BY
BraKr CoNNER
Proros BY
Goro
&
Goosr
time
and w/a hou6 of sffje€f ridirE.
Latey, it
seems I've
been
pondering
this
quite
fre-
quently.
Either I'm masochirtic ard
enjoy ri\e
d4,s r€co\rering from
ret
lag upon ny retum,
or it reaily is
warth iL h's now a week
after
my return
from
Kuala Lumpur
(KL),
Malaysia,
and
as I sit dqrn to write ny
6/al-
uation
of the brand-new
Triumph Daytona
675,
wlrich I had
the opportunity to ride
d
the Sepang
lntemational
Circuit ouBide of
KL, I can honestly
say
yes -
in this case, it
was worth
h.
Since the lirst
tirne I
saw
photos
of the
675, and then after
getting
to see h in
person
at a Triumph function in
Los Angeles
a few
morths
ago, I've been dying
to rifu it. From
a styling
standpoint, I think
the designers
finally
got
it right The 675 isnt
trying
to be
something it's
not - namey a 600cc
Japanese
superspofi
bike. The Daytona 600
and 650
were valiant
efforts that simply fell short
of
competing
with
the
japanese
"Fab
Four."
They
were both
good
sEeetbikes, but th€
compary
was always
playing
catch-up to the
competition
and always remained
a fevv
gen-
erations
behind
-
both in terms
of
perform-
ance and stylirE.
The compary
is now
committed to
using its unique
identity to its
adranta€e.
The Daytona
575 sends
a clear
message that the
company intendr
to
do what it do€s best,
regardless
of
what the comp€tition is
doing.
/
For
the 2006 model)€ai Triumph
says adios
and
good
riddance to the
inline four-g/inder
engines. The range
,ow
conrists
of
inline
thrEes in its
perform-
ance-oriented machines,
and
parallel
twins
in its
throwback models.
lohn
Bloor and his
Hinckley-based
company have now
retumed
to the formula
that helped rnake
their resurrecdon
and resurgence
success-
ful in the fim
place
- with
echoes of tl}e
originai T595 Daytona
resonating
in dle
baclqground.
Our test wo{ d consist
of a day
on the
Sepang Circuit, and then
a banzai run
through the Malaysian countD6ide
outside
of KL
the follo\flirE dq/. The Sepang
Circuir
has to
be one of rhe
coolest tracks in
the
wodd Not
only does it
hrve sorne realt fast
comers such
as tum
three, whidt is a fld
out,
fourd!€ear ri8ht,
hr ako there
are four to fne
hairyinlike cortws
and two realt
fast sE-aights.
Whlking out
onto the
pit
lane
dE rnorning
of *le track test and
seeing the
bikes lined up
had
rne eager with antjcipation.
I re.alt
didn t
know
what to e:
