this is the triumph scrambler 1200 xc gold line special edition but this bike
has given me one massive problem today so find out in the video what that is
i've just bought some new audio sound recording equipment for the riding shots
so it's the first time i've used it in this video so let us know in the comments below
what you think of the sound of the bike riding along i haven't
been able to check it yet because i won't know until i download the shots onto the
computer and start editing so fingers crossed the riding shots sound even better than usual
i did say in a previous video that
we'd reviewed all the bonnevilles and my favorite was the triumph speedmaster
but then i realized we'd never ridden this one so this xc has never been ridden by us until now
and we did review the xe version about two and a half years ago and something about it i just felt
it was twitchy i don't know why but this one isn't thankfully so i've written it everywhere today
and i'm going to tell you exactly what it's like this version of the scrambler and the xc
are bigger than the other bonnevilles they're much taller and you've got a slightly different frame
you've got a 21 inch front wheel and 17 inch rear on this uh 21 inch gives you more off-road ability
it rolls over things much easier so that's great uh it's got 200 millimeters of suspension travel
which is 7.8 inches front and rear the x e has got a tiny bit more than that the wheel base is 1530
mil 25.8 degree rake and 121 millimeter trail all those dimensions give you the handling it handles
really nicely it corners nicely it's responsive it's stable it's a great bike to flick around
i've been having a lot of fun on this bike i must say and you'll see in the riding shots it's really
good fun bike to ride and it's got plenty of um i'll go into the power fix and all that in
a minute but it's got tons and tons of month but because it's quite a talky engine as well even at
sort of two and a half thousand rpm there's enough torque on tap to sort of burble along and open it
up and it will still take off so it's a great bike to ride at slow speeds and at fast beats
it does sound nice i must say um it's hard to tell because i had the mic and the thing speakers in my
ears but it sounds like it's a kind of a built-in rattle in there to give you that raspy sound
i don't know if it's true or not um but it obviously has to comply with regulations and
things so i know a lot of car manufacturers put some sort of different uh metal things in the back
there to give it some sort of different sounds uh so i've got a feeling that might be what they've
done here i might be wrong correct me if i'm wrong um but it does sound quite nice it does get hot
not so hot that you're burning yourself um but when i stopped and slowed down i could feel the
heat coming from the engine and it's not that hot today on my bmw r18 which has got the big cylinder
sticking out and your feet sort of quite close to them that runs really cool it's air cooled
but that runs really cool whereas a lot of water cool bikes you can feel the temperature of the
engine much more the suspension on this is really good it absorbs the bumps nicely
it does crash into the big potholes on the roads somewhat but then it does absorb it so
not a problem there on the light stuttery bumps it's really good i did some trail riding down
some farm tracks no problem whatsoever the bike handles it beautifully i love the look of the
twin shocks at the back here sometimes it's nicer than a monoshock and it does give you more
room here for other stuff but i do like the look of that and it does ride the bumps really nicely
while we're on the subject of suspension the uh suspension is adjustable front and rear
so you can adjust it on the piggybacks here and down there and you can adjust the fronts
here so quickly going front to back the tyres are good on the road good in the dry but limiting
on slippery grass and wet stuff so you can change that depending on your needs double
discs up front really nice you've got upside down forks thankfully not gold anodised black
is beautiful thank you love it bash plate under there a skid plate whatever you want to call it
radiation at the front these sort of scramble style exhaust pipes the controls are all in the
right place the brake lever and the gear lever are just right if i was wearing motocross boots i
might have to adjust them a little bit but they're fine for these cowboy boots no problem there
the back's very beautiful i like the look of the mud guard the little light here the indicators
all nicely done and you could shave down the sides of your number plate 11 mil from the edge of the
outside digits or letters uh legally so do that if you've got one of these bikes or any bike because
it makes it a bit smaller and a bit safer you've got the um tubeless tires on this
with the spoked wheels so the spokes come to the edge it's not as good looking in my opinion as
the tubed tyres but a lot of people wouldn't ride a bike without tubeless these days
