Is the RS good value for money?
Joe gets his calculator out to find out.
With modern finance deals nearly every bike is affordable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re all good value for money. There’s so many bikes to choose from it’s not always easy to see all the differences between them and where your money might be going. I’ve got 4000 miles under my belt with the new RS now and I’ve started to wonder if it is really worth the price tag. The new Street Triple RS is £9900rrp, that’s £1900 more than the base S model Street Triple and £1000 more than the R model, but you do get considerably more for your money. Compared to the R, the RS has more power, Brembo M50 monoblock callipers and an MCS radial master cylinder (the same brake set-up you’ll find on the new €80,000 Ducati Superleggera), fully-adjustable Showa Big Piston Forks and Öhlins STX40 fully adjustable rear shock, a 5th user-programmable rider mode, a quickshifter, belly pan, rear seat cowl, lower chain guard and Pirelli Super Corsa SP tyres. If someone offered me all that for £1000 I’d rip their arm off. The two obvious competitors are the Yamaha MT-09 and the new Kawasaki Z900, but I think they both deliver less than the new Street Triple RS in terms of quality and fun. But they do cost quite a bit less. A standard MT-09 costs £7999 and the Z900 is £8249. And while both are cheaper on PCP too – the MT09 is £95 a month and the Z900 £99 over 36 months, the Triumph is £119 over 37 months. The stock Street Triple S is cheaper than both, though. But then what about its bigger competitors, namely the Yamaha MT-10 and the BMW S1000R? Well they’re a big step up in terms of size and power, so it comes down to what you want from your bike. The Yamaha and BMW are rip-yourarms-off powerful, whereas the RS has incredibly usable power right through the rev range. The standard versions of both the Yamaha and BMW are over £1000 more than the RS and you have to go to their SP and Sport versions to get more trick bits than the RS, setting you back £13,699 for the MT-10 SP and £12,725 for the S1000R Sport. Considering what you get for your money with the RS, not to mention its build quality, in my eyes it’s definitely one of the best value-for-money nakeds and I wouldn’t hesitate in handing over my money for the RS.