Ego's thoughts on the 675 daytona

pure_ego

enzyme of hypoverbage
Donating Member
Registered
I got a chance to put some mileage on the new bike today on a little bit of every kinda road, and normal riding I do mostly.

a few words on my level (or non-level) of riding.

13 years of street riding now w/ 1 crash, and that was all my fault.

level 1 track school and normally riding in the top few percent of the beginner group at track days .. on the busa. Personally I feel that I could probably move up to advanced, but I want to do the level 2 before I try it.

ok.. so now you know roughly where I'm coming from . (if you didn't already know me)

The bike had 50 miles on it when I left to go on a sunday morning ride at about 8am with my dad. I'm still in the break in period so I won't be talking much about speed/pure power since I don't really know. All I can say about that is I feel confident it's going to scream when I start taking the rev's past 6,000 (and I might have snuck past that a time or two today
wink.gif
)

The route we went on is a road I've travelled all my life, and have many trips on the busa (two times a week for roughly the last month) so I know it fairly well and figure I can compare hayabusa's to daytona's pretty well on this stretch.

The first thing I noticed is I'm carrying more speed thru some of the turns (not wimpy turns.. I mean real turns here,,, I am in the appalachian mountain range afterall.) and I'm not working at all. Just ZAP and I'm going thru the turn at what I assume it about normal speed till I notice the speedo saying roughly 10mph faster than normal.

I believe thats just because it's so light (362 dry wieght) It just carries speed and you can't "feel" it like on the busa due to the extra weight. Math says it will carry more corner speed just due to the differences in weight... but thats not really what I'm looking at. I'm nowhere near the "Edge" doing all this.. .just piddling along really. It's just deceptive how easy it is to corner. The other thing I noticed is I had to be careful not to turn it in too fast. I did that several times. It turns in MUCH quicker and with far less effort than the cool busa. Several times I had to adjust my line mid-turn because I was running it too tight simply because of either turning in too fast, or too far.

I expected that though, and I'm sure any of you that have ever owned a 600/750 or ridden once know exactly what I mean.

The trannsmission on the Triumph is like butter.

250 miles on it now and absoloutly NO false neutral.. no missed shifts.. no nothing.. Just click and your either up or down depending on which way you meant to go. Alot of people on this forum (myself included) have kinda giggled at newbs talking about false neutrals and advised them to "shift it like ya mean it" which is true for the busa... but the triumph.. oh no... just apply a touch of pressure and blip the throttle and you've upshifted... no questions asked.

I love my busa, I really do. I don't want to soudn like I"m busa bashing because I"m not.. if I didn't like mine I would sell it while the resell is high and move on... but the tranny in the busa feels like junk compared to the triumph. It's THAT much better.

The engine in general seems to be a truly marvelous one (although the hayabusa's is wonderful in my opinion also)
It sounds like nothing I've ever rode, and it sounds better than anything I've ever heard including some really trick ducati's.. with the stock exhaust.

what little I know about the power is this...

Most 600 I've ridden seem anemic basically anytime you put them in 6th gear at anything less than insanse speeds.. not this one. I can put it in 6th and ride aroudn the mountains all day. At one point today I came back home and picked up the wifey for a little two up riding and intentionally left it in 6th on a pretty steep incline at about 20 mph and rolled into the throttle.. probably 1,800 rpms or so and it just made it's glourious prop-plane noise and started picking up speed. Thats a 675, with me (200 pnds) and the wife (130) in high gear on a hill, at slow speeds, not batting an eye when I ask it to do something I consider sorta beyond a 600 class bikes requirements.

Brakes are absoloutly the best I've ever had the pleasure to squeeze. The 'umph comes factory with braided lines and Nissin brakes.. which I had never used before this bike. I'm beyond impressed. I've never been on a bike that I would describe as "stop on a dime with change" but this bike will. I always make a point to practice some panic stops on any new bike I ride.. so I did it with this one.. and ended up raising the rear tire a few inches off the ground at about 40 mph because I wasn't expecting them to be so strong just tuggin' on them 1 fingered (I always practice 1 fingered cuz thats what I normally keep on the lever when I ride) I've done a few stoppies in my day, even did 1 on the busa just to prove I could... but I've never done one un-intentionally or with so little effort. Again this goes back to the light weight.. but the brakes... are stupendous. Perfectly progressive.. more pressure, more brake. Very predictable and reliable from what I can tell so far and STRONG.


after that I caught up with a guy I've ridden with for along time and regularly do track days with that flat destroys me anytime he wants too on a track. We ended up hitting a stretch of road we occasionally ride on thats 3 mountains and a crap load of tight, technical, any type of curve you can think of strip of pavement.

I didn't push the bike (pushing this bike, or any other sport bike, anywhere but a race track is an instant recipe for an ambulance ride and I don't really want that) but I did put it into a few curves enough to know that it's very stable, and not effected much by line changes or other stupid/weird stuff I could do to it while really running it. About the only thing it didn't seem to care for was hard braking while in transitions.. which most bikes don't like that anyway.

