We already had the sneak peak in one of my previous posts but now the new Trophy 2013 is officially presented to the press. For more flat journalist reading and copy pasting of the official brochure I would recommend the article on motorcycle.com (http://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/triumph/2013-triumph-trophy-se-preview-91318.html) or the article on visordown.com (http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news-new-bikes/revealed-2013-triumph-trophy-1200/20889.html).
I’m not going to add much to what is said in those articles but allow me to comment on 2 facts : pricing and availability. The official price will be announced in September it seems but it will be around 17.000 € for the entry level Trophy (read : “naked”). I guess the cost for the trophy SE will be around 20 K €. It seems that the SE will have mainly the extra sound-system and some gizmo’s that don’t really matter just as with the K1600 from BMW. And then there is the availability…in one of the articles it is stated that Triumph counts on selling roughly 2500 pieces the first year and that seems a bit low to me. I have no view on the numbers they sell in general but 2500 worldwide?? Are you joking? This bike is a masterpiece and unless it falls apart during the first miles and don’t see why this little baby won’t be a smashing success. It might be hard to convince the regular BMW driver to change given the fact that they don’t drive a BMW because they like it but because they just don’t know any better but what with all those Yama, Kawa, Honda and I don’t know what exactly other semi-tourers that get the chance to drive something really awesome? Owkay, I might be a littlebit biased but 2500 only?? Common…
The pictures released give a good look on the different aspects of the bike. I still have to study them in detail but there are a couple of things I really like.
Did you notice the glove compartment with USB and 12V connection. Let’s hookup my iPhone there :-)…just hope it will be compatible with the iPhone5 that will be released in October. I also noticed that there are no visible loudspeakers : please god let it be true!!! Have the gods finally made motorcycle manufacturers understand that motorbikes are no driving disco bars. Just clean Bluetooth integration with the helmet and Bobby here is satisfied. If Triumph has done this I humbly bow my head in full awesomeness for so much intelligence.
I have already witnessed (and driven) the cruise control on the Explorer. I have to admit that it has a drawback to which I still have to adapt. Once activated I tend to rest my hands on the grips and relax. The slightest shock however makes me touch the handles and it immediately deactivates the cruise control. I’m more or less forced to put my right hand somewhere else because otherwise I’m starting and stopping the cruise control all the time.
I’m also wondering how I will be able to mount my iPhone on the bike (will there be a set available?). I’m not interested in the obsolete Garmin Zumo (guys, we have smartphones now that do all that stuff and much more) so I hope I can mount my iPhone in a special weather resistant kit. ow, ow, ow…before I forget, I guess the onboard computer integrates with the iPod/iPhone music library, very good but I’m a licensed Spotify user and I have stopped buying in the iTunes store. How will the onboard system interact with Spotify? It works in my Volvo but the onboard controls such as next-previous don’t work with Spotify. If this would work I would really cry my eyes out of pure joy but I guess this is more something between iPhone and Spotify than the responsibility of Triumph.
I can only finish my article here with : owboyowboyowboy…drool, drool.
The official brochure can be downloaded here : 705722_VH_DIGITAL_PDF_UK.