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Why I picked up the Triumph Speed 400 to complement my Honda CB650R

13th September 2024, 10:28 by Kanad Kalasur

You’d notice I used the word “smooth” many times in this post, and In general, it’s the word that best describes the bike.

BHPian knl.bhg recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

There have been a lot of threads and reviews on the Speed 400 already, and I am more than a year late to the party.

Regardless, here are my thoughts on this amazing machine.

Also, I hope this post can help anyone who owns a bigger or more impractical bike, and wants a smaller one to compliment it.

# The journey

From the last 1 year, I was looking out for a smaller bike to compliment my older CB650R

The CB is still quite heavy at standstill. Manoeuvring it in parking spots is sometimes like a light workout.
The bike is relatively cheap to repair, but takes an insane amount of time in the garage. Honda has always done a good job from my experience, but the time to wait for parts arriving from Thailand, and given that not many people own this platform, often means being bike-less for months!
Even with the 1 inch bar risers I put in the bike, it’s still somewhat committed, and it becomes a strain on the wrist after some 20-30kms or an hour of riding in traffic.

Also, people have hurt the bike even in parking (not intentionally, but while reversing their vehicle for example), so I don’t feel confident parking it in crowded spaces like markets.

I already own a Classic 350 that’s quite old now (almost 10 years now), so I know from experience that having a smaller, less powerful bike is a blessing on the weekdays traffic.

But given its age, and our somewhat busy lifestyles, it’s become harder to spend time on its regular maintenance.

And so off to shop for a new bike we must go..

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# What was I looking for

I didn’t want this new bike to be aggressive, or overly sporty to ride.

Above all, it should have a good level of comfort of long hours of on-and-off riding in the city, and must have enough power to handle quick overtakes or short signal-to-signals (within city speeds, of course).

It should be easy to park in crowded places, and shouldn’t be too flashy to grab attention of the wrong people.
I love understated, yet attention-catching bikes!
Can do comfortable highway speeds for city to airport rides.
Didn’t need to handle complete broken off-roads or no-roads, but should have decent suspensions to handle shit potholes and unscientific speed-bumps.
Not too expensive. It only needs to compliment its bigger brother in day-to-day duties.
Which also means easy and relatively inexpensive to maintain compared to its competition.
Somewhat modern, and should have ~40ps of power and equivalent torque.
This immediately rules out Scram 411, Meteor 350, etc.
Comfortable enough for the wife

I figured I’d keep the bigger bike for long distance and highway rides, and otherwise anytime when the traffic would be significantly less.

A bit about me for context:
I am about 5.7” and somewhat overweight. I am particularly biased against sporty postures, and that will show in my posts.

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# My options then

RE Guerrilla 450

The most direct competitor to this bike, IMO.

I had very, very, very high expectations for this bike, and I waited 1 whole year for it! I would have waited even longer if RE would have said they are releasing it next year.

But when I did finally test drive it.. It just wasn’t for me at all.

The riding position was kinda weird. It has wide, slightly raised handlebars, but with the low seat height, it felt something like a power-cruiser. The problem is the bike itself feels like a roadster in all other respects. This weird mix of ergonomics immediately made me feel under-confident while turning.
The tyres were crap in even a little mud. Constantly slipping whenever there was even a little wetness, and just generally not playing well with the engine, which brings me to..
The engine. This was the main reason I finally left this otherwise pretty okay bike.
It had this certain harshness, almost like a lack of refinement, which I didn’t understand.
And I am not talking about the typical RE vibes. It’s not like the Bullet’s vibes, but faster cause of high RPM, no!
It’s more like this constant hard buzz, that became very irritating very soon. Also the engine felt most comfortable when you were trying to push it beyond 3-4k RPM. The 1st gear felt very redundant.

And this is not one particular bike. I test rode 3 bikes from 3 different showrooms, 2 of them for 20 mins each. Each of them felt the same in these regards.

Now I understand 2 of these “issues” are actually why a lot of people will buy the bike. It’s hooligan nature is definitely a plus for its intended audience. But I don’t think I fall into that audience.

In the end, as Shumi said in Motorinc, it might have been better if RE had made a much more aggressive GRRRR 450, or a more laid back GR 450. But right now, as it stands, GRR 450 falls too much in between.

(I don’t always agree with Shumi, specially his critique of the Dominar 400, but his review of the GRR450 absolutely summarises what I have in my head)

Himalayan 450

Amazing bike, same problems with the engine as above.

