Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro | The Best Tiger Ever?

Welcome along guys, well today I'm back on the Tiger 900. Now I've ridden the Tiger 900 GT Pro, this version is the Rally Pro, so this is the more off-roady, more taller, you know, adventurey, more adventurey version of the Tiger. Morning sir. This one has the 21-inch front wheel, so it's much more off-road focused, longer travel suspension front and rear, this has got the 230 millimetre travel, sorry 240 millimetre travel on the forks, 230 millimetre travel on the rear shock, so much more off-road based. The Pro version has the engine bars, the sump guard, heated seat, we'll come on to all that, but suffice to say it's got a lot of extras. But today we're going to be taking this bike out for a little spin. I have got my off-road boots on, so I may even take this bike out for a little bit of off-road, I mean it's the off-road version, it's the Rally Pro, it would be rude not to take it on a green lane or two. So stick with me, we're going to go out for a spin on this bike, I've got all the 360 cameras set up, this should be an interesting video. Roll the intro chopsy. So as I say, I've done a couple of reviews before of this Tiger 900 on my channel, but it was the GT version. This being the Rally Pro, it's quite different, you know, as I say, suspension's different, the extras are different on the Pro, and we've just done our Adventure Bike test with Greg, we've just done the test between the Africa Twin and the V-Strom 1050, so it was a perfect time to try the other Adventure Bike, to see how it compares to those two. So I'll let you know what I think with this compared to the V-Strom and the Africa Twin. After getting off the Africa Twin and the V-Strom, I can tell you this feels much more like the Africa Twin than it does the V-Strom. It's got that similar sort of urgency to the motor, it sounds that sort of, it's very, even though this bike is a triple, with this new T-plane crank that Triumph have come up with, which is like a, you know, a cross-plane crank with different firing order, so the old 900 was a very, very smooth engine, incredibly smooth, which didn't really help it when it came to going off-road. So this new T-plane crank is to give it a bit of off-road ability and really just to bring a little bit more character to the engine. It does sound much nicer, the downsides is that the old 800 engine was so, so smooth, this does have a little bit more vibrations, but when I say vibrations, I'm talking minuscule amounts of vibration. If you hadn't ridden the old bike, you'd be really impressed with the amount of vibrations from this bike. Much less, I'd say less vibrations than what's on the Africa Twin. Very slightly, very slightly reduced vibrations compared to the Africa Twin. The bike also has Stylema brakes, which is the top-of-the-range Brembo braking system from, you know, the super bikes, from the Panigale V4S I rode the other day, from the new Fireblade. It seems a slightly strange choice in a bike designed with a bit of off-road potential, because you don't want to over-brake it, but the brakes aren't actually overly sharp, you know, they're where you want them to be. Oh, here we go, look, see, I said I'd do a little bit of off-road, didn't I? Out of the way, Mr. Pheasant. I've not even got it in off-road mode, it's in sport mode at the moment. Oh, we don't want to get it too dirty, yeah, we're not done the walk around. But yeah, I mean, that is just, oh, no problem at all, you know, absolutely in its stride. The suspension feels supple, as I mentioned, 240 millimeters of travel up front, 230 at the rear. The Pro version also has the quickshifter and the blipper, they call it the shift assist. Works very well with these big off-roady boots on. I didn't adjust the linkage position, so it makes it difficult to do upshifts, because I haven't adjusted the linkage position, so I'm going to be using probably the manual upshift, just because it's awkward to get the boot under it. But as you can see, well, that's sixth gear, it won't change up again. Blipper, very good, very nice system, very smooth. Riding position is exactly the same as the GT. You're quite upright, it's very comfortable, you know, you're, there's not, there's quite a lot of weight on your bum, there's no forward cantering, the bars are really high, really wide to give you plenty of leverage, and your feet are sort of set forward a little bit. It's not a particularly sporty riding position, it's not as sporty feeling as, say, the GS. Who would ever think the GS would be classed as a sporty ride? But it's more of an upright, probably, you know, not, I wouldn't say any more comfortable, I wouldn't say any less comfortable, but you're very much sat away from the front wheel. Whether that has any impact on handling, ultimately, because you're not over the front, and it could maybe make the front seat a little bit vague, we will see. The screen height is perfect, I think, it's not overly big, like the Africa Twin, that's at the highest position, I'm not getting any buffeting on my peak at all. 70 miles an hour, I'm getting no vibrations, no buffeting, that is a surprise. You can do it with one hand. Yeah, I'm getting, there's no, I'm getting more wind in my peak now, but there's no more, there's no buffeting or vibration on the peak. Perfect! The bike weighs 201 kilos dry, so probably 225 wet. It's got a 20 litre tank, so if you're going to fill it up, obviously that's going to put some extra weight in the bike, but it feels nimble, it handles nicely, it feels smooth, the controls are all very, very nice. I mean, it's a bike you can just jump on and feel at home on straight away. There's no getting used to it, it's, I mean, the Africa Twin is the same really, so is the V-Strom, it's just instantly comfortable, instantly at home. It's got all of the other extras, you can control the heating, I mean, this thing is fully loaded, there's nothing else you can add to this bike. You know, so even heated seats standard, heated grips, cruise control, it's got everything. Integration with your phone, so we can do the turn-by-turn navigation on screen, it really has got it all. Let's take it off the main roads to something like this. That mid-range pickup is very, very nice. Even though it has got the 21-inch front, it's not affecting me too much. I'm not thinking, oh, I'm not getting much feedback into the corners, I think