Whereas the old Rocket III engine’s torque fell away quite sharply above 3000 revs, this new cubed-up version is so much punchier all the way through the rev range that you can ride it any way you like. Riding the pair of new bikes for half a day each along a 125-mile route winding around the island of Tenerife, underlined the new bike’s effectiveness. Given the 641 pounds dry weight, it’s genuinely surprising how hard you can hustle the Rocket 3 R around. These are two completely new Triumph models, and the very fact of their creation shows that, with this new family of motorcycles powered by an all-new 2458cc three-cylinder motor with 120-degree crank, Triumph is focusing hard on serving the two quite distinct customer groups it wound up attracting with the old Rocket III.įor the stripped-out R stands more for Roadster than Race or Retro, and is the Anglo powercruiser equivalent of a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy or Ducati X-Diavel, whereas it’s the Harley Road King or Indian Chieftain that’s in the GT’s sights, adorned with as much luggage from the 50+ items in the dedicated Rocket 3 aftermarket catalog as you care to fit. And even though Triumph dropped its titanic triple from its European lineup a couple of years ago, rather than spend money upgrading it to Euro 4 compliance, it’s remained on sale here in North America as a completely unique model, hitting all the superlatives, as the largest-capacity motorcycle in the global marketplace with more cubes as well as the most torque of any two-wheeler, I.C.E.-powered or electric.īut now Triumph has gone large by creating an all-new successor to the Rocket III-make that successors-in the shape of the 2020 Rocket 3 (note the subtle change in numerals!) R and GT models, which, apart from the ignition coils and the same lengthways crank format, share nothing at all in common with their predecessors. In the past 15 years, no less than 28,380 examples of all the different variants of this have found customers around the world. Triumph’s Rocket 3 has held biggest-is-best bragging rights ever since the British company’s 2294cc three-cylinder maxi-motorcycle with a lengthways crank and heaps of attitude was launched back in 2004. Both represent a new era for Triumph in maxi-cruisers. When you’ve got the biggest production motorcycle in the world, what do you do? If you’re Triumph, you make it bigger! GT on the right, R on the left.
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