Cycle News

TRIUMPH MOTO2 PROTOT YPE FIRST TEST P88 turns. Mistake. Apart from saving two unnecessary gear- shifts by sticking in second, the peakier top-end performance had the front wheel lifting after I'd pulled the Triumph upright from full lean and pinned the throttle wide open. Better to surf that fat, flat torque curve and drive cleanly away from the bend from around 8000 rpm upwards—not exactly low down the rev scale by street bike stan- dards, but lower midrange on a Moto2 GP racer like this one. JUST LIKE A 250 Equipped with K-Tech race suspension front and rear, this Daytona-chassised junior super- bike steered like an old-school 250GP racer on steroids, with agile handling thanks to its slim build occasioned by the narrow three-cylinder engine. I do feel the Triumph to be a little taller than the innumerable Honda 600 Supersports I've ridden down the years, so presumably current Moto2 riders will notice the same when they switch to their new-generation triples. The Triumph engine's narrower build will surely result in Kalex & Co. producing radically different frames compared to their current 600cc four-cylinder packages, resulting in even more nimble packages. Will this result in Kalex's current domination of Moto2 grids being challenged? Let's wait and see. Though I really missed the absent autoblipper that's now become second nature when riding a modern sportbike on a Stuart Wood's technical marvel retained all the stock 765 engine castings, including the Nikasil- lined cylinder block, and modified the internals— though rather surprisingly not as much as you might expect. "We'd agreed with Dorna to use our new larger-capacity 765cc three-cylinder motor rather than the old 675, and we knew what we wanted to do with it, which was obviously to get more power and more torque out of the engine compared to the standard street bike," says Steve Sargent. "To do that, we needed to spin the engine up faster, and to reduce the inertia within it." This entailed removing superfluous items like the starter motor, then comprehensively re-porting and gas-flowing the cylinder head to allow the engine to breathe better. They fitted lighter titanium valves the same size as on the 765RS street engine, but with stiffer valve springs, and race camshafts with higher lift and greater duration on the valve timing. The shape of the combustion chamber is essentially unchanged, but compres- sion has been raised to 14:1 from 12.65:1 on the stock RS by skimming the head, with a lighter, low output race alternator which Sargent says makes a big difference in reducing inertia. There are re- vised engine covers to reduce the engine's width, as well as a different cast alloy engine sump to permit a more tucked in run for the 3-1 Arrow tita- nium exhaust's headers. The standard crankshaft, counterbalancer, con- rods and cast three-ring pistons are all retained in unmodified form—so the crank hasn't been light- MAKING THE 765 INTO A GP RACER This is still a Daytona chassis under the bodywork, but obvious clues like the gigantic radiator hint at a more serious purpose. The stock offset chain drive to the cams has been retained, with max revs punched out to 14,000 rpm.

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