2019-07-01_RiDE

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Triumph Tiger

1200 XrT

Month 13

Finalmiles19,860

Milesthismonth 123

MPGthismonth33.2

[email protected]

SPECifiCation

£17,636• 1215inlinetriple• 139bhp• 280kg

• 20-litretank• 835/855mmseat

Tiger feels the strain

As the Triumph nears 20,000 miles, it’s feeling its age

The final monTh with the Tiger and the bike

had to go back to Triumph to be fixed. I’d

spent a day in the garage last month un-

seizing the rear caliper and while my efforts

were 95% successful — and with the addition

of new pads, braking performance was

restored — there was still more to come and

the caliper pistons really needed to be

removed and serviced to make it perfect.

This would have required taking the caliper

off and disconnecting it from its hydraulic

union. While this is a DIY job on non-ABS

bikes, bleeding ABS systems is the work of

Triumph technicians, not home mechanics so

the bike went off to get sorted. At the same

time the rear disc, which was pitted and

slightly scored from the dragging brake, was

replaced. This would be done as a warranty

job on our Tiger but if you owned an older

version, that disc would cost £154.

Aside from that, the most interesting thing

was when I tested our 20,000-mile Tiger

1200 against a box-fresh example. You can

read the full four-page feature in next month’s

RiDE magazine but I can say the old Tiger’s

performance was mainly impressive, aside

from the clutch and transmission.

Tiger 1200s had an upgrade to the clutch

last year but my bike hasn’t had one and the

end result is that the clutch’s bite-point has

always been very late in the stroke. After a

few last launches to establish some

performance figures as a datum against the

new bike at Bruntingthope Proving Ground,

this got worse. Thanks to tall gearing, the

Tiger’s clutch gets a hard time anyway and it

feels like the Triumph’s friction plates are

badly worn. There isn’t any slip under load but

the bike is harder to get into gear at rest and

the gearchange is loud.

In fact, the transmission feels like the weak

point of the bike. My 20,000-miler’s gearbox

has always been clunky but will now

occasionally miss the change from fourth

into fifth gear as the miles have piled on.