I don’t get excited anymore, there’s nothing out there that surprises me. The more people you meet, and the more places you see, the more you realize that it’s all just a steaming hot pile of Gorilla shit. Life is a pointless little exercise in self-control, to see who has the most patience to not strangle himself, before death eventually strangles him anyway.
These bitchy existential thoughts have a funny way of disappearing past 220 kmph.
I’m a broke wannabe biker with a constant itch to piss people off, and that doesn’t help me in any way whatsoever. When I heard about Driven, a superbike hire service so close to me, I got a massive boner like I’ve never experienced before. My plan was simple.
- Go to Driven
- Enchant them with my writing, photography, videography skills
- Constantly and involuntarily jizz over every superbike given to me to ride for free
So I went to Driven, and told them about my website. Unfortunately, they decided to check it right in front of me.
Long story short, I was kinda lucky to get the Daytona, at full price.
I picked the Daytona because that’s the fastest thing they had at that time, and the costliest. Even though I ended up spending half my monthly salary to rent that beauty for 48 hours, oh how I wish I could do it all over again. Ladies and non-ladies, here’s my review of the Triumph Daytona 675 after 500 kms and 48 hours of experience.
Triumph Daytona 675 review: The Character
The easiest way to describe the Daytona is that it’s a Duke 390 on steroids. It has a lot in common with the Duke, as far as the madness and the sheer hair-raising-ness of it goes, but apart from that, the 390 is to Honey Boo Boo what the Daytona is to Ronda Rousey.
The first time I got the bike, I was deep inside the city’s butthole. My first few meters with the bike involved the following obstacles:
- Jump over the curb
- Dodge the potholes
- Take a U-turn
- Don’t hit anybody
Needless to say, I was shitting bricks, but over and above that was the sheer terror that the Daytona brings with it. It’s like a bull with a dark past and severe anger issues, and it makes that clear the moment you push that starter. It’s not completely unpredictable, nor completely uncontrollable, but the bike’s personality is right on the edge between being an obedient little bitch, and being Gogo Yubari, and it’s rather difficult to know when it’s gonna bite you in the ass.
The looks
The Daytona’s looks can be described in a single word: “Deceptive”.
If you see the bike from the front, it doesn’t look intimidating, at all. It almost looks like a feminine smiley face, if you can contort your imagination enough, but that front air intake and the dual discs are probably the only things giving at least some idea of what lies beneath.
As you move sideways, things change quickly. Those low-set clip-ons, that edgy fairing, that big engine, and that exquisite frame tell you that the party has just started.
The rear is, in my opinion, the most impressive part of this machine. That gorgeous swing-arm has some splendid intricacies to it, if you are willing to spend the time to notice them. Those almost-slick Pirelli Supercorsa tires will remind you of a freshly waxed thigh. The tail is just high enough to give you a glimpse of the interesting, but not too high to make it look like a whore’s behind.
It’s basically the Scarlett Johansson of motorcycles.
The power
If you’ve ever wondered why bikers exist, why they drool visibly over every passing superbike, why they risk their lives by strapping themselves to a machine powered by thousands of explosions per minute, you should ride the Daytona. It’s the perfect mix of fear and control, capable of taking you to that point of unearthly fun combined with certain death.
In many ways, fear of death is part of the fun. If that possibility of a bolt hitting you at 300 kmph and going clean through your brain wasn’t there, many of the motorcycle racing legends probably would’ve been doing something entirely unrecognizable with their lives. The Daytona’s power delivery is possibly the closest you’ll ever get to feel what’s it like to slide down into a corner at the IOMTT.
I have never ridden a liter-class machine, but I can’t imagine how much more crazier that would be than this. The Daytona is borderline insane, but the important word there is borderline. Even an inexperienced fucker like me was able to go full-throttle on this thing, at least for a few seconds, before it felt like my helmet would split in half because of the wind blast.
One of the ways to describe the Daytona’s power would be by how long it’ll take you to get used to it. It took me roughly 2 years to get completely comfortable with the Duke 390’s grunt, so I’d assume the Daytona would take at least 3, if not 5. Having said that, the first few months will take a shitload of responsibility, the slightest twitch of that right wrist can end with a totaled bike and a totaled human.
The Daytona 675 takes itself very seriously, and does not like to be fucked around with. It’s designed for people who have the balls to use it the way it’s meant to, and the brains to know how. If you don’t have the balls, you’ll never know what this thing is capable of. If you don’t have the brains, you’ll know what this thing is capable of, just before you die.
