FIRST IMPRESSION
P82
For rather than concocting a powered-
up version of the 900cc Street Scram-
bler, which just as it says on the label
has only minimal off-road pretensions,
Wood & Co.'s design brief was to de-
velop a pair of crossover bikes with the
Bonneville family's traditional twin-shock
neo-classic styling, which were just as
adept both on and off-road as the com-
pany's thoroughly modern 800XR/XC
dual purpose triples. In this way, Triumph
is seeking to restate the genuinely poly-
valent nature of the Scrambler nametag,
which it first laid claim to 13 years ago,
long before BMW or Ducati ever used
the name today on what amount to street
custom models.
PORTUGUESE PLAYING
The chance to evaluate how well Wood's
team has succeeded in doing this came
on a two-day press launch in southern
Portugal, with day one devoted to off-
road riding along trails made muddy after
a day-long deluge, and day two in even-
tual bright sunshine after a morning of
further rain along the fabulous sweeping,
swooping mountain roads behind the
Algarve region's tourist-heavy coastline.
The XC that's available in dealerships
in late January is the everyday tarmac-
friendly version of the two, costing
$14,000 with the more off-road-focused
XE (as in, E for Extreme) retailing at
$15,400. Both bikes are powered by the
same liquid-cooled parallel-twin eight-
valve 1198cc Bonneville engine.
But rather than detune performance
of these dual-purpose models to the
level of the T120 Bonneville by using this
engine in the T120's HT/High Torque
guise, Wood decided to employ the
more powerful HP/High Power variant
fitted to the Thruxton—and then enhance
it considerably for dual-purpose use.
Both Scrambler 1200 models feature a
long service interval of 10,000 miles.
INTO THE GUTS
OF THE SCRAMBLER
The HP Bonneville 1200 engine delivers
88.7 horsepower at 7400 rpm, which is 12.5
percent more power than the Bonneville
T120 and 38 percent more than the 900cc
Street Scrambler, albeit seven percent less
powerful than the 96-horsepower Thruxton.
But Wood & Co. have delivered the best
of both worlds by massaging the engine's
torque delivery to peak at 81 lb-ft at a low
Perfectly upright,
a delightful
engine and good
suspension—the
XC will make a
perfect back-roads
companion.
