Some tidbits from me too.

A good article on homologation:

What is Homologation? - Team-BHP

It is not necessary for the process to be uber expensive. In case of bikes, it is not. Yes, for the 1200GS and GS Adventure type of bikes, with a lot of tech gizmos, it can be high.

From my gen, only the Bonneville, Street Triple, Daytona 675 and Speed Triple will be CKDed while the remainder Tiger, Storm and Rocket will be CBUs. The Mountain may have some fresh news on this, mine is about 20 days old.

Triumph would have dug its own grave but for the astonishing lack of vision by Suzuki in not getting the V Strom thru' its car channel and in CKD and ultimately local manufacture format. This bike alone will decimate the competition if it is brought in at typically Maruti Suzuki prices. Some people will never learn...

@shift_ride. I empathise and grieve with you, man. I too wanted the Tiger but not at 11 lacs. That is skimming prices. The Tiger will never sell in India at that price and if BMW gets in the F800 at 10L, the Tiger's hopes are still-born.

Surprise of surprises! The smartest off the block here was HD. Yanks can learn fast if they want, it seems.

+100
Hope Suzuki n Triump you are listening.

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triumph seems to be taking forever.. 2 of my friends finally gave up waiting for Daytona 675 and went ahead and booked R1's..

I wish I did have fresher news. The last Triumph news I've heard was Joshi's exit. Until we get closer to the time when their dealers open their doors, I doubt we'll hear much. Right now, assuming they're still on-plan, they're most likely in the process of finalizing their assembly lines and dealing with last-minute customs and logistics hassles at their port(s) of entry. The website does now have a separate page for India, though there is no dedicated Indian website e.g. triumph.co.uk/india vs triumphmotorcycles.in. That webpage says they're still looking for dealer representatives here. If I had the background for it, I'd apply myself so I could have a dealership here in Odisha.

The Tiger is the only one that SHOULD have been a CKD. The Storm and the Rocket are big, expensive bikes with a limited market; they know Harley will be eating their lunch in that segment so they didn't bother about making the bikes affordable. Only someone who just HAS to have a Storm/Rocket would buy one with Harley's cruisers available. You're right about the F800 being a Tiger killer at that price point. From what I've read, all else being equal, the Tiger is a better bike than the F800, and at least in the rest of the world BMW's customer service is extremely poor. There are countless anecdotes of BMW riders experiencing significant problems with the bike, bringing it to the dealer, only to have the dealer tell them that whatever's wrong must have been the rider's fault (even failed swingarm castings). The F800 in particular has also had some unpleasant reliability problems. However, if they can get it in for a couple lakhs less than the Tiger, it'll be enough to offset those issues in most buyers' minds.

I gotta disagree with you on the V-Strom though. It's not really a proper "adventure" bike. Yes, it's good, especially as a light tourer capable of handling narrower country lanes. However, once offroad or on gravel/dirt lanes, it fumbles pretty badly. It has limited suspension travel, and is overly heavy and softly-suspended for that type of terrain. The V-Strom 650 might be doable here, but not the big Strom. And, the 800XC would stomp the V-Strom 650 in every way here in India.

True that the Tiger should be CKD. The Bonneville, Street and Speed have to compete with the Hyosungs and Ninjas so have to come close to their price point so they too have be in CKD.

The global success of the V Strom 650 has come precisely because of the dual purpose nature of the bike - 80% on-road and 20% off. Of course, it will never equal the Tiger or Adventure for pure off-road ability. At the same time, these two will never equal the V Strom's sedate highway manners.

Take the case of a prospective customer like me. I would use the bike for office commutes, dropping kids to classes, taking the wife to the vegetable (!) market and once in a while, go to Leh/Arunachal Pradesh etc with her on the pillion. For my needs, the Tiger is too focused an off roader JUST LIKE my present bike, a CBR 250 is too focused a boy-toy. I need both functions with highway weighing in more than trail and for that the V Strom 650 is just perfect.

The two actually belong to completely different categories but for a cash-strapped customer (typical Indian upper middle class guy), the V Strom offers the best bang for the buck, combining the highway comfort of a Triumph/Harley with the trail ability of a Tiger (limited though but functional).

Ideal scenario? A BMW k1600LT/LTS for the highway and a R1200 Adventure or Tiger1200 for the trail

I wonder about the need for such big engines for off-roading, where smaller\lighter 250s or 450s are proven to do much better. This ideal scenario of off-roading that involves any 1200 seems.....un-ideal.

The "Big Trailies" evolved from the open-class Paris-Dakar race bikes, including the 1200GS (which was originally the 800GS IIRC). They were designed for high-speed travel (180km/h or more!) across the desert, where a 250 or even 450 would be underpowered and overworked. When BMW made a "civilian" version of their Dakar racer, it was a big hit for folks who wanted a long-distance tourer with the hammer-like reliability and simplicity of the desert bikes, and which could handle narrow lanes, dirt mountain roads, and the occasional light offroad jaunt (like to a secluded campsite or lake). Suzuki (DR Big), Yamaha (Super Tenere), and Honda (Africa Twin) all followed, and were later joined by KTM (Adventure 990), Cagiva (Elefant), Triumph (Tiger, since the 1990s), and even Ducati (Multistrada). They are hugely popular in Europe, where something like the BMW K1200LT is too damn heavy for the backroads of Austria or France. They aren't designed for tight, technical trails or motocross racing, and narrow or muddy trails are very risky. However, for something like the Leh road, or crossing Russia, or riding Alaska to Argentina (or all three! make a vacation out of it), they're ideal.

Thanks for the explanation. It did strike me as an afterthought that a big engine is good for chewing up highway miles between the intended trails, while hauling your house along too.

Your mention of a russian cross country trip inevitably reminded me of 'The long way around'. I imagine that with lighter bikes, they'd have spent less time dropping the bikes and fumbling to pick them up while passing through mongolia and russia. It looked like the terrain, their inexperience and the weight of those bikes made the ride nearly a hard enduro event for the riders. Would want to see how seasoned riders tackle such terrain\situations with such big bikes.

Had these guys got a Ural + powered side car, they would have made mincemeat of the roads or what passe for roads in Russia. But no, they had to use the BMW. They still have not learned from the Wehrmacht of 1942 where it used BMW flat twins with sidecars in the steppe with grand success.

Very rightly said indeed.

For Russia, about the only correct vehicle will be a tracked BMP infantry fighting vehicle of the Russian Armed Forces

Street Triple - Woof!!

Street Triple R - Woof Woof!!

IMO the best sounding bike in the world!!!!!

That's the latest update on triumph from India car bikes. The wait keeps getting longer, but we have some news for now





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the sound is really nice....superb..

Sounds really nice.