it's delivering better feedback than the Africa Twin with its 21-inch. It's a little bit vague, it will be, but it's not too bad. I could perhaps live with it, actually. Acceleration. It's quick, certainly quick enough. I'd say it's probably as quick as the V-Strom, the 1050 V-Strom, but it's not quite as punchy as the Africa Twin. What's going on here? We've got a lot of, okay, this must be doing shooting. Morning! A bit of shooting going on, I think. They'll be happy I'm scaring all the pheasants away. Oh, Jesus Christ, what are you doing, you stupid thing? Go on out of the way, you stupid birds. Christ! The thing I like about the Tiger is it's not a humongously massive bike. Adventure bikes, you know, the Africa Twin, the GS, they're just huge. They're huge things to try and make space for in your garage, to get on and off of, and to manoeuvre around. The Tiger, I think, is as big as you really want a bike to be. Any bigger and all those things become a problem. When you're off the bike, you don't feel overly comfortable with it, and, God forbid, you want to go off-road with such a massive bike like that for fear. If you do drop it, and make no mistake, you will drop it at some point. Jesus, oh my God, he's off. Then you've got to try and pick it up. I think the whole proposition of taking a huge adventure bike off-road is really not for me. Not for, you know, the odd gravel lane, yeah, fine, but you don't need a bigger bike than this. This is big enough, this delivers enough power with that new T-plane engine configuration. It delivers a lot of drive, a lot of character, a lot of great volume as well. The sound of this bike is much better than the old version, the 800 version, I think. Before I go off-road, let's just get used to standing up a little bit. What's the comfort like stood up? Oh, it's nice to grip between your knees, very nice to grip between your knees. Rear brake, good position, feels quite wide, feels quite wide between your legs, but that makes it nice and easy to grip onto. Yeah, that rear brake's a little bit low, but it's okay. Yeah, it's got a nice feel actually when you stood up. Feels light underneath me, look at that, you can really throw it around still. Okay, let's do it. Straight on, look, there is our green lane. Muddy, we've had a lot of rain, a lot of rain over the last week, so it's going to be muddy, there's going to be puddles. Off-road, select. So this is now off-road mode. This should deliver us some reduced power. Yeah, throttle response is definitely softer. Morning. I've got to watch the camera with the trees overhead. I've stood up as well. Yeah, suspension feels nice. Like I say, the road, the tyres on this are not really off-road tyres, so these gravel sort of lanes are probably your limit really. Let's grip the bike with your knees, chops. It's been ages since I've been off-road as well, so don't judge me. I'm stood up, aren't I? Yeah, it's a nice, in that off-road mode, it's a nice throttle response. Bike feels light actually. I mean, I know this is just a little gravel lane, but it feels nice between your legs. A nice feeling to it. Doesn't feel overly heavy. Plenty of grunt still, but you do want to open up even in off-road mode. Doesn't spin up. That must be that off-road traction control. It's really not spinning up. I'm surprised, even on this loose gravel. A little bit there, but it's keeping it in check. That's amazing. As I say, the old 800 used to spin up like crazy, even in off-road mode on some loose stuff, because it must be the T-plane. It must be that twin-like pulses from the T-plane giving it extra stability. Yeah, that's second gear, almost throttle open. Incredible. Yes, yes. Fills you with confidence, actually. Oh yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. I love the feel of it between the legs. I love the way you can grip it. Very nice. Very nice indeed. Yeah, that's very good. Yes, yes please. A bit mud. Careful in the mud, because we ain't got no knobblies. Yeah, that's really nice, actually. Got a lot of time for that. Amazing. The traction control is amazing with that T-plane crank. It really grips. It really delivers the power. You didn't feel like it was restricting power. You know, having to control wheel spin by really limiting the power. On the 800, when you're on loose surfaces, at one point the bike was just dying on me when I was on the Adventure Experience a couple of years ago, because it just couldn't put the power down. It was so smooth, that motor, just couldn't stop the wheel spinning, and it just felt like the bike was just dying on me, because it just couldn't put any power down. That loose gravel, handfuls, it's still going forward and it's not spinning up. I think that that T-plane crank, if you want to go off-road on this bike, I think it's transformed its off-road ability. I'm very impressed with that. Very impressed with that. That's very, you know, for a bike which is, you know, it is an adventure bike, you are meant to take it off-road a little bit, especially if you bought this version with the 21-inch front. You know, if you were to put a more knobbly-based tyre on it, I think you could do a lot more than that on it. That was just a very simple little lane, obviously, with some gravel, but first impressions, that is really good. I wouldn't want to do anything more than that with these tyres on. Stick on some semi-knobblies, and I think you could, with ease, get it in some mud, get it on some inclines. Perfect. But if you just want to go riding, you know, across country, little lanes like this, bit of gravel, this setup, perfect. So there we go. I will be taking this bike out again. I may take this on a bit of a long jaunt, actually. We've tested it off-road. I've proved that it's got some off-road ability. I want to take it on a long run now and see how it performs on a run, fuel consumption, comfort, all of those other important things with an adventure bike. So if you haven't already, please give me a subscribe. I've got a lot of bikes to get through to review at the moment. I've got a garage stacked, and it'd be lovely to have you subscribe, lovely to have you aboard on the channel. So thanks for watching, take care, and I will see you very soon. Cheers, guys. This is power level one, which is full power. I could do that all day. What have you done here? I told you I was scared back there. I've never dropped a bike before in my life. Listen to this. Oh, ****.