Triumph Speed Twin 900

Simple, elegant and contemporary, the Street Twin is the perfect blend of modern and retro that you want from a motorcycle. It’s got that classic Bonneville silhouette but rolls on alloy wheels, which for 2021 are machine-finished. There are quite a few blacked-out bits on the Street Twin, bringing out its sporty, youthful character.

Triumph is still using halogen bulbs for most lighting systems, the Street Twin only getting an LED tail lamp. No changes to the roundel semi-digital info cluster. The analogue speedometer has both kmph and mph readings with lots of tell tale signs present in the middle. The digital inset is small yet packs a tonne of information that one can toggle through using the ‘i’ button on the left-side switch panel.

Even though it is the gateway into the Bonneville family, the Street Twin is pleasantly powerful. Its 900cc parallel-twin High Torque motor generates 65PS and 80Nm, which is the same as the BS4 unit. There’s a five-speed gearbox with a slip-and-assist clutch present with the motor. Riding aids aren’t comprehensive: two riding modes (Rain and Road), switchable traction control and dual-channel ABS. The foundation of every Bonneville motorcycle is a tubular double cradle frame that houses the parallel-twin motor. On the Street Twin, this classic and conventional frame is suspended by a 41mm KYB cartridge fork and preload-adjustable twin shocks. It also gets superior braking hardware when compared to its traditionally-styled Bonneville siblings: a 4-piston Brembo fixed axially-mounted caliper acts on a 310mm front disc. On the rear wheel, you have a 255mm rotor with a Nissin twin-piston caliper. The 18-/17-inch alloy wheels come wrapped with Pirelli Phantom Sportscomp rubber.

There aren’t any natural rivals for the Triumph Street Twin but the likes of the Kawasaki W800 and the Ducati Scrambler Icon offer their respective company’s relatively affordable neo-retro motorcycles. The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 also offers a similar experience at one-third the cost but it doesn’t pack half as many features and isn’t nearly as premium as the Street Twin.

The Street Twin is available in just a single variant but Triumph will pretty soon be riding in the limited edition Gold Line model as well. It gets a special colour, golden accents and heritage Triumph logos. Only 1000 units of the Street Twin Gold Line will be made available globally and a few units are expected to turn up in India by June.