On my first day here at IPM, our editor Alex took me aside and quietly asked me if I had any enemies. “Uh,” I said, “Not really?”

“Because it’d be really easy for someone to, oh, I dunno, take a leak in your gas tank….” (Ahahahaha! -Ed)

Turns out he was referring to the single greatest downside of the Daytona’s LighTech quick-release gas cap: zero security. Because it doesn’t require a key, all it would take is one, bored vandal with a handful of pennies to give me an afternoon of headache, heartache and probably wallet-ache, too. And a handful of pennies isn’t
even very creative – a bottle of sodium silicate, for instance, would effectively (and invisibly) turn the engine into a useless block of scrap metal.

That said, I’ve been using the LighTech gas cap for over a month now and have encountered no other downsides. Its primary purpose, to permit super-quick refuel times on the race track, is equally suited to the average Chevron station, where I no longer even bother getting off the bike to gas up. I’ve even gotten a bit spoiled: on other motorcycles, on more than one occasion, I’ve already caught myself
staring blankly at the key slot on the gas cap, thinking, “What a bloody inconvenience….”

Made from machined aluminum billet, the LighTech is a nice shade of grey that complements the Gilles rearsets and Remus exhaust, too.

Definitely not for your average commuter motorcycle (which the Daytona isn’t!), but if security isn’t a concern, the quick-release gas cap is an easy-to-install time-saver that I highly recommend. It won’t break the bank (MSRP is $129.95), your concentration… or your key.

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Hey guys, this weekend we decided to take our two favorite bikes out on the open road for another good old fashion shootout. As you will recall, we have pit these two motorcycles against each other in the past. So, what’s different this time? Well, each time we take these two Triumphs out, they have been in different stages of tune.

Currently, the Daytona is running the Beringer calipers, and a pair of Helibar clip ons. The Street Triple now has the stock Daytona front calipers, and has gone back to handlebars by the way of Rizoma. For a full spec sheet, please check out their respective sections under Staff Bikes.

We believe that there truly are too many factors when comparing motorcycles. Try as they may, many magazines still attempt to use technical jargon to confuse the readers in an attempt to justify one choice over another.

We say the hell with it. We will pit any bike against another, and honestly, it really boils down to personal preference. Making these shoot out videos and articles are fun for us. Hope some of you enjoy them. We will improve each time we do it. Promise!

Stay tuned for more updates and be sure to check out Triumph Boards for more information.

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With the closure of the Bay Bridge a couple weekends ago, I was forced to take the Daytona 675 up over the Richmond Bridge on the way into town. It’s a pretty scenic ride, whipping you up over the northern part of the bay and then plunging you down into that thick morning fog that can last all day, in these parts. It’s vivid. Surreal. Fricking cold.

Thinking to spare my unprotected neck, I hunkered all the way down beneath the Daytona’s windscreen, which helped my neck, sure, but also shot the speedometer up a couple miles an hour for pretty obvious reasons.

Completely obvious or not, I sat straight up while keeping the throttle steady and sure enough the bike shed speed. I hunkered down. The bike sped up. I sat up. The bike slowed down. I hunkered back down. I sat back up. The people in the car beside me stared, completely bewildered. I pretended I had a crick in my back.

Fact: motorcycles get awesome mileage.
Hypothesis: aerodynamic motorcycles get even better mileage.
Test: duck into a crouch while doing 80mph.
Result: speed increases.
Conclusion: aerodynamic motorcycles get even better mileage.

Okay, so I didn’t do well in chemistry. Or biology. Physics. What class taught the scientific method again? (the Scientific Method can be applied to any of the sciences: social, behavioral, natural, related, natural, applied, etc. -Ed)

But I can jump to obvious conclusions, and today’s obvious conclusion is that the Daytona 675′s double-bubble windscreen offers an excellent boost to its top-end speed, raising the ceiling on the bike’s higher gears. I did some extra math and figured that if I only ever ride on a quarter tank of gas, get rid of the front rotors, strip all that extra paint off and only wear boxers, I’ll be able to go even faster. When the weather gets warmer. In the meantime, it’s me and my Zero G.

For more Triumph updates, please check out TriumphBoards. Stay tuned.

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Two weekends ago was the San Mateo motorcycle show, and I decided to ride the Daytona down, thinking myself in good company with all the other gearheads that were likely to show up. Sure, it’s been ages since the last time Triumph decided to grace us with their presence, but whatever – I’d be showing support for my favorite mode of transportation.

On the way, I hit a mile-long patch of what I can only call a “typical Californian highway,” a shamelessly shoddy stretch of road that had me taking shot after shot to the tailbone until I finally settled on standing up out of the seat. That bad! You won’t hear many complaints about the Ohlins TTX racing suspension series, but crikey, I was crosseyed by the end of it. That same racing technology that glues you to the asphalt, translating every nuance of road surface into rider feedback so you can go fearlessly roaring into corners, hitting apex after apex and accomplishing impossible track times… well, it’s kind of a pain in the butt.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not here to forswear the Ohlins monoshock in favor of other, lesser (dare we say, OEM) systems. Indeed, all that hammering has given me a kind of unnatural confidence in the Daytona’s ability to keep the rubber on the road.

It has, however, given me huge incentive to become a more proactive manager of the TTX racing suspension’s damping profile. Take today’s ride out to Mount Diablo, for instance. I’ll be ratcheting down the preload to a much softer setting. Hopefully, when I get home this evening, I’ll be able to sit down without the aid of an ice pack!

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If you’ll recall, last week, the Daytona’s left rearset jammed up on me in a poorly disguised assassination attempt. When I realized that I’d just lost the ability to shift up, I pulled over to a small nook on the Bay Bridge to find that the rearset’s carbon heel guard had lost a bolt and was now interfering with the motion of the shifter. I managed to loosen the remaining bolt, removed the heel guard and got the heck off the bridge.

Now, this rearset is a solid piece of engineering – it’s half the fun of owning a bike in the first place. The manufacturer, a Luxembourg-based tooling company called Gilles Tooling, has crafted an aesthetic and technical wonder with these things and they perform great. Fully adjustable, custom made for the Daytona (and a variety of other bikes), knurled foot pegs, anodized, something in the neighborhood of 25 percent lighter than stock rearsets, potentially homicidal heel guards, no modifications needed.

The parts are made from CNC (computer numeric control)-milled aluminum billet, very sturdy and resistant to corrosion.

Why that carbon fiber heel guard came loose is anyone’s guess. My thinking is the rearset took a good knock, somewhere along the line, and that’s when the first bolt disappeared. Ever since, the heel guard began working itself lower and lower, biding its time for the day when it put its evil plan into action– okay, you get the point. We reinstalled the sucker with enough Loctite to stick a bowling ball to the ceiling and have had no problems after another weekend of heavy riding.

Whether you go with Gilles (retail is about $500), keep your stock rearsets or go with another company, please take to heart: your rearsets need a little love, every once in awhile.

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