Triumph Daytona 2002

Not a race replica in the vein of the GSX-R family, but a bike that is first and foremost a road bike, as a bonus it's also one that won't be disgraced at a track day. After a day of thrashing around, it's safe to say that the new Daytona has the ability to change the way sports bike riders think about what's really important.

What is it?
Probably the first thing to hit the prospective buyer is the look, the old Daytona's curvy organic looks are now history. When I first saw the 2002 Daytona at the WSB at Philip Island, I couldn't stop myself from thinking 'Fireblade', but now after plenty of opportunity to take in the sharp new sweep and form of the bike in its natural environment, ie on the road, it's a beauty. Some bikes are just pure eye candy, you have to spend time just looking at them to absorb the details. The new Daytona is like that, the more you look, the better it looks. Especially in blue.

The three cylinder fuel injected engine is a completely new unit making a claimed 149PS at 10,700rpm and an impressive 100Nm at 8,200rpm. To say it's completely new is no lie, as it shares no common parts with anything that has gone before. OK, if you have to be picky, it retains the familiar 955cc capacity, which has become synonymous with Triumph, but that's where the similarity ends.

Engine casings are now high pressure die cast instead of the old sand cast, the alternator sits on the end of the crankshaft, and the oil pump is now chain driven instead of gear driven. Talking of gears, the good news is that the six speed box now features a claw type selector instead of the old selector drum. Result? Click easy changes that can rub shoulders with the likes of Suzuki. These are but a few in a host of changes, which have made the engine as quiet and sophisticated as anything in the market place. Not before time I might add.

The chassis is Triumphs familiar alloy tube perimeter confection, which has been used to such good effect to date. Few people have had any complaints about that one. Even so Triumph have trimmed weight and reduced the wheelbase down to 1417mm. Rake and trail are down to 22.8mm and 81mm in an effort to quicken things up. At the back, the previous models single sided swinging arm has been replaced by a more traditional twin spar, which has reduced the weight by a significant 3.3 kg.

Also on the weight saving program have been the wheels, which has seen the front being replaced by the one from the TT600 in order to save 450g of unsprung weight. Elsewhere additional lard has been pared from the fairing, instruments, even the number of bolts holding the discs on. As a result figures are down to a dry weight of 188 kg .

However, the best thing about the new Daytona's chassis is that it has the latest suspension hanging off it. The fully adjustable front forks and rear shock have been reworked to the point that they no longer resemble the units that went before. Rebound damping has been reduced up front to produce a plusher ride and the stroke of the rear unit has been reduced. In the past criticism has been levelled at the earlier models for not being compliant as well as controlled resulting in a harsh ride. Thanks to the revisions, those days are now over.

What's it go like?
Because the launch was conducted both on the road and at the track, the Daytona received a thorough workout in all the environments it's likely it find itself in. The ride from Adelaide to Mallala took in just about every known variation of the bitumen road. Super tight hairpins strewn with gravel, leaf mould and running water. Long 'undulating' straights, tank slapping bumpy straights and corners, smooth sweepers, dead straights, the lot. And it was in this arena that the Daytona really stood out. Triumph set out to make a road bike par excellence, and they have.

Lets start with the power plant. That engine is a force of nature, the whole world now knows that a triple embodies the best attributes of a four cylinder with the best of a V twin. The new 955i triple does just that. Instant power and torque from anywhere in the rev range, supplied with hic-up free delivery from the French sourced Sagem fuel injection. Any problems Triumphs may have had in the past with the fuel injection in other models, were certainly not evident in this one. Given the patchy wet conditions, any glitches could have made the test highly stressful if not downright dangerous.

The mix of four cylinder and V twin characteristics is most apparent as you wind on through the gears. The power is just what you want, very strong, very linear and very long, with no hint of a flat spot anywhere. Torque is just as impressive and allows the rider to short shift along if the conditions dictate and still make good progress. With this sort of flexibility it's easy to just roll along and enjoy the bikes low down power without ever feeling that you need to be picking the right gear. If the need to overtake arises it's just a case of rolling the throttle back and getting on with it.