The sound
There are many car and bike sound videos on Youtube, and you can watch plenty of the Daytona, with a bunch of different exhausts and shit, but none of them can do justice to the real thing.
For a very long time, I’d heard and read a lot about the “triples”, that how Triumph’s 3-cylinder engines seemed to have a soul, while the Japanese inline-4s sound like Satan’s minions. It’s a rather subtle difference, and you’ll realize it only if you are looking for it, but I agree, the Daytona sounds like it’s alive.
The basic difference between the triple and an inline-4 is this: Voice Modulation. The Kawas and the Suzukis and the Hondas are extremely mechanical, robotic, predictable, the triple on the other hand gives far more feedback.
If you were making love to a woman, and she moved with you, told you what felt good, made you feel it, she’d sound exactly like a Daytona.
The bike that I rode was completely stock, and the sound completely blew me to pieces. It was far louder than anything I’ll ever need, so I’m really looking forward to riding one with an Arrow in the future, because you know, fuck logic.
The positives
Even though I’m not qualified enough to explain to you all the good things about this machine, what I can tell you is the experience from the eyes of an amateur who got lucky. The biggest positive in my opinion about the Daytona is its braking, and no matter what I write, you’ll never understand how good it is unless you try it yourself.
Most bikes that I have ridden till date have shitty brakes, including my 390. By shitty I mean they are not bad, but you never feel like you can depend on them if your life depended on it.
The Dayton’s front brakes are like Hulk’s punch straight to your chest the moment you even as much as breathe on that lever.
The second best thing I found was that you can have fun on it without ever bothering about underbelly scraping. This came as quite a surprise to me, since I had expected that a supersport like the Daytona will be highly susceptible to getting its ass kissed by the orgy of speed bumps we have around here.
Maybe it’s the hard suspension, or maybe it’s the ground clearance, whenever I saw a speedbreaker, all I did was stand on the footpegs and just jump right over it. By the end of the 2 days, I had almost started to have fun with the humps, trying to get as much airtime as possible, without scaring myself to shit.
The other positive that comes to mind is the beautiful gearing. I pulled this thing from 30 kmph in 6th gear all the way till 230. That’s fucking magical, especially for a guy who’s used to a bike that coughs like a granny every time you try to pull in 6th gear from anything less than 80.
The clutch is light, the throttle is precise, and the tank is meaty enough to give you a beautiful connection with the machine, all the way from your left knee to your balls and down the other side. This is as impressed as I’ve ever been with a motorcycle, and there’s nothing more or less to it.
The negatives
There. Are. None.
Within the confines of the purpose for which it’s built, the Daytona is a flawless piece of automotive Kamasutra, there isn’t a single thing that I could put my finger on and say that needs to be improved, but that maybe because I’m not skilled enough to know the difference.
If Rossi came to my house tomorrow and asked to ride the Daytona, he might fiddle around with the suspension and the mapping and the footpegs and whatnot, but that would be because he is Rossi, he wants to squeeze out 100% out of his machine and he knows how to.
I think the first thing he’ll do is remove those useless mirrors, which look good for sure but are really hard to adjust with a shit view any which ways. Next thing he’ll chop off would be the headlights, because they are just too dim for night-riding. That ugly rear mudguard would be the next to go, along with that ghastly saree-guard. And you are done.
If an idiot came to my house tomorrow and asked to ride the Daytona, he might fiddle around with far more than what Rossi did. The riding position is extremely committed, so you basically end up looking at the world with your eyeballs squished against the top. The seat is more or less non-existent, just some foam and leather shaped into a trapezoid. The rear seat is next to useless, and can be used as a perfect suicide spot with a brilliant bird’s-eye view of your last few moments. And the mileage is dismal, I think I got some 15 kms to the liter.
But therein lies the problem, your benchmarks are all fucked up. If you want to judge a porn star by her cooking abilities, maybe you don’t deserve that deepthroat to begin with.
Triumph Daytona 675 review: Verdict
Even though this bike is priced at a steep premium, it’s totally justified. It’s actually a good thing in some ways, because it deters semi-rich assholes from buying it. Why would you want to buy a 675cc machine, if you can go liter class for the same money? That’s the kind of question someone would ask if he was thinking with his dick rather than his brain.
