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Sportiest Bonneville gets the performance to match its style

Triumph Thruxton and Thruxton R

Written by Ben Purvis , Date 5:09 PM

With its Thruxton café racer Triumph was ahead of the game and predicted the recent boom in retro bikes but the old 865cc twin never quite had the performance to match its ton-up styling.

Now that’s all changing with the new 2016 model and its 1200cc twin.

Let’s start with the top of the range machine in Triumph’s new Bonneville line, the Thruxton R. It gains proper superbike-style brakes and suspension including Showa Big Piston forks, an Ohlins rear shock and Brembo Monobloc callipers.

All that comes on top of an engine which, while superficially similar to the new water-cooled twin in the T120 Bonneville, promises significantly more performance. The only performance metric that’s been revealed so far is the peak torque, which at 112Nm offers 7Nm more torque than the T120, but notably that torque peak comes nearly 2000rpm higher in the rev range, at 4950rpm instead of 3100rpm. The implication is that this is a motor tuned more for peak power than sheer bottom-end grunt, although that will only be confirmed when Triumph reveals the actual power figures for the bikes. The ‘R’ version will also be offered with an optional race kit, increasing performance even more but not legal for road use.

As on the T120, the engine uses a ride-by-wire throttle and offers multiple rider modes. The Thruxton actually gets three settings; road, rain and sport, with the last of them offering sharper throttle responses.

The base version of the Thruxton uses the same frame and engine as the R, but loses the top-line suspension and brakes in favour of more traditional-looking kit.

Both versions will be available with a brace of dealer-fitted options kits. The ‘Track Racer’ kit adds a nose fairing and clip-on bars while the ‘Café Racer’ kit features a fly-screen and knee pads on the tank. Both include Vance & Hines slip-on exhaust cans, a leather tank strap, LED indicators, a rear mudguard removal kit with a compact rear light and, for the base model Thruxton, a pillion seat  cowl. The R version comes with the same cowl as standard.

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