Triumph Daytona 675 R
Triumph Daytona 675 R

2011 Triumph Daytona 675R First Ride

The middleweight sportbike wars just got a little more interesting when the new 2011 Triumph Daytona 675 R kicked in the doors of the pub and proclaimed itself the new flagship sportbike of the legendary British brand. It features the venerable 675 Triple engine, the basic chassis dimensions and appearance as the original but with a few very important upgrades. The 675R is equipped with Ohlins suspension, 4-piston Brembo monoblock calipers, Brembo master cylinder and a quick-shifter all for just $400 more than its most expensive Japanese rival.

A 43mm Ohlins fork four-piston

Brembos are now standard on the

Daytona 675R.


Triumph enlisted the help of the suspension gurus at Ohlins as it addressed one of the few weaknesses on an otherwise excellent motorcycle. Up front a 43mm fully-adjustable NIX30 fork utilizes Ohlins’ proprietary technology, separating rebound on the right fork leg and compression adjustments on the left. Damping, rebound and pre-load adjusters are now located on the top of the fork as well, alleviating the need to crawl around under the fork to make adjustments.

Out back a fully-adjustable Ohlins TTX36 shock, which was developed over the past few years in MotoGP, brings true racing technology to the real world. Adjustments are all easily made on the side of the shock but our baseline set-up proved to be perfect during our day at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. This combination of NIX30 fork and TTX36 shock gives a much improved range of adjustability to the 675R and changes the Daytona’s race track disposition for the better compared to the base model 675.

Front brakes received an upgrade in the form of the radial-mount Brembo monoblock calipers while the 308mm rotors are carried over from the base Daytona 675, as are the steel braided lines. Besides the Ohlins and Brembo hardware the Daytona 675R also features Triumph’s first factory-installed electronic quick-shifter and a slightly revised gearbox that features roller, rather than plain, bearings. First and second gears are now closer together as well.

The Triumph Daytona 675R comes in one color: Crystal White. It features a red powder-coated subframe and matching red pin-striping on the wheels. The belly pan is black for a racy appearance and both the clutch and generator covers have been restyled.

The image on the right shows the 675R with the accessory Arrow exhaust and adjustable rear-sets from the Triumph Catalog.

Aesthetically the Daytona 675R also receives some treatments including a carbon fiber front fender, rear hugger and wrap around heat shield on the silencer. The bodywork is Crystal White and the rear sub-frames is now red. The wheels feature red pinstripes which are a nice touch to the racer-replica look.

If you haven’t put it all together yet, let me do it for you now. The Daytona 675R is Triumph’s new premier sportbike. It has been geared-up for success on the track, so now the only thing left for us to do is ride the damn thing and let you know what we thought.

The 2011 Triumph Daytona 675R is an aggressive sportbike.

Our two-day press introduction included a street ride through the Mt. San Jacinto State Wilderness on Highway 243 between Banning and Idyllwild. From there we pushed on down Highway 74 to Palm Desert. You can check out the Palm Desert Loop street ride in our Ride Guide if you want to ride the same roads.

We rode over the mountains on roads cluttered with gravel as the California Department of Transportation tried in vain to keep us in check. Snow lined the highways past Idyllwild but the scenic vistas were on display so noone complained about spending the afternoon riding on some of Southern California’s finest sportbike roads.

Out here in the real world the Daytona 675R is strung a little tight. The Ohlins suspension is geared for the track so it’s tall in the back and pretty stiff for street use up front. When we got on the cleaner roads outside of Palm Desert it became less of an issue as speeds picked up.

I imagine that it would be pretty brutal around town on beat up surface streets, but for anyone intending to ride the bike on the street it would be necessary to adjust the suspension to suit their needs and I’m certain the Ohlins combination could be tuned down a bit.

Otherwise the engine, brakes and riding position are very familiar. On the road the new Brembo weren’t really put to the

The Daytona dash is nifty the LCD has lots of info but no fuel gauge, just a light.

test but the engine is on full display. The Triple is right at home a gear high, which eliminates most of the buzz from running it at over 10-grand and it always seems ready to accelerate. The clip-ons are low and the pegs are high so it still feels too cramped for my needs on the street and even though temperatures were cool I could feel the underseat exhaust. The instrument cluster is now white nomenclature on a black background and the fuel gauge is forgone for a low-fuel light.

It still has a speedo, tach, clock on the little LCD dash along with the blue LED-looking shift warning lights across the top of the housing.

Wind protection is good in full tuck but there’s not much there when riding upright. The airflow maintains a steady stream aimed right at your helmet and doesn’t buffet the rider too much. The mirrors are decent, too.

Not a lot of engine vibes come through to the end of the stalks so the rear view is pretty clear and my stubby arms didn’t obstruct the view. My first impression is that the Daytona 675R feels like a harder Daytona 675 with race-suspension set-up and low and behold, that’s exactly what it is.

The Daytona 675R engine gets pretty good drives off the corner it sounds oh so sweet.

Day two took place on the supersport-friendly confines of Chuckwalla Valley Raceway which is located three hours east of Los Angeles, three hours south of Las Vegas and three hours west of Phoenix. So if you are anywhere near the area, make sure to sign up for an afternoon of apex strafing with So Cal Trackdays on the region’s newest track. But let’s get on with the track impression, shall we?

