Triumph don't seem to be doing anything to keep their excellent sports bike track record alive, so up has stepped Spirit Motorcycles to take the Daytona to the next level. A limited-edition fire-breathing Moto-2 GP Racer and a Street version.
Spirit Motorcycles is a joint venture between Spirit of the Seventies - a well known and respected custom bike building firm who have produced a number of beautiful custom Triumphs - and T3 Racing - the company behind the oh so successful Triumph Triple Challenge series of races and the first port of call for anyone looking to take their Triumph to the next level. Both of the companies are based down in Kent so it made sense for the new venture to be based there as well.
At an invitation only event at The Bike Shed in Shoreditch, London (UK), Tony Scott (co-founder) unveiled the two models to an admiring audience. The event was also streamed live on Facebook on Tuesday night. Spirit motorcycles are hoping to provide younger riders with experience of the sort of race machines you get at Moto 2 and Moto GP level, but before they ever get to the Moto GP level. They are hoping that this will encourage young British riders to get into GP racing and give them the experience early to give them a massive advantage. The two bikes launched today are hoping to kick-start the venture with some initial capital and pedigree.
Two machines were unveiled, a GP Sport R and a Street R. These are the full spec versions of the superbikes - there are base models available too. Before you reach for your credit card, the estimated prices are currently between £45k and £70k. Yes, that's more than the new Norton.
The superbike machines are based on the Triumph Daytona 675 engine with the capacity increased to 750cc. How they have managed to do that is, quite frankly, a miracle... but then T3 Racing probably know the 675 engine better than Triumph does. Rather than increase the bore to keep the conrod length short, they've increased the stroke instead.
Other specs are carbon fibre wheels, 428 chain straight out of Moto GP, hand-built swinging arm, K-Tech suspension, hand-brazed chassis - yes hand-Brazed, only 140kg weight, quick release callipers so you don't have to bleed the brakes, aero-style headstock so that rake and trail can be changed to suit your style, and a new era of electronics with the M130 Motec ECU and C125 dashboard.
The electronics have been programmed specifically by Spirit Motorcycles. They are so advanced that they constantly upload all the sensor data to the Cloud so that your Spirit Motorcycles technician can see exactly how your bike is doing, what the tyre pressures are, what fuelling you are running. Just a simple call, no matter where in the world you are, and you can get your data analysed on the spot and the appropriate settings in your ECU updated then and there. This is the future.
Production of these machines is slated to begin at the end of March 2017.