The Triumph Daytona 675 is probably the finest track tool that money can buy, and it’s certainly the machine that I would want to go to if I became a serious track junkie in the future. But it’s not just a bike, it’s a precision tool meant for people who understand how to use it. In the right hands, it can carve corners and demolish lap records, in the wrong hands, it can squish brains and destroy lives.
Somebody get me a tissue, this jizz isn’t gonna wipe itself off.
I did a vlog on this thing, sadly. See it below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgXhhj-SD5Q
I was half expecting to see great metaphorical references to sex and orgasms, lots of talk of jizz and bodily fluids.
I half agree with the review, and half disagree.
The mirrors are so-so, they look good but don’t see good.
The lights are fuck-all. I don’t mind the rear mud flap either, except that it too rattles on bad roads, or less than baby bottom smooth roads.
The sound is totally awesome in stock form as it is, the Arrow fails to ignite any lust as an upgrade. Twin cylinders grunt, inline 4s howl, but an inline triple has a growl that you can mistake for a howl sometimes at high revs or the grunt of twins at low revs, but that high pitched whine sets it apart.
The engine. Now that’s a gem. Amazingly flexible, pulls from 40km/h in sixth gear, just don’t give it full throttle else it knocks. That flexibility helps riding in city traffic, running low revs keeps the heat down, the gearbox works like Alfred obeying every command of Master Wayne. It’s the bloody ergonomics that frustrate you, giving you the feeling that you’re inside Abu Ghraib being bent into inhumane contortions as punishment for not donating those 12 lacs to the destitute.
The suspension’s stiff enough to knock your brains within its braincage. But click off 2 clicks anti-clockwise, and the comfort setting is still very stiff, but you can tell it’s softened up enough not to make you curse out like Samuel mother-effing Jackson. I totally concur on the ground clearance. It’s actually quite good, I’ve never scraped anything riding solo, though with a (heavy one at that) pillion, that dreaded scrape did manifest on several speed breakers.
The brakes are certainly good, yet I expected shorter braking distances. And those tyres, they last as long as 300 tankfuls or thereabout, but they won’t grip well until they’re up to ideal temperature, which takes long to get to. The handling is something you either love or hate. I find the front end too twitchy/unstable in corners ( there’s no problem upright in a straight line ), which some love as agility, and some fear as instability. I belong to the latter. It doesn’t get better until you ride harder, get the tyres hot to stick – and that takes lot more speed , and risk, in this god-forsaken country of 3369 morons per square kilometer, and because of whom riding at anything over a horse’s top speed is suicidal, since these half deaf, half blind idiots decide to jump over a divider yapping on their phone right in front of you just as you’re beginning to enjoy the joys of hearing the short stroke triple growling into 3rd gear. One or two such encounters puts the despair back in the head , that you’re living in the wrong country – forget litre class, even a 600 is way too quick/fast to enjoy with low risk. Taking corners hard, the thought of crashing and repairing the bike – the monetary blow and the weeks/months spent waiting for parts to arrive, is a sobering Damocles sword. I can push an RC390, crash it and repairing it will not dent my bank balance a tenth as much.
If you want to ride hard, buy a beater bike. One that’s cheap to repair, cheap to crash. Like a Duke/RC! Unless you’re very rich. In which case, buy an Aprilia RSV4. Even if you crash it, you can ride your R1 while the Aprilia waits for parts. And if you crash the R1, you still have the Multistrada. And the Harley. And the Ducati 899.
Fuck, I wish I was rich.
Oh and a year later, I still haven’t figured out how to work the bloody dashboard!
Hehe, I wish I was rich too!
Man , I’ve never seen another thigh but my own , never had a deepthroat , but I can now fully understand that once you ride the Daytona , even if Sasha let you do her , it would feel boring…
By the way , what is that on the Daytona?
I’m guessing that the duke has the velox on…
That’s the Raptor tailbag
That kinda looks sexy on the Daytona , but isn’t it a bit too small for her?
And is it Viaterra ?
And what is that on the bicycle!!!
I love that!
Haha! 😀
Yep, ViaTerra Raptor.
That’s a Cycliste handlebar bag 🙂
Good to have you back man…
Hey , is there a claw pro 2 review coming soon , because let’s face it , it costs almost double that of the original claw , although it holds like 70 elephants , I mean 70 liters.. but is that all?
Soon 🙂