Plus the spoke wheels and no way to change them with alloys is -1 immediately. Maybe I am too scarred from the years of pushing the Classic 350 through punctures. :(

But that amazing circular display, oh man. So much in love with that..

Husqvarna Svartpilen 401

Amazing bike, and decently comfortable. But the lack of low end torque didn’t strike a chord with me. The bike kind of felt a little laggy in the short test ride I took in low speeds.

Also, same issue as Himalayan 450, lack of alloys.
It’s true we can change it to the S250 or Duke alloys, but that’s another thing to deal with.

Duke 390

I really, really wanted to buy this bike. I have owned so many bikes till now, and yet not even one of them had half the features the Duke did.

Amazing TFT display (I still have never owned a bike with bluetooth, leave aside full TFT). Adjustable suspensions. Just, all the stuff that make me envy every single Duke owner.

But as soon as I got on the bike, I knew I had to get down immediately. It’s closer to R15 than any other bike I have ridden yet. Also, like the Svartpilen 401, it’s lack of low end torque made it even less appealing to me.

I rode for a few hundred meters, but I gave up before even completing the route.

Still, for those who are comfortable with the posture, I believe they are very lucky indeed to own this beautiful machine.

Speed 400 (and 400x)!

When I first got a test ride of this beautiful machine from the most infamous Triumph dealer in central Bengaluru (older members and Bangaloreans here will know), the bike felt like loyal dog that had been badly abused for personal entertainment.

The poor bike wanted to give a good experience, but had been kicked so many times it was just tweaking non-stop.

Engine jumping like at the slightest twitch, vibrating like crazy, with a clunky AF gearbox, as if like clutch plates have burned out.

But, at the time, it was my first interaction with the bike, and I assumed the engine is just a caffeinated addict. I did like the bike otherwise, but wrote it off for its supposedly harsh engine.

Fast forward a few months later, with my wife spending some time in Phoenix mall, I figured what harm will another test ride do.

So I went to Khivraj Whitefield, and took on the Scrambler 400x. It immediately made me realise I have to now properly test the Speed 400.
While I couldn’t flatfoot the bike, I had a gut feel its cousin will change my mind.

And when I test rode the S400 I was completely blown away. Completely!

But more on that below..

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# Delivery Experience

So about a week or so after test riding the GRR 450, I figured I’d test ride the Speed 400 again, and see if I change my mind about the former.

Khivraj Electronic City (Autogenika) was the closest to me, and so off I went.

The bike they gave had a dying and crying in pain chain sprocket. And yet, despite the chain constantly threatening to snap, I still had a wide smile the whole time.

I figured if an unmaintained bike ridden by 100 people every week can make me so happy riding it for 20 mins, a new well maintained vehicle can only bring joy every time.

So after a week I decided to go ahead with the booking, and paid token amount of 5k.

The process was generally smooth, but did take a lot of following up with the showroom guys for everything, including receipts for payment, delivery date, etc. But nothing too painful.

PDI and delivery was also smooth, I came for PDI one fine day, told them will take delivery with number plate attached, came on the day they called, bike was ready with all accessories.

Simple, smooth.

It’s been almost 2 weeks now, and 400 kms on the odo, and I have been happier with my purchase than I initially even hoped I’d be!

Accessories

Lower Engine guards.
Sump Guard. But I feel I could have avoided this. The bike has superb ground clearance for city use. I think I was overreacting to the 650 hitting *every single speed bump* in Bengaluru.
Mud splash kit, front + back tyres. I have seen a lot of S400s throwing mud at the rear, and I wanted to minimise that.
Windscreen. I think it makes the front look better
Headlight grille
Tank pads. Cause they look cool.
But in hindsight, should have ordered the leather ones from TripMachineCo or such. The Triumph ones are veery high quality, but super bland in comparison.

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# Pros

Engine

The engine is the star of the show here. Very, very tractable, even at less than 20 km/h.

Even at (moving) traffic speeds, the engine couldn’t care less if it’s 3rd or 4th gear.

I have almost stopped downshifting to 1st gear in city rides now, and at no point does the bike give a hint of this being harmful.

As long as you don’t want to start it like a Duke 390, there is no real difference between starting from standstill in 1st gear or 2nd.

One of my fears when looking at a <40ps machine was could it become cumbersome to keep playing with gears in traffic. The CB650’s inline 4 is almost like a automatic at lower speeds, and doesn’t give a shit if you are on 4th gear at 20 km/h. I was afraid I’d now I will have to let go of that tractability.

