BIKETEST:Triumph's Street Triple R was, for Tom Robert, an almost perfect experience
I KNOW THE chaps at Triumph are perpetual optimists, but even they were surprised by the success of the Street Triple when it was launched in July last year.
Bikes were no sooner in the shops than they were straight out the door faster than, well, a speeding motorcycle, to the extent that the Triple is now the company's best-selling machine, with 7,531 sales in a year, the production line is running at full capacity, and production in Thailand has been increased to try to deal with a queue waiting two months to get their gauntlets on one.
It all adds up to the fact that in the first nine months of this year, Triumph sold 45,000 bikes and looks certain to break its annual record of 47,000 set in the golden days of 1967.
However, all too aware that resting on your laurels is what spelled disaster for the British bike industry back then, the lads down the back of the workshop at Hinckley have been beavering away at the Triple they wanted to make in the first place - the racing version.
Indeed, so new was the Street Triple R I picked up from dealer Philip McCallen that it had precisely zero miles on the clock, and those little spiky things not only on the sides of the tyres, but the bottom.
As for the difference between this and the original Triple, what the boffins have done is taken the front brake units in their entirety from the Daytona, a move which they claim give it 40 per cent more initial bite and 20 per cent more stopping power.
They've also borrowed the adjustable front and rear suspension from the same bike, changed the handlebars and set the front forks at a halfway point between the firmness of the Daytona and the relative softness of the standard Triple.
All of which meant very little to me as I stood there with Philip McCallen looking at the understated graphite colour scheme with burnt orange lettering and thinking what a neat looking machine it was, down to an instrument cluster which tells you all you need to know, but doesn't bother you with unnecessary clutter.
Bit like the bike itself, I thought as I swung my leg over it, felt instantly comfortable and turned the key to unleash the smooth purr which only comes from one of the Hinckley triples.
One thing was immediately obvious: that, to tweak test pilot Alex Henshaw's famous quote about the Spitfire, you don't ride this bike, you wear it.
Even tootling along the winding roads of Co Armagh waiting until the temperature built before I wound the revs up, it was obvious that the handling and balance were perfect. I've never been on a bike where from the very first corner, you don't even have to think about the mechanics of what you're doing, but simply flow around the curves as if the machine is an extension of your thoughts.
And if that sounds like I've been on the Baby Disprin again, just get on one of these and find out for yourself.
By now the temperature was up to the level at which I could dispatch with the BMW 3-Series ahead of me driven by one of those people who drives around corners like an elderly snail, then hurtles down straights like a demented bat lest you should dare to overtake them, leaving behind you the saddest sound in middle management, the gentle sigh of a fragile ego slowly deflating.
Even holding the tacho below 5,000rpm, though, I was past him like a flash, and around the next bend with a smile on my face which was not diminished over the next hour. In fact, I can pay no finer tribute to the R than the fact that five minutes later it started lashing down, but I was still grinning when, frozen solid and dripping wet, I handed Philip McCallen back the keys.