Funny thing, these monstrosities…. Is it a bike, is it a car? I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to manoeuvre almost 400kg’s around in traffic. After all, my own personal bike weighs less than me?

One thing is for certain; hopping onboard the Rocket 3 Touring feels all but intimidating. Nice forward foot controls and a big speedo with a fuel gauge and all sorts of electronic features, makes it even nicer just to play with the switches.

The Triumph Rocket 3 was launched in 2004, it won awards everywhere and stunned the motorcycle community with its monster 3 cylinder 2.3 litre engine. It quickly became popular with the crowd who wanted to be seen on something else; something that is not American and something that is not a Harley. It is however, till today, the largest and most powerful production cruiser engine available. The only bike bigger and stronger than this are the Boss Hoss V8 contraptions.

The 2,294cc engine produces enough torque to pull start an 18-wheeler truck! I’m serious, the torque is something to experience. Just idling along and changing gears, will accelerate you briskly from 60kph in 5^th gear, to what I assume is around 190kph, where the speed restrictor comes into play. What did I ever expect with nearly 210nm (209nm to be exact) and 72kw? Triumph claims that the Rocket will out accelerate a Yamaha R1 from 0 – 60 kph. You know what...? I believe them.

Riding along with around 400kg’s beneath you sort of makes you feel like a king on the road... That typical bad boy attitude... you can’t but help it… I snigger inside.

The Triumph has a 24l fuel tank. It takes forever to fill it as it has to “bleed” over, from the right side to the left. But once that’s done the party is started with a press of a button. That typical (not so typical) 3-cylinder off-beat English engine just pulses along. It’s a sound that you can’t really describe in today’s world of dominating 4-cylinders and v-twins. Riding the triumph feels very much like a four; so smooth but with the low end grunt of a v-twin. The gearbox is clunky, but I didn’t expect to be shifting like a Bentley Continental - this is a lot of metal I’m moving. The sound-track is muffled with the exhausts; I guess they never really intended the Rocket 3 touring to be heard coming into a quite country town.

The nice tall windscreen with chrome backing compliments the motorcycle and just adds to the total package. The screen is high and takes nearly all the wind off the rider, with a slight bit comfortably hitting the shoulders. The screen is also detachable and removes in about 10 seconds - looks real good too without it.The black rubber bits underneath come in 16 inch sizes with the front being 160 wide and the rear following with a 180. They have actually made the rear tire narrower than the Rocket 3 Classic as they had to beef up the tail section of the bike to fit the panniers, as well as to be able to accommodate the extra weight. The Rocket feels at home cruising at the speed limit, maybe even slightly less. I found myself comfortably placed riding at 110kph the whole day. Somehow riding a tanker puts the whole world in a different perspective, I actually now took note of the world around me. However, make no mistake; it will jump from 110kph to 180kph quicker than you can say Triumph Rocket Touring.

The 24liters in the tank would give you a range of about 350km, if you are being reasonable with the throttle. I expected much less and actually closer to the 10l/100km mark, but instead with a light throttle I was surprised to see much closer to 6-7l / 100km, for a 2300cc bike weighing nearly 400kg with two people upon. I think it’s excellent!

It’s not hard to see why people buy these sorts of motorcycles. It’s just something that is very hard to explain if you have not yet ridden one of these beasts. It gives you that sense of open-road freedom. Don’t plan your route… just go where the road takes you.