But enough of our blather, we were talking about riding the bike, right? And ride it we did. A normal press launch will cover between 100 and 200 miles, then off to supper. We finagled the Thunderbird for three whole days and over 500 miles of riding. You may not read about it first in our bimonthly print rag, but at least we covered some tarmac!
Settling in to a very neutral perch, the controls were right where you'd expect them. Bars are a classic bend, not "buckhorny" or "beachbarish", just what we used to like to call a basic "flattrack" bend. The seat is low, but not on the floor, while the pegs are a respectable distance forward. Ergonomics might be too big for smaller folks. I'd say it was spot-on and on the compact side, but I've been wrong about what fits the short on many, many occasions. The dash is very clean, with a single, buttonless, tank-mounted dial giving up a host of information, actuated by a button on the handlebars (like Star has done the past few years).
Firing it up, it falls into that familiar, loping V-Twin gait. Yeah, we know what you're thinking, "it's a parallel twin, you moron!" but with its uneven crank pin spacing (270-degrees, as opposed to an even 180) it sounds and feels like a Vee. While the other Trumpets are known for unique power delivery, with a high-revving 865 in the smaller models and a savage 2300 triple in the Rocket IIIs, it's almost shocking how conventional the 1600cc parallel Twin in the Thunderbird feels. Triumph claims to have spent quite a bit of time on the sound of the bike, tuning out high frequency noise, while accentuating (to extent of the law) the down-low rumble. In fact, while the Brit-spec bikes we rode sounded plenty fine, the US models have even freer-breathing (louder) exhaust, due to looser regulations here.
An advanced engine management system controls the ignition timing, selecting from a pair of distinct maps, with control fine enough to treat each cylinder individually. This control makes for not only a broad spread of power, but also astounding fuel mileage up near 50mpg. We wouldn't have believed it, but we tested it for ourselves, the bikes goes 200 miles before the fuel light even comes on. Granted, the overdrive 6th gear helps out here too.
But all this efficiency is not at the expense of performance. In the first few miles it seemed a little mid-top heavy in the powerband, but that was only because it felt so good up there; encouraging us, as it was, to rev it out. In some very tight mountain roads, we got the chance to lug it around in higher gears (with a passenger on the back) and the thing pulls the rare hat trick of also pulling like a tractor. At really low rpm, under load like that it has a really nice thump-thump sound going on too. While its Rocket cousin launches off of the bottom with violent thrust, augmented by the shaft drive and soft suspension, while its smaller 865cc kin likes to spin up top, the 'Bird manages to have it both ways with just a bit more vibration than either the price you pay. In fact, its belt drive ensures that its power delivery is even smoother than either one.