I also noticed this up in the moutains.. theres very little lash thru the drivetrain. you know when you let off the gas and then get back on it.. you get a jerk occasionally from all the slack catching back up at once. This bike has very little. A few times I did notice it I would call it moderate at best.

Really the entire throttle control is excellent, and delivery is just swell. I've always had a problem with the busa kinda surging whether with factory exhaust, or with aftermarket at low rpms.. this one never does that. Plus it doesn't free wheel like a 4 cy. It's more like a v twin in that area. Let off the gas, and the motor works like a brake.. and it's pretty effective. It's almost too much sometimes.

Mmm.. just some other stuff I've noticed. It gets attention... some good, some bad as usual. Sorta like the busa.. although most don't know what it is right off. Squids like the looks of it and wanna know the top speed... regular joes think it looks mean, and my daughter says "vrooom red!" when she see's it.. which is about the only chic opinion i care about. Other riders are amazed at the little dipstick it has instead of a sight glass (trans is stacked vertical instead of horizontal so the glass would be behind the fairing and pretty damn hard to see) and the ones that have sat on it are amazed how narrow and light it feels. Nearly every one that looked at it today came back sayign the same thing.. "It's so light, it feels like a toy!" which I agree with also.. assuming your idea of a toy is 110 hp to the tire and capable of inhuman lean angles.

Overall... I think this bike is so far beyond what I am capable of doing with it.. it's not even funny. It could be an absoloute demon in the right hands.. in mine it'll just be a lower minion of some lower level demon's secretary.

now, complaints... the seat is a board, and my wrists were not ready for the aggressive riding position over 200 miles. That will improve with more seat time and strengthing whatever muscle is complaining.. but the seat... sucks. It works great for aggressive riding, but it sucks for sitting on it.

Heat comes up front the pipe thats running 2 inches under you butt (duh) and it gets really warm at low speeds if your stuck that way for awhile. (full leathers on, and I was still feeling it creep thru)

I was at first rather put off because it didn't come with a slipper clutch from the factory like most other 600 class bike.. but then I realized I had one installed in my left hand a bazillion rides back on the very first motorcycle I ever had and stopped worrying about it.

The wife hates the rear seat position and the height of the passenger footpegs. I was told I could go ahead and take the passenger peg brackets off, cuz she wasn't riding with me on "that" bike anymore.. haha.

the tool kit is beyond a joke. Remove the front seat with a key and you find 1 allen wrench.. that apparently only fits the bolt that holds the rear seat in place... so you remove that and find a screw driver... haha and thats all ya find. You can't squeeze a boggin' under there let alone anything usefull. this all adds up to something.. but what is it?

the triumph is no sport-touring machine.

I thought of the simplest way to put it all in perspective for you guys.

If you were going to deals gap.. the hayabusa is the one to ride... the triumph is the one to ride AFTER you get there.


For two up riding, or just general riding there is no comparison. The hayabusa wins by a landslide...

but for going out 2-3 hours on the weekends with other like minded hooligans for road crime and twistie destruction or track days.. the triumph trumps the 'busa by a good margin.

All that being said.. My busa is still sitting in my garage waiting to be ridden the next time I go out farting around with the wife, flat out speed, long distance, or piddling around backroads with the old man and will be for a long time.


and my god if the 675 is this cool.. what will I do if they redo the 955i to be as good as this?
 
Nice write up, thanks.

My Son is wanting the 675 Bad. Can't wait to let him read this.
 
NP.. it's definatly got the ego stamp of approval so far.

the one thing I forgot to mention was that I was suprised at how comfortable the leg room is. I'm 6'0 and it's a tiny bike as mentioned before.

I really expected some knee pain after awhile (my right knee hurts after I've been on the busa awhile) and I didn't get any pain, and it's not hurting at all know and I spent most of the day on the bike.

I haven't measured,, but the leg room is atleast the same if not a bit more. an

and the tank is comfortable to "nutt-hug" up to as is my usual way of riding when i'm feelin frisky. ....
blush.gif
you know what I mean.
wink.gif
 
Awesome Review
cool.gif


Have a pic of the test bike, or any pic of this bike...I can't remember what it looks like.
 
ppic



<!--EDIT|pure_ego
Reason for Edit: None given...|1154357963 -->

triumph2.jpg
 
one more



<!--EDIT|pure_ego
Reason for Edit: None given...|1154358004 -->

triumph4.jpg
 
Nice write-up Ego. A good friend of a good friend has the gold 675 and I can't wait to take a crack at it.

I sat on it (you're on the money about the uncomfortable riding position/seat...and the passenger - fuggetaboutit) and he would have let me ride it then but I had shorts, t-shirt and sandals on. I'm going to take him up on it soon and he'll get a chance to ride my Busa.
 
Back
Top