um so let us know what you think on that one that's controversial i quite like the feel of
tube tyres myself but i know there's a problem if you have a blowout so it's a good thing to have
just looking at the frame you've got the lovely cradle frame on these which i love the stand is
very good on this the seat is really comfortable i love a bench seat because being taller
it enables you to move backwards and forwards on the bike without restriction that's
brilliant so if you're a taller person this bike should be on your list because
it's a nice riding position as i said you know i'm sitting back here off balance and
there's plenty of room here i don't know how i look because i haven't seen myself
from the side yet so you tell me but you can sit here for the corners off-road and stick
your leg out or you can sit further back and as i said you're not restricted by the seat
of course you can have a pillion on the back and you've got the foot pegs and everything
but it does give you more movement so definitely one of the bikes i would say would be suitable
for taller people the price of this bike is 13 095 pounds on the road in the uk
in the gold line special edition the black one is 12295 or if you want the two-tone black and
red or black and green it's 12 695 in the uk if you're in a different country go to triumph's
website and have a look and find out how much it is in your country same with the specs i'm
not going to give you all the specs go to the triumph website they're all listed you can read
through it compare bikes and that's what you should do if you're looking for a new bike
compare all the specs weigh them up and knock off the ones you don't like until you get to a short
list of two or three and go and test ride them so hopefully this review puts you in that position
to say yeah this is on my list i'm gonna go to the dealership and have a test ride and go from there
on these you've got 89 brake horsepower at 7250 rpm which is plenty let me tell you
110 newton meters of torque at four and a half thousand rpm that's 81
foot pounds and that's plenty too so with the six-speed gearbox and the weight of 230 kilos
this is a quick bike let me tell you and in the real world you need to go any quicker than this
i don't think so you've got the 270 degree crank firing order look it up it's complicated but that
gives you a nice sound and a character but it's quite smooth at the same time so i do like that
you have a 16 liter fuel tank here beautifully painted i do like these gold line special editions
it is nicely done and that will give you 4.6 liters per 100 kilometers of fuel economy
or 61 miles per gallon in gb great britain or 51 usa gallons so again i don't know why
we've got different size gallons but we have so there's the figures as if all that wasn't
amazing enough you've got a 10 000 mile service interval on this which is superb so with all that
performance all those looks that is something that is an additional bonus right getting nitpicky now
on this bike you've got i think too many different shades of silver you've got this one here
which is different from that one there which is different from that one there
and that one there and that one there so it's kind of a bit of a mixture of silvers
and different from that one there but the swing arm here it's got this beautiful
sparkly metallic silver and i think that should be on all the silver parts um of course some of it's
just brushed aluminium and what have you but i think when you have more than three colors
it can clash and because you've already got the red and the black and the gold line on the tank
and you've got lots of black on the bike which is fine but there's different shades of black you've
got a shiny black here and a different black there so there's a little bit too many colors that can
kind of clash and you've got a brown sort of seat as well there's nothing wrong with that
but i think the whole lot put together and especially with these gold anodised piggyback
reservoirs on the shocks um if only they'd have kept to black like the the upside down forks
then that would be much nicer looking but i'm being nitpicky but as a sort of design
fan if you like i like things to be just so and that would just give it that finishing
touch in my mind so if this were my bike i would remove these covers here
and expose what's underneath i'm not so keen on things that aren't functional i think it's
nice to have them i saw a bike now hello to i can't remember your name but i met this guy
uh at chester bmw which is no longer chester bmw it's chester harley-davidson and ktm now and in
the car park he had this uh triumph t100 it was about 10 years old and i looked at it and thought
it's got a carburetor fantastic it looks really nice i said to him what's what you know what is
that with a carburetor he said it's not carburetor it's actually fuel injection but it looks exactly
like a carburetor now that is good these kind of covers are sort of made to look a little bit like
carbs but they're not not so much on this one but certainly on some of the other bonnevilles
