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-   -   Triumph Street Triple - Blue Lightning comes home (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/superbikes-imports/154312-triumph-street-triple-blue-lightning-comes-home-5.html)

Hey mate, Sorry i meant reliability and not quality. I have ridden ST3 multiple times and never stalled it but it looks like quite a few bikes have a flaw of stalling and i believe manufacturer must fix it.
Fit and finish on ST3 is top notch and better than Z800.

Well after the stalling issue (which has magically disappeared on my bike) I was faced with a new problem, I was basically able to eat up my rear tire in around 4000km. Is the tire too soft or do I accelerate too aggressively? Because I've seen owners run these tires for 15-18k kms, but in either case it was due for a change since it was over a year and a half old. I don't use the bike too much unfortunately because of the weather in Delhi, and have been trying to ride it around as much as I can. After suffering multiple punctures on consecutive days it turned into a emergency and I rushed to Kirti Nagar to get new rubber for Blue Lightning


Post realising that my usage of the bike is minimal, I don't take it touring and mostly potter around the city or Buddh Circuit I need to get max grip. With the Rosso Corsa I always felt it took too long to come to operating temperatures. Unlike earlier you get a wide variety and choice now-a-days in superbike rubber. I decided going for the Pirelli Supercorsa SP because I was happy with Pirelli and the Daytona comes with Supercorsa as standard. I called a few owners about the tires and they did mention they are more prone to punctures. I didn't have a single puncture on the Rosso till it went bald, so that worried me a little.


Initial reaction is great, I haven't ridden the bike much but the grip levels are great. A whack of the throttle instantly sends the front wheel to the sky instead of just spinning out and I've noticed that this tire takes lesser time to heat up. I'll keep everyone updated after I've done a trackday on it. I also intend to take the bike to Triumph workshop for them to do whatever they needed to do to resolve the stalling problem.

I recently quit my job and treated myself to a month off of doing nothing. Unfortunately I was not able to ride as much as I would have preferred, fortunately we did end up riding and I was lucky enough to have a very gifted artist with me who just happened to be carrying his Nikon.

The plan was to ride to this lovely cottage about 70km ahead of Shimla in a village called Karyali, we were in no rush so decided to split the onward journey into 2 days.

My Bike's seat broke a few days before the trip. The part where the rear lock connects to the seat ripped out when my fat ass friend slammed himself on the seat. I could not believe Triumph has the audacity to charge Rs 22,000 for this seat. I tried to claim insurance but it was denied saying that this was not covered. Thankfully Triumph has their 'comfort' seat available at 12k in stock so I decided to grab it right away. Also decided I needed a few more essentials for touring. So I picked up a new helmet, saddle bags hydration pack to get myself ready for the first long ride on the bike.

The ride from Delhi to our first stop in Panchkula was pretty uneventful and boring. We ended up lazing around and taking loads of stops to chill and have chai because we were not in a hurry.

I hope you guys enjoy your ride. On what basis do they not cover the seat, is it mentioned anywhere in the policy?

The ride to Shimla was actually not that fun because of the himalayan expressway is under construction from near Solan onwards, there were just way too many trucks and it was way too hot and dusty. The drive through Shimla was horrid with gridlock and traffic all the way. ProTip: Avoid riding through hills or popular tourist destinations during times of long weekend or when you know the influx of tourists would be huge, we had lunch and continued our 70 km journey to the destination to Karyali a beautiful mountain village.

En route karyali

Make Life A Ride

We were lucky enough to get these beautiful shots not far from Karyali, this is when I felt so much better. I was actually completely exhausted with riding on broken roads. It was a scary feeling because I was on the Pirelli Super Corsas which are basically road legal super soft tires and here I am riding them on gravel, stone and immense potholes. After a certain time I realised that I was bottoming out too much in the front and decided to accelerate instead of brake for small potholes which made the bike glide over them, but this is not always possible (road isn’t straight on the mountains).


We encountered this broken bridge along the way, it was quite a sight to be honest. I’ve seen nothing like it before. One enquiring the locals told us a bunch of trucks decided to park on the bridge which lead to it breaking and toppling over, great going man. These poor villages in the Himalayas already struggle with their road networks and resources only to be destroyed by idiots.


The cottage where we were staying was absolutely gorgeous and we collectively decided that we wanted to spend a day doing absolutely nothing, I decided to just walk around a bit to a place, some of the locals told me about a stream that flows nearby so the afternoon was spent trekking and taking silly pictures.


It was a perfect biker getaway bearing the little patch of almost dirt road at the end which leads upto the cottage, but the bike handled it quite well and it got a well deserved break.


