Ridden: 2017 Triumph Bonneville Bobber

Ridden: 2017 Triumph Bonneville Bobber

You can ride this iron without irony

I must admit, I have been a victim of the current ouevre of “modern classic” motorcycles. I am the somewhat satisfied owner of a Ducati Scrambler Icon, and while I have much to say about the cultural irrelevance (to my specific culture) of such motorcycles, I have come to love mine, but my skepticism remains intact.

I have no experience with Triumph’s Bonneville family. As strange as that sounds, I’ve never actually thrown a leg over one, and this is the second generation of the Bonnies we’ve had in India. They’ve just never caught my fancy. I have a raucous two-stroke twin in my bike shed, and I just didn’t see the point of something with two additional strokes. In hindsight, perhaps I’ve missed out on something.

The Triumph Bonneville Bobber is one of these “modern classics”. A throwback to a simpler time in motorcycling, while making clever accomodations for modern safety and emissions norms. It’s a spartan, macho, purposeful motorcycle with one seat, one headlight and a lot of style. It’s badass — you can’t bring your partner along for the ride — and you’re going to do whatever the hell it is you want, within reason as discussed in advance with said partner.

It’s also customisable. There are some “inspiration kits” available that let you play with different leather on your seat, cafe- or ape-hanger style handlebars and such. There’s also an accessory rebound-adjustable shock available, which you absolutely should order with the bike, as will become evident some paragraphs on.

The Bobber — like the new Bonneville family it is part of — utilises a parallel-twin motor with a 270-degree firing order. The new family uses liquid-cooled motors displacing either 900cc, or in this case, 1200cc. It’s a lot of displacement for seemingly tiny motorcycles, but they make surprisingly modest horsepower. The Bobber clocks in at just 77hp. The base model Bonnie — the Street Twin, actually makes less power than the old air-cooled model with a smaller motor. So what gives? Torque, that’s what.

The headline feature of this family of motors is the torque they generate and they way they deliver it. 109Nm of smooth, creamy torque is a light twist of the throttle away. And it’s always there, no matter the gear, no matter the mausam of the motor. The ride-by-wire throttle ensures that the action is light, and it works consistently every time. You really have to try hard to upset the system and get it to cough. You’re far more likely to get into trouble as the rear wheel breaks loose on wet roads. For that, there’s a “Rain” riding mode in the traction control settings. That, and “Road”, and that’s about all you need on this bike.

The consequence to you — the rider — is that there’s seemingly never a dearth of propulsion. You want to go faster, and it happens. You want to overtake; it happens. Torque is what you feel, horsepower is a calculated figure that doesn't really affect you viscerally. Perhaps the folks at Harley have been right all along when not quoting that number for their motorcyles — as Triumph has done more recently. To be fair, this is no dragstrip hero. You aren’t about to out-pull litre-class sportbikes over 400m, but you’ll certainly make things looks real easy in the hills.

Considering the way it looks, there are susprisingly few compromises to endure in the Bobber. Despite sharing what appears to be a lot of the frame with the Bonneville, the rear of the motorcycle is substantially different to give it that authentic, abrupt tail end. Despite looking the part, the Triumph Bobber is not a hardtail. There is a tastefully-placed single shock under the equally tasteful aluminium seat pan. It’s connected to the cage-style swingarm by a non-trivial linkage, but there’s no adjustment to be seen on the shock. This is one of those “few” compromises.

Suspension travel is as small as it appears, and will be painful to anyone sporting a moderate BMI. At 65kg underweight, I had few problems with the shock, but most people will complain. Concrete roads can be a chore to traverse, and sharp road joints can really jar you; if you’re not prepared — to the point of pain. The otherwise neutral and comfortable riding position puts your feet just forward enough to be useless to take any weight off your bum, so if you seen an unavoidable pothole, clench those cheeks and pray. We can only hope that the optional FOX-branded rear suspension unit is better.

That said, the Bobber is a wonderful-handling machine on decent roads. For my pace across hundreds of kilometres, I had no issue with the front fork. It also has enough ground clearance to clear all but the worst obstacles, and tends to track straight and do it’s own thing. It’s easy enough to corner, but the more enthusiastic will scrape metal bits quickly. It also takes some pressure on the bars to actually get it to turn — it likes to spring back to the vertical like one of those punching toys for children, back when encouraging casual violence wasn’t bad parenting. The brakes however, are not upto scratch. There’s little feeling from the front, and it takes a mighty tug on the lever to actually begin to stop.

The Triumph Bobber, despite its niggles, does appeal to a lot of people. Our under-30 photography crew were all over the bike as much as possible, and inspired some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations to see if the financing worked. It also impressed a Harley-Davidson 48 rider by showing him a clean pair of heels as soon as the light turned green. It’s throaty, sonorous exhaust note gets great external feedback for those who care, and is great internal feedback for those who no longer do.

So who’s the Bobber for? Certainly not for the tourer — there’s literally no place at all to tie or mount any sort of luggage, save for the mostly-aesthetic Triumh accessory items. You’ll have to carry your stuff on your back and ride only during the day — the headlight is barely adequate in pitch darkness. In our time with the bike, we got just over 200km on a full tank of gas, so your wanderlust is limited to Mumbai-Pune sort of runs.

It’s also not for the sporty rider, in case that wasn’t obvious on first glance. It goes surprisingly well for the format, but it’s for a more considered riding experience. Sundays, cafe outings with other folk with elegantly-greying temples. At ₹10.24 lac on the road in Mumbai, you might consider this too expensive just for Sunday rides. And if you are indeed thinking that way, then you clearly haven’t been for any Sunday rides recently.

The Triumph Bobber is the first bike you should buy after your divorce. And in case you’ve managed to hold on to that domestic partner, we hear Triumph is working on a proper two-seater.