Triumph has elected to detune the new Touring, which makes an enormous amount of sense for a bike that has been built for cruising. ยป More Photos
The Touring differs from the original Rocket here again, with its use of floorboards instead of conventional foot pegs. Using a heel toe shifter, it is set up so you can use it like a conventional gear lever without using your heel if you want. The floorboards themselves are sensibly placed and are just about wide enough to wriggle your feet around for comfort on a longer ride. They are also high enough up to allow some healthy lean angle in the turns before you are greeted by the sound of metal grinding away beneath you. And, I would hazard a guess the Touring has the most ground clearance in the heavy weight cruiser class.
Suspension duties this year are handled by a set of 43mm, inverted, shrouded forks. I know the original Rocket’s were a derivative of Triumph’s aging sport bike, the 955i, and I wonder if these are just more left over units modified to take the Touring’s greater weight. Either way they have a pre-load option available and gave a very compliant ride on the less than smooth Texas tarmac. Keeping the rear wheel connected with the ground, Kayaba also supplies the rear suspension with a pair of twin, chrome shocks that have a total of five positions of pre-load available. With the bike having a pair of good-sized hard backs, and a large rack, this
is the minimum you are going to need for adding a passenger and luggage. Down at the wheels, a pair of 320mm floating rotors and two Nissin4-piston caliper brakes handles stopping duties. These calipers look also as if they came out of the 955i left over bin, but do an adequate job of slowing the beast without any weird behaviors to report. They are joined in their speed loss campaign, by a single Brembo two-piston caliper getting cozy with a single 316mm disc when required. This set up allows a good healthy stomp of the boot before the fun begins, and you start leaving trails of smoke from the rear tire. Did we really behave like that on a press test? Surely not!
Traveling on the near deserted Texas Hill Country roads gave plenty of opportunity to try the Touring high speed cruising abilities and it passed these tests with aplomb. There aren’t too many twisty sections to be found, but there are a couple of high-speed sweepers that pop up, and here the Triumph proved to be stable and competent. With a good ability to turn in at speed, adjust lines, as well as soak up mid-corner bumps, the Rocket III Touring