I had a drag race coming up on Sunday so was debating weather to stick around, ride further or return back. The itch to race was too strong and we ultimately decided that we will ride back non stop from Karayali to Delhi which Google maps estimated to be a 20 hour drive. So we hustled.


Before people get angry, this was done on a closed road with no vehicle traffic. I really wanted to get some great shots of the bike. It performed flawlessly, it tore up the mountains and it devoured the highway and I was home in less than 11 hours which is fantastic with road condition and the amount of stops we took along the way.

Insurance agent mentioned that non commercial vehicles don't have partial theft insurance.

Happy 2nd Birthday Blue Lightning


Its been 2 years since I got the bike. I have still not crossed 10k KM :Frustrati as you all know its been a roller coaster ride for me. I really really love and enjoy the bike quite a bit, and its a keeper for sure. As my friend Stuart Lima once told me about his '05 GSXR. I'm going to ride it till my grave.

I wish I had fond memories to share about my experiences with Triumph India, the less said is better. From horrible representatives at Dealer levels who would turn the Dalai Lama into a serial killer to lala management who deserve to be in a government office and not heading a motorcycle company.

The bike has started stalling again, I will be taking it to the workshop to get it resolved and will share my findings.

This is bad. Is this because of lack of experience service professionals who are not trained about the bike?

We often hear say the german car makers actually training their service associates by taking them overseas to their factories and basically making them take exams before they care qualified to lead service at their service centres.

Its sad to hear that the issue is not fixed and 10k in two years is definitely not what you wanted to do with the bike.

Nice pics mate. It is really shameful of Triumph treating their customers like trash and not taking their issues seriously. It is as if everything is falling on their deaf ears.

First the BHP detune fiasco for which they didn't even bother to tender an apology forget about compensating the owners and now the stalling issue which their "so called trained staff" is unable to diagnose and rectify. Despite this all they know is to charge exorbitantly for their accessories. Makes me wonder if their sales and marketing team is managed by Baboons or what? this along with jokers in their technical and PR department!

Hope your issue is diagnosed correctly rather than Triumph's trial and error. In my riding group I have asked many a riders to STAY AWAY from Triumph due to their cheating and high nose attitude. What a Bunch of Losers! quickdraw mate you have aptly defined them.

Fab pics and a great video man!!
It's great to see the striple in the backdrop of the mighty mountains! The wheelie pics are awesome!!
Keep her rolling!

Cheers!

Here is a short video I made of the trip I talked about earlier. Still learning how to create these videos so any feedback is welcome, especially which parts you liked/disliked.

I know the video is long, it's more of me putting together footage I had. Will try and tell a more coherent story in my next one.

:Frustrati Aargh, it's happened again. My seat has broken for the second time, and this is the add-on Comfort seat that I had bought. If you take a look at the pictures its obvious the locking mechanism that they use is very flimsy and prone to breaking.


As you can see the plastic part has a metal bolt that rips right off. And this is the second time it has happened. Both of those incidents I had a heavy pillion >75kg :D (for a very short small duration) but that isn't an excuse.

I am definitely not keen on spending another 12-15k to get a new seat. Most probably going to get it repaired have got some contacts for a well-known guy in Karol bagh, any other options?

Word of advice to Street owners, don't take a fat pillion along for a ride or you will end up with a broken seat.

Oh my, I didn't realize that it's been so long since I've updated this thread. Although there was an update (of sorts) in form of this thread I think Blue Lightning deserves more. So here is what's been going on with my Triumph Street Triple in the last 2 years.

Honestly, I haven't had too much time riding the bike, I really hate riding around the city or doing weekend rides because frankly they are boring and there is very high chance of getting into an accident because of fellow riders or other people. Commuting to work is difficult with full gear I arrive drenched to work, its not really an ideal way to start your day. Even when I try taking it to the office and carry an extra change of clothes but still I end up doing that a couple of times in the winters that's it. It's mainly because of that the bike has not seen much mileage in the last 2 years.


The bike recently completed 10,000km which is embarrassing since I bought this thing in 2014, I remember when I was in college I dreamt of owning a superbike I'd ride it day and night non-stop. Younger me would be disappointed, but hey at least I'm still riding! I rode solo one fine morning to a place around 100km from Delhi to this place. I highly you call ahead because they don't really have a restaurant and the resort is usually closed to outside guests, but they are very nice and accommodating and fed me well when I arrived unannounced.

Riding through rural UP was serene and gorgeous, fields as far as the eye can see blocked by fog (visibility was good). Butter smooth twisty roads without any traffic. On many occasions, I was able to pull monsterous wheelies because the roads were deserted and I could see there was nobody on either side. I am sure I made a lot of kids happy that day who were leaving their schools. I had so much fun blasting down those roads I highly recommend you try doing a solo ride instead of the usual Sunday biker breakfast-athons.




