New Triumph Trophy

If I am not mistaken the Trophy will be more than 40 kg heavier than the R1200RT. Must admit, I am disappointed. Why does Triumph have to make everything so heavy? I like Triumphs, but I like light bikes even more. I had probably hoped for something more sporty like the 1050GT but with a shaft. Oh well. Probably Honda (and Yamaha?) comes up with something equally heavy in the touring class for 2013.

Interesting stat in this months bike mag. They have a big feature on the RT. While BM quote 270 kgs "Ready to ride", Bike give a measured figure of 278 kgs, with a full tank and luggage. It'll be interesting to see what kind of road stats the Trophy comes in with, as claimed weight is 301 kgs, minus luggage.

Everything I've seen so far compares the new Trophy to various BMWs Hondas or Yamahas, but I've seen no mention yet of the Kawasaki GTR1400. I bought a 2008 example a couple of years ago when I wanted to replace my '97 Trophy but Triumph seemed at that time to have abandoned the sector (1050 Sprint too cramped for my 6'4" 20st). It's been great, but I'm still looking forward to getting my leg over a new Trophy. Meanwhile I'd like to see a comparison to my current bike, which appears to be a closer match than most of the aforementioned?
I'm concerned about the new bike's reported weight though, the previous model was 208kg (dry) incl the std. panniers and (fixed) screen but had 4 cylinders!

"I've got myself a set of scales I can weight bikes with now"
... well that's the best news I've heard for sometime. If I could humbly request a stats list link from you at some point Kev?

It'd be great to know what the exact wet weights of bikes, within genre, with a full or close to full tank and standard accessories (such as panniers) fitted?

It would certainly remove a hell of a lot of ambiguity and weight is always such a popular discussion topic, even if other factors such as front/rear distribution and C of G are key dependencies, etc.

I think the Trophy has as much in common silhouette wise with the Pan and 1400GTR as the RT, but they are all similar in lots of ways, as are the Adventure bikes now.

And as Kevin eludes to, whatever you come out with will inevitably be compared against the class leader, because unless the price point is way off, most buyer will be comparing any new option against that to decide which to buy.

My gut feeling is that it'll probably give the Kawasaki a good run for it's money. I will test ride it when released, but I suspect the LC RT will be the one worth waiting?

Paulvt1 said: "While BM quote 270 kgs "Ready to ride", Bike give a measured figure of 278 kgs, with a full tank and luggage."

Just looked on the BMW motorrad uk site and here's what it says, as of 13th July 2012, for the R1200RT.

Dry weight: 229kg
Unladen weight, road ready, fully fuelled. 259kg

The road ready bit says that the battery is in and the tyres actually have compressed air in them etc etc. the only scope for misinterpretation is that we are to assume they are referring to the "basic" spec model. That's fine and normal as long as they give the weights for any options we add on.

I shall indeed be publishing weights as I measure them, and a list is a good idea, I'll work on that, but I can only do that with bikes I get here in the UK, the scales are a bit bulky to lug to press presentations unfortunately. I've found the best method for me is to weigh the bikes with a near empty tank, I have to guess at the amount of fuel left but this is only around 2 litres generally, so the figures could be 1 or 2kg out, but no more than that.

Just my tuppence worth but I have always thought that weight figures would be more real world relevant with a full tank, not an empty one. OK so different bikes have different size tanks but they also have different size frames, swing arms, tyres, batteries, engines etc etc. You can't ride a bike with an empty tank but when you go the petrol station it usually will leave there full. In saying that however I also agree with the sentiment that the actual weight figure of a bike is pretty much secondary compared to how it handles that weight. I would never either eliminate nor chose a bike based on its weight figure, indeed it never comes into my thought process during selection.

Okay, I'll take those comments on board, I just worry about penalising bikes for something positive such as a large fuel tank. The additional weight can be calculated, and although tank sizes do vary from the given capacities, we're only looking at a couple of kg variance on 2-300kg machines, so in this context it's not significant (though it's useful to know when you're standing at the side of the road after expecting there to be another litre of fuel in your bike...). The most useful aspect is comparing with the claimed figures and putting to rest some of the debate about certain bikes.

Something else I've started to do is measure total pannier width after being taken aback at the accessory panniers on the V-Strom 650, which make it feel as wide as a car - I leave them off when there's a chance of heavy traffic. These it turns out are 1.16m across, 15cm more than a Tiger 800, while the narrowest so far, and this will surprise a few, is the Electra Glide at 85cm. Mind you, they're much too small for two-up touring... Others are Multistrada at 93cm, Crosstourer at 94cm and Tiger Explorer at 97cm.

The Lecky-Slide doesn't suprise me all that much really. The rear tyre isn't a modern monster and Harley panniers (saddle-bags in these parts doncha-know) have always been super-model thin and two feet tall. They are, of course, completely useless for any head gear storage bigger than a waifer thin beanie or moderately thick bandana, shades and sunscreen. Essential bad-bottom gear for the Hognescenti. However I was suprised, on a three day road trip, how much a RKC can stash in it's panniers. Of course being top-openers you'll never want to hunt for anything in the base of them in a hurry but they can hold a reasonable amount of stuff if you travel light. but a Wing it ain't.

"Okay, I'll take those comments on board, I just worry about penalising bikes for something positive such as a large fuel tank"
... fair comment. So measure with full tank, state the claimed tank capacity and then a 'caculated' semi-wet (everything but fuel) weight. People can then refer to whichever figure they prefer, but you're starting with the easier constant of a full tank, rather than one that might not get you back to the petrol station at the end of your road! :-D

You're right that amongst peers it'll probably not matter much, as claimed capacities are often similar, but overall weight wise it'd be good to see which manufacturers are taking Colin Chapman at his word.

BTW Kev, not to burdon you further, but to quell the questions and comments it will later spawn, is there a relatively easy weigh (sic) that you might be able to work out both the weight distribution and the C of G of the bikes that you'll be weighing?

And would you then (once Jag and Pits get their mitts into it!) be able to advise what is a fairly optimum distributon and gravitational height on a per genre basis? I.e. E.g. Presumably a fairly front biased and tall weighted centre would benefit sportsbikes, whereas the opposite may be true of cruisers?

My view on panniers - function is far more important than form, hence they must be as large as practicable (I have a high maintenance pillion who always insists on taking a handbag and her own hairdryer!)and also waterproof and secure. If they're strong enough to sit on whilst camping, so much the better
Width wise though, they need to be about 50-100mm narrower than the bike's mirrors. Anything more causes filtering scrapes, anything less is capacity wasted.