Right away the Daytona 675R feels at home on the track. After warming up the stock Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa tires for a few laps it was time to push the R and see what she could do. Of course the engine is great but the first thing that comes into play is the quick-shifter.

In the past the Daytona has had a notchy transmission so the new internals and quick-shifter is a big improvement. Click through a few gears and the familiar Inline Triple exhaust note and intake honk really makes it hard to stay off the throttle.

The engine makes great power (104 hp at 12,100 rpm) and has solid mid-range punch evidenced by the class leading 47 lb-ft of torque at 10,400 the bike produced in all of our previous tests. It falls off on top but the mid-range makes it an excellent track bike and an even better street bike. The Daytona is very forgiving if you’re not trying to win Superpole during your favorite track day.

When it comes to the engine and transmission about the only thing that we would like to see is a slipper clutch, although that would certainly ratchet up the price tag.

Triumph Daytona 675 R
Triumph Daytona 675 R

What Triumph did address is the finicky suspension that has been a staple of the Daytona 675 since it entered the

The Ohlins fork and TTX shock are a welcome addition to a motorcycle that has been one of our favorites for a few years now.

market back in 2006. The bike always tended to push the front, run wide and cause suspension techs to beat their heads trying to come up with a set-up that works perfectly. Our previous shootout results confirmed as much but it is important to remember that it wasn’t bad enough to keep it from winning our ’06 Supersport Shootout along with a host of accolades over the past half-decade from magazines around the globe.

Race track success was more difficult to come by and that’s where Ohlins comes in. With so much effort to get this top-shelf suspension on the Daytona 675R we felt the benefits would be best explained by someone with intimate knowledge of the components, so we let the Ohlins team explain the back story in their own words.

“It’s pretty impressive for Triumph to step up like this,” explains Ohlins’ Matt Sage. “First of all they equip a Supersport class bike with a complete Ohlins Road Track fork that integrates our 30mm NIX cartridge that is run at the AMA level by many teams. So right out of the box this bike is taking advantage of some impressive technology that people are only used to seeing on liter-class bikes.

It’s a big step for Triumph to put this in the public’s hands. Inside the fork, for the first time is what’s really impressive, rather than use four 25mm pistons, two rebound, two compression, we use our NIX racing technology which separates compression and rebound so right hand leg is rebound, left is compression both of which are only 30mm pistons.

“The shock technology was developed in Formula 1, winning races in MotoGP in early 2000s and made available to the public for the first time to an exclusive number of racers in ’06,” continues Sage. “For this to make it to production level equipment is pretty impressive. TTX, or Twin Tube Technology is completely different than the shimmed-piston designs that pretty much every other manufacturer uses on OEM level equipment.

The advantage of TTX technology is that all the changes you make on a TTX shock are 100% isolated from each other. If you make a compression change it’s only compression, if you make a rebound change, it’s only rebound. Whereas in shim-piston technology, like most manufacturers use, that rebound adjustment at the bottom of the shock actually is a common bleed that affects both sides. So it actually allows us to get a much wider range of adjustability.”

2011 Triumph Daytona 675R First Ride Gear Bag :

ICON Kangaroo Leather Suit (You can’t buy one, sorry!)

I have to admit I am not going as hard as some of our more advanced racer-journalists out there but I found the Ohlins setup to be a huge leap forward compared to the base Daytona 675. Riding the two bikes back-to-back confirmed my suspicions as the up-spec suspension keeps the bike more stable and seems to offer a much improved front-end feel. That’s saying something considering I really had fun on the base 675, too.

However, I wasn’t blown away by the Brembo brakes. That’s because the four-pot Nissin binders on the 675 are pretty good. The logical train of thought is that the Brembos should be head shoulders better than them but instead, they just aren’t that different at the speeds I was riding. The Brembo calipers feel good and are a standard upgrade on many race bikes these days.

They offer very good feel as a braking system and are plenty powerful so don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice upgrade for sure. But in the end I’m sure it was easier for Triumph to just bolt on the Brembos to the Ohlins fork and promote the upgrade as the two systems often go hand-in-hand with each other, rather than try to keep the Nissin units.

When you take a step back and soak in all that the 2011 Daytona 675R has to offer though, it’s difficult not to be impressed. This is a European sportbike that is unique and entertaining to ride. It’s fast, fun and now equipped with top-shelf suspension, brakes and a bunch of carbon goodies.

It looks every bit the part of a race bike with mirrors and lights plus it is light at 407 pounds ready to ride and at $11,999 has an MSRP that puts it right in line with the competition.

It all adds up to yet another contender for our annual Supersport Shootout. With the re-emergence of the Daytona plus the revamped Japanese and Italian contenders during the past year, this is shaping up to be a throwback slugfest on par with some of our original shootouts. The upcoming 2011 Supersport Shootout will feature seven of the most advanced middleweight sportbikes on the planet and we can’t wait to see how the Daytona 675R will stack up against them.

Triumph Daytona 675 R
Triumph Daytona 675 R
Triumph Daytona 675 R
Triumph Daytona 675 R
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