TEST
P78
SOUTH BAY TRIUMPH STREET TRACKER
choke on an 80-degree SoCal
summer day but instead blip the
throttle a couple of times to prime
the big Keihin FCR flatslides,
thumb the starter button, and get
ready for the Triumph to thunder into life and settle to a pretty
lumpy 900 rpm idle.
But then crisply snick it into
gear via the so-precise shifter,
and get ready for a surprise, because the motor smoothes right
out as the revs mount. Capri's
got the balance factor just right
on the stroker crank, for vibration
remains minimal even when you
wind the throttle wide open in pursuit of the 8500 rpm rev-limiter,
accompanied by the trademark
flat angry drone of a traditional
tuned British twin - as expressed
through the twin megaphone exhausts.
That stroker crank seems unbelievably free spinning, with a
perfectly dialed in throttle pickup
that's immediate but not jerky, as
flat-slide carbs can sometimes
be. Fueling wasn't totally ideal low
down, and it would hiccup slightly
and display some transmission
snatch if I accelerated hard below
3500 rpm – perhaps the carb jetting still needed attention.
But that's the threshold to serious performance, for the Triumph motor's mega midrange
torque delivers truly impressive
acceleration, as the front wheel
lightens in either of the bottom
two gears while the tach readout on the ultra nifty British-made
Acewell digital dash scoots up to
the 7500 rpm mark and beyond
with unmistakeable purpose.
What grabs you first, last and
always about the Street Tracker
is the effortless grunt of that rorty
motor, which makes short-shifting
around 6500 rpm in each gear
the hot tip. You need only use the
clutch shifting up out of first gear,
but otherwise this crisp, precise
gearshift is the fastest and cleanest I can ever remember on a Triumph Bonneville.
The power curve is totally linear, and acceleration punchy and
satisfying, as the Bonnie's front
wheel first lifts lazily, then hovers
above the pavement hard on the
gas at any of the stoplight GP races you can't help but turn any red
light into. Those flat-slide carbs
give instant throttle response either off the line or exiting a turn,
but there's a crisp, responsive
crack to any midrange roll-on
that's addictive and thrilling, especially to the background music of those growling exhausts.
This is a real 21st-century classic
hotrod.
Though short shifting just
seems right in terms of maxing out drive, the motor has an
appetite for revs up to around
the 8000-rpm mark. Low-down
