Triumph teases a Tiger Sport 660

If you truly plan to explore the less traveled parts of Morocco on a Triumph, you'll want to step up to something more dirtworthy, like a Tiger 900. The Tiger Sport 660 is no hardcore adventure-touring motorcycle. The prototype, at least, appears to be wearing exactly the same Michelin Road 5 tires in common sport sizes of 120/70R17 front and 180/55R17 rear that are found on the naked Trident.

If you're looking to place it among the competition, it's closer to a Yamaha MT-07 than a Yamaha Ténéré 700 — pure street, little dirt — but with the bodywork and availability of luggage, the most direct comparison would be a Kawasaki Versys.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. As someone who has put nearly 100,000 miles on various Versys models over the past decade, the combination of a comfortable, upright riding position, good wind protection, luggage capability, 17-inch wheels that accommodate a wide range of performance rubber and reasonable weight adds up to a very useful and enjoyable ride — a "VERsatile SYStem," Kawasaki might even say. And having done most of those Versys miles on a 650, there were plenty of times I would have been interested in having the extra cylinder and a few more ccs that come with the Tiger.

Triumph isn't doling out information yet, so everything here is speculation based on photos of a prototype. So I could be wrong and details could change. But at this point, a lot of parts on the Tiger Sport 660 look to be identical to the Trident's. The frame and swingarm look the same, though the Tiger gets a more conventional rear fender hanging off the back instead of the swingarm-mounted unit on the Trident. The footpegs are a little lower and further forward, but the handlebar appears to be just about the same as the Trident's. The Showa fork and Nissin front brakes look identical. I already mentioned the rubber is the same.

Of course I can't know if the 660 triple will be tuned differently for the Tiger, but the exhaust also looks identical and I can't think why it needs to be tuned differently.

That's because the mission of a Trident and a Tiger Sport 660 aren't all that different. Both are thoroughly street-going middleweights. The Tiger just adds weather protection and luggage to make it a better long-haul option than the all-naked Trident. Photos without the panniers reveal that the mounts are integrated, so if you're not using the luggage — or if you just don't buy it at all — the Tiger Sport 660 still looks normal, not like something is missing.

It makes sense to assume the Tiger Sport 660 will also have the same electronics package as the Trident (read about it in Spurgeon's review linked in the first sentence) and a similar price (at least before you add probably optional luggage). The Trident's MSRP is now $8,149.

As Spurgeon and Zack recently discussed in a podcast, in response to a listener comment, motorcycles like this are essentially the new definition of sport-tourers: upright in stance like an adventure-touring bike but thoroughly street-going in terms of running gear, with 17-inch wheels and suspension tuned for the roads, not the wilds. The closest thing in Triumph's current lineup is the Tiger 850 Sport, but that bike costs around $12,000 and still has a 19-inch front wheel, higher exhaust and a beak, so there's some significant separation from the 660 in both form and function.

For a long time, Triumph built a Tiger Sport around its 1,050 cc triple but never brought it to the U.S. market, disappointing quite a few Triumph fans. For a while, Triumph also circulated drawings of a Street Triple RT, putting a half fairing on the 675 cc Street Triple whose engine was the basis for the current 660. The Tiger Sport 660 seems to fulfill a little of the promise of those models that never came through for us in the states.