Triumph Rocket 3R Test

Well hello Dave here again and here we are out on my usual cruiser loop around the Wynnum foreshore in Brisbane and today well I'm on something pretty special. This is the new Triumph Rocket 3 R. Now if you think you knew what previous model Rocket 3's were like and you want to get an idea of how this one compares the best thing you can do is forget everything you knew about the Rocket 3 and start all over again because it feels like that's exactly what Triumph have done. This thing's tight it's quite compact riding position it's still hugely torquey and really responsive but it's just gone whole next level on everything. Do you remember that Matchbox 20 tune let's see how far we've come? Well it was ringing distantly in my ears as I wheeled out of the T-Moto Triumph dealership in Brisbane South onto Moss Street and into the heart of the Brisbane Motorcycle Precinct on board the all-new Rocket 3 R. I was indeed mighty keen to see how far the world's largest capacity production motorcycle has come. You see I thought I knew the Rocket 3 pretty well. I have a long history with the venerable Hinkley Battlestar going right back to 2004. I've ridden, tested and lived with numerous examples of every model and variant over the journey. The Standard, the Tourer, the Roadster even the X model. By the time I had reached the end of the M1 on-ramp and started heading towards the Gold Coast it started to become very evident that this bike has come a very long way. Righto, I'll just get a clear run here, slightly uphill on-ramp and see how it goes. As much as I like them the early Rocket 3 models had some shortcomings. The gearbox was a bit clunky and it ran out of ground clearance well before the bike's full handling capability was reached. Not surprisingly it had something of a heavy machinery sort of vibe about it. It was also pretty easy to start dragging the frame on the deck if you really started to push it. But then the way it was tuned for massive torque made it very pushable for sure. And don't get me wrong, I rated it. It had plenty of good points. The brakes were always very good and it was very comfortable and rewarding as a cruising machine. As a stock muscle cruiser maybe it wasn't the fastest but it was easily the muscliest. But now the noisy gearbox and slap and lash from the shaft drive are all gone. It's been replaced with a smooth and precise drivetrain with a light hydraulically actuated slipper clutch and a notchy, shore-shifting solid gearbox. Gone are the forward controls and the limited lean angle and dragging hard parts. It now tips in beautifully with mid-mount controls that offer 15 millimeters of height adjustment and it has flatter internally wired handlebars that give an ergonomic much more like a standard riding position and a 773 millimeter saddle height. The new model is not as cruiser comfortable as the older Rockets for us big guys but the way you can ride it like a sports machine now more than adequately compensates. By the time I got to the Gold Coast foothills I was giving it a bit and I didn't scrape anything even when I was feeling for contact with my boots. All I found was beautiful manners and a big bike with excellent cornering clearance. One that does chuck around something like a sports machine albeit a massive one. Eric Buell once told me a lot of people regard the center of mass as one of the most critical elements in a motorcycle's handling but what's even more important is the height of that center. The way he kept as much weight as possible as low as possible in his designs partly accounted for their brilliant handling. The Rocket 3 has always benefited from a low center of mass. It has a car size crank and some very impressive looking heavy engineering in the latest shaft drive. The drive also comprises a single-sided swing arm and it sits very low in the chassis. Subsequently to handling and ease of side-to-side maneuvers belied the overall mass of the machine. That said the new engines capacity has been increased to 2,458 cc's with a hugely over square bore and stroke and a compression ratio of 10.8 to 1. The whole engine assembly has been trimmed down by 18 kilograms. The crank assembly is 11 kilograms lighter and overall the new model is 40 kilograms lighter at 291 kilograms dry which further aids its chuck ability. Its new aluminium frame is also 50% lighter than in earlier incarnations. The EFI on the test machine was flawless and the fly-by-wire allows for four riding modes, rain, sport, road or you can customize your own settings in rider mode. Top gear wind on. The improvements are not just limited to the drivetrain. It now has top-notch shower suspension all-round and what were previously good brakes have been put on steroids with dual 320 millimeter discs and Brembo four-piston radial monoblock calipers with cornering ABS. The suspension upgrade includes 47 millimeter upside-down cartridge forks with compression and rebound adjustment and offer 120 millimeters of travel. The rear has a fully adjustable shower piggyback reservoir with remote hydraulic preload adjuster and 107 millimeters of travel available. Quite maneuverable that suspension is good going over those railway lines that bottoms out on some cruises. If you add the new Avon Cobra chrome tires that were specially developed for the Rocket 3R and it's a real joy on a twisty road especially when married to the lazy lope of that massive engine pumping out 165 horsepower and 221 Newton meters of torque in stock form. With the new Ergos that make it very easy to get weight off board it really is a delight. That corner clearance is really good, really good and yet you know it's quite maneuverable and really well balanced. It chucks around so nicely for such a big bike. It's just under 300 kilos which is I think reasonably light for a 2.5 litre machine. Also gone are the looks and style of a machine that I tended to see beyond because of how much I liked the copious torque and hammer of the older models. That's all been replaced with a bike that I look at and go oh yeah that's a peach. Although I am looking forward to seeing one with a tail tidy assembly in lieu of the rather unsightly standard rear guard and plate holder. Even the pleasant growl of the great-looking 321 exhaust is a significant improvement over the 2300 cc model and it doesn't stop there either. The TFT instruments are very pleasing to the eye and the amount of data they display is remarkable. The way the angle of the instrument panel is adjustable made me wonder why nobody's thought of it sooner. It's fabulous. In fact the whole package is. All the nice touches like the very comfortable gel saddle and the passenger accommodation, the lights, the switch gear, even the side stand and the fold-out passenger pegs are beautifully presented while the underlying technology is leading edge. It has cruise control, hill hold control, keyless ignition and steering lock from a stylish fob. There's an app that can relay route instructions and a wide range of accessories from luggage to touring screens. Triumph claim that the fuel efficiency of the bike has been improved to 6.82 litres per 100 kilometres when that equates to a possible 260 kilometre range and the service intervals are now 16,000 kilometres. I don't know why I'm kicking it down gears. There's no need to. You just wrap it on and she goes quickly. You only just have to breathe on the throttle and it gets up to that 60, 70 kilometres an hour just with absolutely no effort whatsoever. But just its whole road manner belies the behemoth that it is. How's that for alliteration? All in all the new Rocket 3 has evolved into a tight, tidy, fast and great-looking, very accomplished motorcycle. It's a complete rework of everything I thought I knew about the model. As far as this old stager is concerned it's a bike that has come a very, very long way. All the way to now I really want one.