Jupiter has travelled
Almost half a century after Ted Simon's Tiger 100 brought the brand name to fame after traversing 126,000km over 45 countries and 4 years, Triumph have come back
with a 900cc version that's designed to do all of the above and make it look easy!
mean streak to the Tiger’s presence. The lamps are flanked by two fiber wind-deflectors and an adjustable windscreen. One of the things I like about the tiger is the simple assembly that they’ve used for the adjustable windscreen that employs a spring mounted screw over metal channels, it’s easy to use and will be cheap to repair. The adventure tourer beak too is more compact and sharper, but ties together the front end really well.
You couldn’t tell, looking at it parked but the tank on the Tiger is actually slimmer than the one on the Tiger 800 by a fair margin. Despite its more compact dimensions, the capacity has
increased to 20 litres. Housed inside the beaky front end is the new split radiator setup that integrates nicely into the fairing. What really stands out throughout is Triumph’s understanding of the ground realities of riding and owning an adventure motorcycle. Like the fact that the LED indicators have been moved from the radiator mounts on the 800 to near the headlights, protecting them from breaking every time the bike tips over. This philosophy extends under the skin too, the Triumph 800’s frame was a single unit with the subframe and footrest hangers welded onto the primary frame, leaving it vulnerable in big crashes. The new frame assembly consists of a light-weight aluminium subframe bolted onto the brand new primary frame, fixing the issue and ensuring owners repair costs stay low even in serious crashes. There’s a new 7-inch TFT instrument setup as well, that works well even in the day time and gets Triumph’s own MYTRIUMPH bluetooth connectivity suite that allows you connect and interact with wireless headsets, your mobile (for telephony and navigation) and a GoPro. I’m not one for fancy instrument clusters, personally, but the functionality that this particular unit offers stands out significantly.
The center-piece of this new motorcycle though is the brand new 888cc in-line three that replaces the old 800 triple. The old motor, although iconic in its own right, rode like a supersport. All the fun was way up high in the powerband, that’s great on tarmac not so much on the slippery stuff. To fix this, the Triumph Tiger 900 employs a T-plane crank with an asymmetric 1-3-2 firing order, that significantly improves the power distribution in the low-to-mid range of the engine without really taking much away from its signature top end performance. The new firing order alters the aural experience too. There is more bass to it, and it’s notably gruffer. The 95.2bhp available hasn’t changed much, although peak power comes in quicker on the