the engine, you don’t get that rush of excitement from opening the throttle on this bike, like you would on something with an extra 50 or so ponies. You know, that feeling in the pit of your stomach. Nobody needs a bike that is faster than this, not on the road anyway, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want something a bit faster – that’s why superbikes exist, after all.
That said, it is a mega fun bike to ride. Purely because you find yourself really hanging the bag out and having to stretch the cables on it to get the best from it. There is every chance that you might not be able to keep up with your mates on their litre bikes, but even if you couldn’t, you would have an absolute whale of a time trying. And you would certainly be the one that’s having to work their bike the hardest, and isn’t that what riding sportsbikes is all about?
And the more I rode the 765, the more I found myself doing just that – really trying to get every last thing from it. If I didn’t have the throttle on the stop, I was yanking the brakes like there was no tomorrow and not once did the little Trumpet show any signs of protest – it lapped it up.
The faster I went, the more I started relying on the Triumph’s cracking electronics package. It can be a little overzealous when set in ‘Road’ mode, but I found with everything set in ‘Track’ mode, you could really get the hammer down without the electric-kery spoiling your fun. Even the ABS can be put in ‘Track’ mode, which means you can really make the most of them phenomenal Brembo calipers. Stoppies were
THE THINGS THAT THE BIKE COULD DO WERE NOTHING SHORT OF ASTONISHING
definitely on the cards with them bad boys. A word of advice, though; if you own one of these, you are best off customising the settings in ‘Rider’ mode and sticking in that, as if you faff with any of the settings in the pre-set modes, once you turn the ignition off and on again everything reverts to a ‘safe’ setting (TC, ABS etc. all turned back on) – which if you ask me isn’t very safe at all.
As expected, riding the Triumph Daytona Moto2 765 put a massive smile on my face. When I wasn’t pulling wheelies, or doing stoppies, I was dragging my knee on the floor and laughing all the way to the next apex. I loved riding it, and it would be pretty swell to own something like this; it’s not just a cracking bike but it’s a piece of history. But £15k is a hell of a lot of money for a bike with less than 120bhp (119.4 on our dyno), so if I’m being brutally honest I probably wouldn’t be putting one of these on my shopping list.
NO OTHER BIKE COULD MATCH ITS CREAMY DELIVERY OR LINEAR POWER CURVE
R1s have always done it for me, so I was really excited to have a blast on this, the updated-for-2020 R1M. Now Euro5 compliant, the big Yam has had a smattering of subtle changes that alone wouldn’t get anyone’s juices flowing, but together ought to help make what is already a top superbike even better.
A new cylinder head with top firing, 10-hole Bosch injectors, newly designed cams and finger followers all help the R1M maintain a sensible claimed power figure of 197bhp despite the four catalytic converters that have been shoehorned into the exhaust pipe. The new bike is also 5% more aerodynamically efficient and they’ve updated the electronics to give you even more control over the engine braking, traction control and ABS systems.
Dripping with carbon fibre, the R1 certainly turns heads for all the right reasons, and when you spy the golden Öhlins pogos you are left in no doubt whatsoever that this is a proper fancy pants motorbike.
The riding position on the R1 is still mega sporty and the instant you climb on, you are lunged forward to the extent that you feel like your head is right over the front wheel. At slow speeds, and through town, the hunched forward positioning didn’t do my lumbago any good, not to mention my wrists, but once you are over about 50mph, things start to make a bit more sense, as the wind under your chest lifts the weight off your arms.
The ‘racy’ riding position might not have been the most comfortable through town but it paid dividends when the roads became a bit twistier and I found myself piling into corners with way more confidence than I might normally have on a road bike – because it felt way more like a race bike than a road bike, and I felt like I could feel exactly what the front end of the bike was doing at all times.
Turning into the corners was a doddle, but powering out of them wasn’t always so pretty, especially the slower ones – well not at first anyway thanks to the super-harsh throttle pickup. Although I hate myself for saying it (and at the risk of having the lads take the piss out of me), the R1M was actually nicer to ride in power mode 2 than it was in power mode 1. It was just as fast in ‘2’ but the initial pickup was so much smoother, meaning you could grab a big handful of gas and drive as hard as you wanted out the corner. With the bike in the
IT FELT WAY MORE LIKE A RACE BIKE THAN A ROAD BIKE, AND I FELT LIKE I COULD FEEL EXACTLY WHAT THE FRONT END OF THE BIKE WAS DOING AT ALL TIMES.
THE ANTI-WHEELIE IS PROBABLY THE BEST ANTI-WHEELIE ON ANY ROAD BIKE KNOWN TO MAN
most aggressive power mode, I sometimes felt like I was taking liberties when opening the throttle on the side of the tyre.
All the modes are dead simple to toggle between using the buttons and selector wheel on the switchgear and the systems themselves are pretty sweet. The anti-wheelie is probably the best anti-wheelie on any road bike known to man, never mind the ones in our test. The system allows the front wheel to hover around three or four inches off the ground, delivering just the right amount of power to the back wheel to maintain optimum drive with minimal lift.
The dash is smart enough, if a little small, with everything laid out neatly and sensibly. It even has a g-force and brake pressure gauge on there which is kinda cool, if a little gimmicky.
The shifter was bob-on and never missed a beat during our test, but the blipper was a little less smooth. It felt a bit clunky as it went down the box, you don’t get an audible ‘blip’ (which isn’t a real deal-breaker, but it’s always nice to hear something) and you can sometimes feel a bit of a nasty twang through the gear selector as the new gear engages.
The jewel in the R1’s crown has got to be that phenomenal motor, though. The cross-plane crank engine pulls like a train from wherever you are in the revs. There is a slight lull just before 8000rpm, but nothing to get upset about and after 8k, things get really silly, really fast. The more you make the thing rev, the more the boom of the exhaust sends shivers up your spine. It pulls like a packhorse all the way to the limiter, and then when you throw another gear at it, thanks to the massive spread of power, it never seems to drop out of the sweet spot.
If accelerating on the R1M was bliss, decelerating wasn’t. Despite updates to the ABS system and the binning off of the linked braking system, the brakes are still not up to the job of slowing you down in a proper hurry. Okay, I’ll admit that 95% of the time they are perfectly adequate for even quicker
road riding, but when you want to really squeeze them, perhaps in an emergency situation, or to perform a very cool stoppie in front of a group of yummy mummies, you will be left wanting. And frustrated. And not getting laid. The ABS was just way too keen to rear its ugly head.
If you do manage to slow down in time for that corner though, the suspension and chassis setup will see to it that you smash that apex with no problem whatsoever. Like the other Öhlins EC.2 leccy suspended bikes you can easily set the suspension to cater for the type of riding you plan on doing (or for the types of roads you plan on doing it on), and it’s a proper piece of cake to alter the settings on the R1M.
On the road, the 2020 R1M is, to all intents and purposes, the same as the 2019 model; it’s fast, exciting and sporty. The upgrades are barely noticeable but to be fair, why fix what isn’t broken? Apart from the brakes, there is nothing wrong with the R1M, but compared with some of the bikes on this test, it did feel a little dated. That said, I absolutely love the thing and I’d urge anyone to take one for a blast if they get half a chance. If you want a super-sporty, superracy, superbike for the road, then the R1M is sure to tickle your fancy.