motowebmaster

It is very cool;

ORANGE AND BLACK ATTACK
Austria vs The World

It will make for some good "coffee reading"

Speedtrip

Haven't got a chance to read it yet but they usally love the KTM's. There are a few of the KTM's that I like but they are a little pricey. The wife says they are ugly but she said that about the Speed Triple when I got it.

The Prophet

I suscribe to "Cycle World", which honestly I only do so to read the monthly coumns by Peter Egan and Kevin Cameron. Both excellent people and writers in my opinion. Great for the Motorcycling world in general.

The CW bike comparisons lately seem bizzare and biased, and the "Technical" expertise otherwise is very suspect, so read and apply with caution say I. Anyway, the latest issue has a cover story on the "new" Triumph Thunderbird, due for release in 2010.

Huh? Wha? I am a Trumph Bonneville owner - and have ridden Triumphs on and off since back in the late 60's - so have ... some... loyalty to the brand, but this directive grinds my gears.

The article talks about how hard the engineers worked to develop this new and radical bike. I've got news for them - a piece of tracing paper and a dull pencil, along with 2 or 3 minutes - would have resulted in the same - a carbon copy of the Yamaha Star. Actually, and embarrasingly - there is an ad for the Star just a few pages prior to the article, and the bikes look absolutely identical. Asleep at the tiller guys? What's "new" about this?

Is Triumph aware that the current market is massively overflowing with second hand "Cruiser Clones", 6 years to 1 year old, with unbelieveably low mileage?

Also, the Thunderbird is price pointed at USD$14,000, while the entry level Star can be had for USD$7,899.

Triumph... "Go your own way"... or should the slogan now be changed to "Follow old stale ideas"?

I can think of a dozen "new" ideas that Triumph could have successfully pursued but didn't, which is probably why I'm not working for Triumph!!

Well, I certainly don't know everything, and probably zip about Marketing research, but I'll predict low sales and interest on this one.

Why not:

Extreme Fuel efficiency
Low, competitive price point ( $7K to $9K)
Unseen before styling
Long range riding comfort
Customer Survey and Feedback driven improvements to current offers?
A "Build and Design it yourself On-Line" type bike. Many competitors are offering this. Doing so encourages "Go your own way" thinking and styling.
A new, revolutionary offer with all of the above?

This may be yet another reason I am seriously looking to sell the Bonneville and go with something else next year. I'm not liking the inaccessable, non-communicative Triumph company, and don't wish to be an "orphan" bike owner within the next 5 years.

My .02 cents worth, and worth every penny.

Speedtrip

It's unfortunate that they named the big cruiser Thunderbird, I had an '03 T-Bird 3 cylinders of fun and beautiful in British racing green and cream. I almost regret selling that bike.

Not sure where Triumph are going with this guess they figured they needed something halfway between a Bonnie America and the Rocket 3. I hope they sell a ton of them though and finance the sporty bikes with the proceeds.


I get Cycle World also and although some of the articles are redundant you do get a little different take between the two mags. CW with a more experienced group and Motorcyclist being more youthful.

BTW here's what a T-Bird should look like.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
-Shaun-

The Prophet

I hope as well that Triumph has great success with the Thunderbird, but I'm always "mystified" by some of the corporate decisions you see nowadays. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

My all-time favorite Mag is "Road Runner", which is all about cross country style travel, as in across Africa, across China,, etc.

In another life, without the wife, kids, job, etc. this is what I would do. I do plan on doing mini-versions of this when I retire, hopefully within the next 8 years or so. I'd like to long distance travel across the US, and down into Central America as well. Ton's of great rides up into Canada and over to Alaska. Plenty to keep me busy.

That said, you'd like to see a Touring bike with the comfort and relaxed running of a Harley, but with the quality of build and reliability of a BMW let's say. The Triumph Rocket III just seems way overboard to me, and I'm accustomed to a Road King, so I'll probably buy another one of those for these trips. If the Triumph Tiger had long-range comfort seats, and more luggage capacity, and was a little lower in the seat height, I'd consider, but again I worry over the long term stability of Triumph, based upon comments and perspectives from my last post.

Harley probably has the most loyal Customer base, and they worked very hard to establish and foster that community/lifestyle feeling. Triumph, as well as others, could benefit by studying the methodology behind this excellent marketing achievement.