If all that sounds a bit sedate and is making the bike sound about as exiting as watching Big Brother with a milky drink and the cat on your lap, you could always nail the sucker. Do this, and as the revs climb the back end squats, the 180/55 Bridgestone takes a bite on the bitumen, the front wheel goes light and the thing just takes off. Bars flapping across the track surface through first and second, front wheel climbing off bumps in third all the way through to a wind screaming top speed of 260 kph. So I'm told.

One of the areas Triumph has done a lot of work on is with the sound of the bike. The exhaust note has been tuned to produce a deeper tone and works in harmony with the airbox induction, which is unlike any I've heard. From the saddle or from following behind, you don't need the rev counter to know when you or the bike in front has hit 8000 rpm, it's hard to describe but it's the sort of sound that's both haunting and utterly addictive. One of the test bikes came with a Triumph accessory muffler, which sounded sensational but drowned out the induction roar. If the bike was mine I'd be sticking to the original system and keeping the airbox noise.

Does it handle?
I you think the engines good then the suspension is an excellent partnership. It doesn't take a genius to work out that a bike needs to keep both wheels on the ground. Any suspension that is soft enough, but controlled enough to achieve this is good suspension. On the roads that real people ride on, the Daytona soaks up just about everything you can throw at it without ever losing it's planted feeling of composure. To say this is a nice change is no exaggeration. At any degree of lean over quite severe road irregularities, wet or dry, the bikes willingness to sort out problems is going to win a lot of friends.

The new geometry up front was a bit of a surprise, with a steering head angle of 22.8 degrees I was expecting the bike to fall into corners and twitch at every shift in body weight above and beyond a roll of the eyes. By some engineering feat beyond my comprehension Triumph have made the bike turn securely and confidently at low and high speed.

However if there's a weakness it's on the track. If you're a track day fiend then you're going to want to change things from the standard settings that we used on the launch. On the road there's never any need to turn really quickly and the standard settings work fine, but on the track the what was secure and confident on the road became lazy and unsettling, particularly when coming off the brakes as the tyre stopped squirming and the suspension settled down. Triumph have deliberately reduced the rebound to get the better ride quality on the road, so it would make sense that playing with the rebound and preload adjustments would make things a lot better.

Ground clearance was never an issue for this rider, and the Daytona's footpegs went back as virgin as they started. Big leaners will touch things down, but not this little black duck. Particularly as Mallala's reputation for being slippery when wet held true and claimed one rider as well as putting the fear of hospital food into just about everyone else.

If everything in the go department was well sorted, then the brakes also held up their end well. The four piston callipers and 320mm discs are predictably dependable, offering enormous power and loads of feedback through the lever. The rear unit, which has been changed from a twin to single piston unit is particularly nice, offering fine control for those feet up U turns, and low speed manoeuvres.

Is it comfy?
Actually it's not bad, better than some so called 'sports tourers' and significantly better than a lot of 'sports' bikes. Probably the only complaint concerned the heavy clutch which had just about all the limp wrested journos trying to shake the pain out of their hands by the end of the day. The seat to footrest position is surprisingly good and would probably be bearable for quite long periods. According to Triumph the clip on handlebars are less pull-back than the previous model in order to give greater comfort.

In this regard, the simple fact is that at legal speeds any sports bike fitted with bars below the top clamp is going to load the wrists up. Throw in a heavy clutch and multiple sets of traffic lights and there's a recipe for screaming wrists. It wouldn't be hard to have bars 20mm higher without losing any of the sporting ability. In fact given the fact that the fuel tank now holds twenty one litres it would make sense to provide the comfort to enjoy the range.

In summary
At the outset I said the 2002 Daytona has the ability to change what sports riders think is important. Very few riders actually spend a great deal of time doing track days, and yet they put up with harsh suspension, agonising ergonomics, limited fuel range and power characteristics that have little relevance on the road. The Triumph 955i Daytona is less race replica and more road relevant. It still has more performance and ability than 99% of riders will ever need or use, but what it has is more accessible and therefore usable. The test will be whether or not the image driven buying public can come to terms with that, if they can't, it won't be because there aren't any bikes to fill the bill.