But the S400’s engine completely lays that to rest. It has a very wide, overlapping powerband between gears, so that 2nd and 3rd gears can be used interchangeably, 3rd and 4th with each other, and so on.

And all of this, with some power left over in each gear to overtake that uncle who wouldn’t give way in a flyover.

The power delivery is also very smooth, and the cliche saying “like butter” really makes sense here.

Gearbox

The gearbox is also quite smooth and the lever is light, so it’s never to painful in heavy traffic.

Gearshifts are smooth in general, and one thing I appreciate is that while they click into place easily, they still need a little bit of pressure to upshift/downshift. This leads to fewer false shifts. This was noticeable when I was in chappals once to pick up something from a nearby store.

Ergonomics

The upright ergos are pretty nice in general, with no problems in the highway.

But in traffic I can notice some strain in my butt and wrists. But this is not really a fair comparison, since I am a little biased towards the Classic 350s ergos (and my general bias against sporty postures).

Compared to the CB650 tho (and any other sporty bike), this is a travelling sofa. And my wife prefers it twice as much!

I do wish the handlebars were a little wider. Not as much as the GRR 450, but maybe half an inch each side?

But I will have a more mature opinion of the ergos after riding it for a few months.

Design

Simple, proportionate, classy, and still modern enough. But 1 con here, more of that below.

Brakes and tyres

Brakes work great. Tyres were a little weird for me initially. They work absolutely great, both in wet and dry (and much better in the wet than the shit Dunlops the 650 comes with).

It did feel a little uneasy leaning on turns the first few days, but maybe that’s because I am more accustomed to wider tyres on my other bikes.

Regardless of my hesitations, the bike and tyres hold the line 100% with no slips, wobbles, or anything that can make you remember your maker. It just sticks to the road while leaning. Amazing stuff.

It made me remember my earliest biking days on my Pulsar 200 where I’d not hesitate to cut sharp corners in the hills of Guwahati.

I haven’t tested them in mud and wet dirt, so I will reserve my thoughts on that for now.

Weight and Ground Clearance

The relatively less weight makes a world of difference that’s not translatable in words and spec sheets. To be able to move it around parking spots without straining your whole body, to not feel that slight bit of extra strain in stop-and-go traffic, to be able to lean the bike at standstill to rotate it in tight spots, all these things are very unspoken, but absolutely change the way you think of taking the bike out.

I noticed this today when I took the 650 out and the weight immediately showed itself. I think I’ll subconsciously get biased towards taking this out more and more.

Also the bike has not hit a single speed-bump yet. And that’s saying a lot in Bengaluru!

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# Cons

This is extremely subjective, but the instrument cluster is meh. I really wish they gave an analog tachometer and digital speedo instead of the other way around currently.
One real problem I faced the other day was while driving to and from the airport. Since the engine pulls smoothly without any harsh vibes or fuzz, or otherwise any strong indication of acceleration, you can be crossing the speed limits without realising it.
And that analog speedo doesn’t make it easy to quickly check.
Bar end mirrors suck for me. I know many people liked them in this bike. But for me, the Field of View was too narrow, and I could either choose *“see further away”* or *“see car about to hit you from behind”*, **but not both.**
I changed them to the Scrambler 400x mirrors today, but the grips now have a gap between the bar-ends.
Shit headlights.
- First of all, no one explains you got to also switch on the night lights. Which are different from the high beam.
So basically this bike has 3 lights: Pilot lamps, like the Enfield’s tiger eyes. Low beam light, high beam light.
I rode the bike 2 days without the headlights, on pilot lamps, cause no one explained them
- Then, the headlight unit itself can be tilted up or down. And mine was facing the sky
So for 2 days I thought my low beam was high beam, and high beam was sky-beam.
How did I finally realise? I saw another Speed 400 in the apartment with the headlight facing towards the ground. And I did 2+2 after that.
- Regardless, the throw itself sucks. As acknowledged by the sales guys.
No company provided India wide RSA. The dealer gives their own, and you could go for an aftermarket one that ties with the dealer (RODA in my case), but I wished this would have been standard.
Road presence
What, what? Well, if you want some road presence, the bike is a little too small in proportions.
Maybe a slightly bigger tank would have made the bike feel a little bigger.
In the end, it doesn’t matter to me too much. And if it’d have affected the brilliant ergos and weight, I have no problems on missing out.
It’s one of those things that would have been good to have, and would have made the bike 9.5/10 for me.