i'd be inclined to do away with that and these things here as well you can sort of depending on
what you're wearing get your trouser caught in the sharp bit of that in here i'd do away with
that and i'd kind of pull it back make it more minimalistic i'd actually change the exhausts
i know tec or tech parts do exhaust for these you can get a nice raspy sounding pipe that's
a bit smaller not necessarily up here either because sometimes it's nice when they follow
the line of the frame that looks good so this is a bike you could just do a few little tweaks to
to make it really really beautiful and i did say i've got a problem with this bike didn't
know at the beginning and the problem is this is now probably my favorite triumph bonneville and
i love the speedmaster that was my favorite but this pips it i think because
it's got that classic beauty yet it's a real hoot to ride it's great fun it will go anywhere
it's good on the motorway you can go along at 70 effortlessly and there's tons more oomph if you
open it up to overtake if you need to and you can burble around the country lanes the city streets
you can commute on it you can do everything on it you've got a nice high riding position it's roomy
uh you don't feel cramped up on it so really i'll tell you what this this is now it is my
favorite bonneville i'm going to say it is my favorite portable it's just stunning to look at
it's stunning to ride what more can you want so if this is off your radar put it onto your radar
and go for a test ride because i think this is one of the best bikes they make
uh adventure bikes this will do everything an adventure bike will do if you could strap
luggage to it and i'm sure there's accessories i haven't really looked into it to be honest
i'm sure you can put panniers on it and boxes and things if you need to if you couldn't i'm
sure you can make racks to do that now this looks beautiful adventure bikes should look like this at
the moment adventure bikes are the most hideous motorcycles on the planet in my opinion um
and this beautiful i mean you could have this styling like the bigger tanks they used to have
on the parry dakar rally bikes in you know the 90s or 80s go back to that styling for adventure bikes
so really this is everything an adventure bike is without the big bird from sesame street
pointy plastic beak and all that other stuff so this is surely much better i mean it's much
cooler isn't it and why not have a motorbike that looks the part as well as goes the part
and i think that this bike does both so coming to the front here the mirrors
okay i can see about half the road-ish so they're not too bad better than a lot of bikes the levers
all feel nice you've got a cable clutch which i like always get a better feel with the cable
uh your on and off switch here um your home button and hazards on the left you've got
your lights of course uh your mode button and indicators and you can scroll through stuff
you've got various modes you've got road rain sport off-road and rider configurable
i can't be bothered to ride a configurable anything and this this speedo thing here
i'm not mad at it if i'm honest i would if this was my bike because i do like it that much
i would get that off i'd put a small analog speedometer and rev counter with just a digital
thing underneath and the modes you could just scroll through and change them and that's it
i don't want to configure modes honestly i don't want to deal with that i know people do like doing
that if you like doing that tell me um but i think it's not necessary there's enough modes on it that
have been factory configured uh more than enough so that's fine and with the triumph modes you
don't get a great difference in feel between the modes like some bikes it goes from being docile to
mental they're sort of more evenly spaced on the triops the handlebars for me i i would prefer them
a little wider i actually like really wide handlebars so i'd do that and probably raise
them up um an inch or two and that would that would suit my style of riding better
i kind of make it more old-school scrambler i think that's what i'm saying and that would be
a really good start the foot pegs are fine you can take the little rubber thing out so you get
more grip if you're off-road riding under the seat here you stick your key in there take the seat off
there's a little compartment where you can flip up and put your phone it's got some padding in
it which is good and it's got a usb connector which is fantastic so that's a good thing to have
sometimes it's nice to have it there you know if you're sat never on your
phone but you can get you know a mount or something there that's not a problem
and you could run a cable discreetly somewhere but as i said it would be nicer to have a usb
thing at the front there for that reason but otherwise it's good to have it out of the way
so there we have it the triumph scrambler 1200 xc i always have to look at the thing
because i think xcxe anyway um let us know what you think of the bike