Photoshoot of the Week: November 9th-15th 2020 – Olivia & Triumph Daytona 675

Back in the early 2000s, Triumph’s four-cylinder, middleweight sportbikes were taking a beating by the 600 cc bikes from the Big Four in Japan. The solution? Drop a cylinder, boost the cubes and start a nearly complete, ground-up rebuild based off the old Daytona 600 chassis. The result? A decidedly nimble and powerful supersport packed away in a deceptively small package. After a number of changes, and the addition of the Daytona 675 R in 2011 that went on to win the Daytona 200, in 2016 Triumph ceased production of the base model Daytona 675 citing diminishing demand for super sport bikes and increasingly strict European emission standards.
We see two choices from manufacturers at this juncture: 1) it is an opportunity to phase out a motorcycle, like we have seen with Honda and the Honda CBR600RR; or 2) it is an opportunity for a manufacturer to debut either an updated (see the Triumph Speed Triple, Tiger 800, or Tiger 1200 for example) or and entirely new machine, like the Ducati Panigale V4. In 2019 triumph finally made its choice and the new Daytona 765 was officially unveiled at the GoPro British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit in England.
Nonetheless, even if the 675 model has been of production for several years so far now, the 675 proved to be remarkably light, nimble and powerful, at a maximum of 128 bhp it was also very quick, and it was very successful against the Japanese 600cc competition. Ihe bike was powered by a 675cc in-line three-cylinder DOHC engine that manages the heat via liquid-cooling. Triumph combined the good old formula of wide bore/short stroke engine design which means the bike can rev all the way to 14,400 RPM. It delivered 117 horsepower and 70.2 Nm of torque, which is a lot given that the bike weighs a mere 167 kilos (dry).
Now all these figures are quick enough to make a bike fast, but Triumph wanted this to be faster and hence, you also get a Quickshifter which means you don’t have to pull in the clutch during upshifts. A Slipper Clutch so that you don’t have to worry about your rear tyre locking if you downshift too early. Switchable Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS) with race-mode for late intervention along with Pirelli SuperCorsa Tyres and Brembo Monobloc brakes which have all the bite and feedback you will need. And to top it all, it has fully adjustable Ohlins suspension and the beautiful exhaust note when you give it the berries. All of this makes the bike very nimble and agile through corners and instils a great level of confidence in the rider.
The Daytona checked all the boxes in terms of performance but what could have been better was the instrument cluster, which gets a bit difficult to read during the daytime. Although it does display all the information you would need and also comes with a lap time recorder. The bike’s riding position is also very sporty. It’s not exactly a negative but more like a characteristic of the motorcycle so keep in mind, that riding it every day could mean sore wrists. But after all, it was an all-out sportbike and as a result, this kind of a seating posture should have been expected.
It won’t be wrong to say that the Triumph Daytona 675R was the king of the hill when it comes to performance middleweight motorcycles. It was a ‘supersport’ in every sense and once you start riding it, you realise that the only limiting factor to this is really how skilled the rider is.