TRIUMPH SPEED TWIN 4667 MILES No gripes about grip
Triumph’s king of torque shows mercy on its stock tyres
Looking back on those heady days of Spring, when the tarmac was warm and the Speed Twin’s odo was only showing triple digits, I distinctly remember wondering how much abuse the rear tyre was taking. Sure, the Triumph retro’s no big-power sportsbike, but given the fact that the 1200cc Bonneville HT engine produces 82.6ftlb at just 4950rpm and its communicative lightweight steel/aluminium hybrid frame makes accessing that shove extremely easy, every corner exit on every ride became an exercise in exploiting that torque via whacking great fistfuls of throttle. Yeehaa! I was fully expecting the stock Pirelli Diablo Rosso III rear to be way past its best by the time I’d clicked through 3500 miles. But six months and over 4000 miles later, the rear rubber’s still clinging on in there and has only just become square enough to be detected.
It’s an impressive performance from a tyre that sits at the sportier end of the road rubber market. Given that there’s usually a trade off when it comes to outright grip versus longevity, the Rosso IIIs have remained steadfast in all conditions. Although I initially had my doubts as to whether the factory-fitted Pirellis were the exact same spec an off-the-shelf pair, simply because they didn’t ever give me that truly keyed-in grip feel as you usually get from the brand’s other tyres, given the mileage that they’ve endured I can’t really grumble.
For riding a 96bhp bike on Britain’s sketchy roads, the Rosso III have been excellent – and for those wanting a little more in terms of fast-road performance, the sportier Rosso Corsa II have also been homologated by Triumph for use on their 1200cc retro roadster, but they will set you back around £50 more per pair than the Rosso III and arguably won’t last quite as long.
One observation worth noting is how sensitive that the front tyre appears to be to a slight drop in pressure. The Speed Twin has a slightly muted turn-in which becomes downright ponderous once the front tyre’s pressure drops from the recommended 36psi down to say 34psi, which is all the more reason to keep your gauge to hand.