THE GOOD

• Apart from a few niggles here and there, bike has aged well.
• I had a chance to ride the newer 765RS and prefer my bike to it, the throttle response on that one felt a bit distant. But I need to ride it on open roads more before I take the verdict.
• This is one of rare motorcycles which are extremely rewarding to ride once you master them. Dank whoolies for days!
• The triple sound DOES NOT get boring at-all. I am still in love with this motor and sound.
• No major issues since last update.

THE BAD

• I was once stranded in the middle of the road after shutting the bike off at a signal and it refused to start. This was diagnosed as rust deposit in starter switch which was cleaned up. The bike was standing for a while in rains andlabor taking it for the yearly checkup when it failed on me.
• Some parts are prone to rust
• Spare parts and labor costs at Triumph India have gone up considerably, I had broken my quickshifter and rearsets during a minor fender bender incident and was surprised to hear that it costs Rs 25k+ now. I had purchased it for 18k earlier, thankfully insurance paid for it this time.
• Chews up rears if you ride aggressively, my Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa rear hardly lasted me 4000km and front 10000km and OEM tires are expensive!

THE UGLY

• Triumph has blocked me on social media and kicked me out of owner whatsapp groups but continue to provide paid support at their dealerships.
• Parts availability is really bad and have to wait months sometimes for certain fast moving parts like clutch cables etc. I think this should not be the case, especially for their best selling model.
• K&N is more prone to the stalling issue, taking it off and using paper filters recommended.
• Triumph roadside assistance and support is really pathetic in Delhi.
• Battery needs to be changed every 2 years if you don't use the bike much.

Apart from the above just been doing periodic maintenance, changed the clutch cable because I felt it had become hard. Changed front and rear pads recently and I'm looking at getting a new set of tires for it soon. The bike rides like a dream and I'm excited to take it out more this riding season and put some miles on it.

What if the rider himself weighs say 130kgs. This would not be a bike for him then.

I believe it should be covered in warranty. Insist on it. Escalate the issue.

Quick recent walkaround of the bike

Pros:

• Absolutely fantastic dynamics and handling. It's still one the best bikes handling wise. You need to spend easily 3x of how much this cost to get something thats better.
• Beautiful engine which has great midrange and makes all kinds of nice noises
• Light and agile, you can ride it like a Duke with so much power on tap
• Triumph service and quality levels have improved in recent past

Cons:

• Vague front suspension over undulations
• Have to be careful to keep throttle bodies clean to avoid stalling
• Quality issues (Switch gear and plastics mostly)
• Accessories which should be a part of standard kit are optional and expensive.

The bike had the following parts/accessories added on.

• Triumph Power Upgrade Kit (Airbox + EU Power map 107bhp)
  
• Triumph Original Quickshifter (2017 model)
  
• K&N Original Air Intake Filter
  
• Triumph OEM Flyscreen
  
• Triumph OEM Engine Protector
  
• Triumph OEM Frame Guards
  
• Triumph OEM Bellypan
  
• Triumph OEM Tire Hugger
  
• Triumph OEM Tank Pad
  
• Triumph OEM Comfort Seat
  
• Arrow Titanium+Carbon Fiber Exhaust (Baffle never taken out)
  
• RAM Fork Stem Mount
  
• Ram Handlebar Mount
  
• Machined Aluminium Lever Guards
  
• Full PPF Paint Protection Film with Opticoat ceramic coating done on bike recently
  
• Brand new Diablo Rosso 2 tires (less than 100km used)

Overall I'm happy that I bought this bike, it's just a shame that Delhi just doesn't have the climate or location to ride the thing and I was feeling guilty that it's just sitting around. I bought the street because it was the logical superbike you can use everyday and since my riding pattern has changed to sporadic I'd rather have something exotic and not practical (as long as I can ride hehe) so maybe you'll see something stupid in the garage later. I'm not sure or entirely convinced buying a bike in India makes sense to me, I've ridden more abroad than in India since I bought the Street Triple over 5 years ago.

I'm glad that I sold the bike directly to a nice chap who will love and take care of the bike and not a useless broker. I think we desperately need a special thread on 'How to sell your Superbike' because that world is filled with useless agents who should be avoided at all costs. Too much scammy stuff going on.

I've had some truly amazing and special movement with the bike that I'll cherish forever. It's truly a gem and I miss the rawness in the new Street but that one is more dynamically capable. You won't go wrong with either.