Paradoxical day, glad then sad.

[oldrider]

Well today I made a decision, the outcome of which makes me both "glad" and "sad".

The glad bit is, I decided to buy this! (see pic No1 below)
New 2006 Triumph Tiger 955i. (it can still be seen on TardMe.)

The sad bit is that I have traded in this! (see pic No2 below)
My dear old 2001 XL650v TransAlp complete with it's new Mitas EO7's.
Someone will get a very good bike if they buy this.

What influenced me to do it was this! (see pic No3 below)
This guy (Mark) and his trusty Triumph, an excellent partnership. (Skillful rider and capable bike.)
(Note: they both have 24 liter tanks)
Every rider (on the passes ride) without exception rated this bike including me when I too tried it. Pretty good testimony in my book.

An aside:This guy and his bike won my respect big time! (see pic No4 below)
Some of you will have seen the pics of his bike on it's back while he made a few adjustments.
I don't want to buy one anymore but any bike that can take a bump like this one did and still be ridden home by it's injured rider with little obvious damage gets my respect. (Steve is a real nice guy)

So as of today I own a Triumph Tiger 955i but I don't go up to get it until about the 27/02/07, anyone want a good reliable little Honda TransAlp 650cc venture bike get in touch with Thunderbikes in Nelson. Cheers John.

[Steam]

Congrats on the new bike! How much do you think Thunderbikes will want for your TransAlp? I'm on the hunt...

[T.W.R]

Well done John, you're going to enjoy yourself on the Tiger

Onwards & upwards, shame about the Transalp but she served you well

[far queue]

Well I guess congratulations and commiserations are in order then.

[miSTa]

Well done John.


You'll be able to show us what it can do next week end now...

[James Deuce]

Good stuff mate!

[Mr. Peanut]

Awesome bike John! I want one

[timg]

Hey John, enjoy your new ride. I hope you'll still answer all my dumb questions about my TA tho

I was fortunate to do a portion of the first day of the passes ride. Duck01 and his Tiger were certainly a well sorted unit. What made you choose it over the Honda Varadero you were thinking about?

Feel free to drop in for a coffee on your way home from Nelson

Cheers, Tim.

[Ruralman]

Hey John, enjoy your new ride. I hope you'll still answer all my dumb questions about my TA tho

I was fortunate to do a portion of the first day of the passes ride. Duck01 and his Tiger were certainly a well sorted unit. What made you choose it over the Honda Varadero you were thinking about?

Feel free to drop in for a coffee on your way home from Nelson

Cheers, Tim.

I think what helped decide was the way myself and others on the Passes ride were raving about the Tiger (but not the new one with the 17inch front which is a neutered version made for old urbanites needing an upright riding position but don't need to do gravel roads etc).
Mark used to have a 600 Transalp - prior to putting me on the Tiger (on a gravel road to start with) he told me how I would instantly feel at home after the T/A. In short he was exactly right. I rode it from the start of Moleworth to the top of Ward Pass. Within a very short distance I was punting it along just like my Transalp. I also rode it from the Arthurs Pass lookout over the viaduct down to Kumara Jnctn. It does everything very much like the T/A but just has a lot more power when you want to turn it on - and the sound of that triple when you do it is amazingly addictive. It makes passing just so easy as well as hills etc. If you were riding 2 up a lot then it offers a lot over the Transalp - it also happens to use a lot less fuel, although my fuel consumption rose considerably as I spent the week trying to keep up with 1000cc bikes on the highway sections (not a problem on the gravel) with a pretty big load.
If I had the spare cash I'd trade up in a flash. As it happens I haven't so I won't. I would also say however that once back to riding at my normal speed and away from a group ride doing big distances each day, the Transalp is still an almost perfect bike for me. I've got a few demerits so high speed runs are largely off the options list so the Tiger actually doesn't really fit into the needs category, more the "wants".
The only negative on the Tiger on our trip was that the footpegs were too high for me and others which cramped me up and also alters your sitting angles which would have got uncomfortable after a while. This one was a jap import and we don't know whether this meant the pegs were in a different place to another countries specs - I would have got them lowered. I will be interested to sit on Johns to see if theres a diference.
If you were intending to do hard out backcountry riding on really rough rocky roads then the other consideration could be that Johns one will have alloy wheels rather than genuine spoked wheels which handle this sort of abuse better - realistically I don't see this being an issue for what most of us would do on this bike.

