ES
VOL. 50 ISSUE 10 MARCH 12, 2013
P47
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALESSIA BARBANTI
AND STEFANO GADDA
T
riumph's Tiger has had the longest run of any of the British
manufacturer's current products,
with 46,182 of the bike produced since
it was launched in 1993. Since then it's
gathered a loyal and extensive band
of hardened high-mileage devotees,
who while mature in years (the average Tiger customer is aged 47.5, says
Triumph) have extensive riding experience, ride all year round, and prize the
Tiger for its practicality allied with performance. The Italians inevitably have
a term for it - it's a moto totale, a true
real-world motorcycle that you can use
for the daily commute, take your wife to
the store on, ride on a Sunday morning and still keep up with the kids on
Supersport bikes, fit luggage and go
touring with – and generally enjoy for
its sheer usability. It inspires the same
kind of loyalty as a BMW R1200GS.
After spending a 200-mile day riding around the hills of Catalunya inland
from Barcelona's small but swanky
Sitges beach resort aboard the completely revamped 2013-model Tiger
Sport, I think that loyalty will remain.
Because after starting five years ago
on the task of completely revamping the Tiger only to stop because of
lack of resources (mainly manpower,
with so many of its engineers engaged
ground-up projects like the 1200cc
triple twins, the Tiger Explorer and Trophy tourer), Triumph implicitly recognized the importance of the Tiger to its
core customer base by restarting R&D
a little over three years ago.
"We recognize that there are people who want an all-round bike that
