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TWO WEEKS, 3,000 miles on a TRIUMPH XC800


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  • Member Contributer

I travel to California twice a year and rent a motorcycle in San Francisco, then take off for 2 weeks of riding, usually renting a BMW GS800 from Dubbelju, who I thoroughly recommend, this time tho I decided to give the Triumph XC800 a try

 

The BMW is a bitch in traffic, box full of neutrals and none in the right place, it has other faults but I've learned how to set the suspension so it at least handles OK at 85 with panniers, 85 seems to be the mandatory speed in the car pool lanes and I've been overtaken by motorcycle cops going faster and weaving through the traffic like maniacs

 

The bike had already been warmed up for me, so when I arrived it was just a matter of contents of suitcase into panniers and we're off

 

Initial impression was favourable, although riding north up Van Ness in the traffic is always just traffic light to traffic light, so it wasn't until I was across the Golden Gate and into the flow of 101 that I could really open it up, which made the screen start making the bike wobble, this continued to be a pisser throughout the 2 weeks

 

When I started the bike from cold the next day it sounded like the proverbial bag of spanners, so I called the rental "just hold the clutch in" ...not a good sound if I was to own one

 

The performance was disappointing for an 800 supposedly putting out 95 bhp, it's 10% lighter than the VFR so the performance wasn't there, the engine just sounded like an electric motor and quickly ran out of go, very disappointing

 

The BMW suspension was poor, but wind the rear pre load to soft and it was OK, try as I might I couldn't get the XC to handle properly, the forks always felt like they had progressive springs in and dived easily (an a quantance has an XC and he's just had new seals, 8 weeks from new, also just found it it's had to have new throttle bodies at 4,300)

 

The ride up the coastal section of 101 was therefore not that much of a pleasure, up and down through the box rapidly cooked the clutch, the ratios appear to be the same as the Daytona, 1st is too high, 6th too low, they're so close it made the ride very tiring, by the time I'd reached Neah Bay in the north west tip of Washington I was looking forward to the section where the road runs along the edge of Puget Sound as it heads back towards Olympia and I-5 north to Seattle 

 

Seattle traffic is fine after the Bay Area, but that's when the clutch started playing up again, it's a cable operated one and the lever on the box was at 90* to the casing, so when you pulled the clutch in the mechanical advantage decreased, making it like an old Harley 45 suicide clutch 

 

The ride through Yakima valley and along the Columbia river were fine except for that screen, it's fixed to the bike with 4 bolts and some angle bracketry, a total styling excercise and really genuinely retro, Triumph would have fitted that in the 60's .... I was going to ship it back but FedEx wanted $70 

 

The engine continued to disappoint with patchy fuelling that didn't adjust well to the humidity on the coast or the arid sections in the Cental Valley, this trip no real mountains so can't comment on that ...twice the motor ran out of guts and left me in a dangerous place

 

The ABS is so poor I could make the front tyre squeal, brakes are OK for a single side, adequate nothing more

 

So overall I walked away after 14 days and 3,000 miles thinking " I can't wait to get back on my VFR"

 

There are no VFR rentals I could find in the Pacific Northwest or California ... I sure wish there was

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Curious as to the rental company you found in SF? Jeez it's been too long, but I did a fly and ride out of Oakland. We did the 101 and north into Oregon, and a 3000 mile loop. That's the ride I fell for 5th gens...

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