THE 2008 Street Triple is Triumph’s version of a rock music supergroup. The British manufacturer has taken two of its stars — the Daytona 675 sport bike and the Speed Triple street fighter — and put them on a single stage.
The result is something like Bono fronting the White Stripes. It’s a bold and exciting concept on paper, but it doesn’t entirely succeed.
Triumph’s goal was to harness the best attributes of each bike and create the Velvet Revolver of pedal-to-the-metal motorcycles, but there’s something off about this bike that I can’t quite figure out. In its attempt to make an affordable and fierce middleweight naked bike, Triumph has made a motorcycle that’s light, powerful — and unrefined.