[oldrider]

Hey John, enjoy your new ride. I hope you'll still answer all my dumb questions about my TA tho

I was fortunate to do a portion of the first day of the passes ride. Duck01 and his Tiger were certainly a well sorted unit. What made you choose it over the Honda Varadero you were thinking about?

No such thing as a dumb question, the T/A's are very good bikes, ask away.

I was only "thinking" about the Varadero and learning as much as I could about them before they come on sale here in NZ.

The Varadero is obviously a very good long distance tourer but not available yet!

The Tiger was here and available, also potentially more capable than my T/A and a real bargain.(IMHO)

All of the Pass riders had ridden all of their bikes and were unanimous that Mark's Tiger was the performer of them all.

What better testimony could you ask for than to have such unbiased praise from a group of real venture bikers,(opinions that I respect) especially when they were comparing the Tiger against their own precious machines!

I took it for a quick wee ride with Mrs O on the back and we liked what it did on both the seal and the gravel but it needed to be set up for our needs and to suit our requirements for us to get the best out of it.

I was thinking about getting a bike that size and the one I have bought was sitting there waiting for me! The "deal" was right so Bingo, sorted! Cheers John.

[Transalper]

Assuming you do alot of two-up riding, i imagine the Tiger will suit your needs well. As for me, I'm doing less two-up stuff than before and have become a fan of the DR650 for the more difficult Adventure tending trail rides... J can I borrow your new bike again?

[warewolf]

Nice!

I thoroughly enjoyed my Tiger, a used '94 model I took from 60 to 80,000km over two years. Probably should've bought one instead of the Trophy way back when...

I see the new one as being a rough/bumpy roads sports-tourer, something to replace the Trophy.

Enjoy the new scoot!

[Macktheknife]

Just for curiosity John, was there a Vstrom 1000 to compare it with? I have heard they do extremely well. I really like the appearance of the Tiger, but the price of the only one I have seen was intimidating.

[Ruralman]

Just for curiosity John, was there a Vstrom 1000 to compare it with? I have heard they do extremely well. I really like the appearance of the Tiger, but the price of the only one I have seen was intimidating.

WE had a V Strom 1000 with us on the Passes ride - I didn't ride it on the gravel. Its a great 2 up road bike, capable on the gravel but on tighter twisty gravel and rough tracks it was not as good as the Tiger or Transalp - it still will get you there make no mistake, you just have to adjust your speed etc.
On the tight gravel the T/A and the Tiger just turned in so much easier. On the road the Tiger felt like it had more go and the motor is just so smooth (and with that triple growl).
On really tricky tracks where you had to pick your line through ruts etc (the Maungatapu track) the V Stroms biggest weakness was exposed - Jantars one was geared down through changes to both the front and rear sprockets but his minimum speed was still around 20km/hr - below this (about 3000 revs) the thing just dies. Where the T/A and the Tiger could slow down to near stopped and then just pull away quietly the Strom risked stalling. Quite frankly Jantar deserves an award for getting the big beast through that track and only coming undone the once. The same issue makes getting through fords with tricky surfaces more difficult than on the other bikes - but he did get through.
It depends then on how much of this sort of riding you are going to do and your riding skills. Theres obviously a price premium to the tiger (although the special deal at the moment includes panniers which narrows the gap a bit) which reinforces that the big Strom is bloody good value. If your going to own it for a long time then the pain of the extra dollars will be forgotten long before you stop smiling from riding the Tiger.

[oldrider]

Just for curiosity John, was there a Vstrom 1000 to compare it with? I have heard they do extremely well. I really like the appearance of the Tiger, but the price of the only one I have seen was intimidating.

Yes Mack, Jantar was one of the riders and his testimony or opinion was a strong influencing factor on my buying the Tiger!

Bare in mind that I believe that the V-Strom 1000 is currently the best bang for bucks new bike on the market currently in NZ, so why did I buy the Tiger you may well ask?

The Tiger that I bought was on a special end of run sale and the deal and that put it ahead of buying a V-Strom.

The availability of deal and the combined testimonies of the Pass riders and my own evaluation of the Tiger influenced me to buy the one on offer.

The proof of the pudding of course will be in the eating and right now I am in the limbo land of being "between bikes" and I don't particularly like where I am at just now!! (roll on 27th of Feb)

The new 2007 Tiger has no appeal for me at all, I think they are trying to pander to sport bike rider converts with the comfort of the sit up position, they have drifted away from the venture bike concept altogether. Cheers John.