The Tiger who came to corner the market

There’s no denying it, when it comes to heavyweight adventure bikes, the BMW GS and the GS Adventure are the benchmark. They sell the most, they are household names and – like them or loath them – they are excellent at what they are designed for.

None of this has been lost on Triumph, who would dearly like to chip away at some of the boxers’ market share. And to do that, Triumph has rolled out the all-new Tiger 1200 family. With almost everything but a handful of bolts being brand-new on the bike, and all the vital statistics improved, could this be a challenge that will shake up the adventure market? Apart from the BMWs, there are no other shaft-driven big adventure bikes to choose from, so the fight on that front will be a close one, but if you spread the net to cover chain-driven bikes too, the likes of Honda, Ducati and KTM enter the competition, and there’s suddenly ample choice.

Triumph reckons that in the new Tiger 1200 it has a package that can take on all of the big adventurers. In fact, it says that the brief was to create the most agile and manoeuvrable large adventure bike that you can buy.

We travelled to Portugal for the launch of the new models to see if the brief had been met.

What’s what?

There are plenty of interesting smaller capacity adventure bikes right across the cc spectrum, from the Royal Enfield Himalayan to the Aprilia Tuareg 660, and on to Triumph’s own Tiger