Triumph's Big

I'm going to name three things and you're going to have to tell me what they all have in common:

- Alaska
- Dahuofang Water Tunnel
- Triumph Rocket III

Have you figured it out, yet?  Okay, I'll give you a few more seconds.

Time's up.  The answer?  They're all really, really big.

Alaska is the largest of the 50 U.S. states.  It's more than twice as big as Texas, the next largest state.  The Dahuofang Tunnel is a 53-mile-long water tunnel in China and is the longest tunnel in the world.  Finally, the Rocket III has the biggest engine of any mass-produced motorcycle.  It's a massive 2,292 cc (2.3L) inline three.

To put the size of the Rocket's engine in comparison, the V8 in the Daimler SP250 Dart was 2.5L; Ferrari's first V12 was 1.5L; Harley's biggest current engine is 1.8L; and Triumph's next largest triple is 1.2L. 

And it's just not the engine that's big on the Rocket.  Everything about the bike is big.  It's length is a massive 98 inches, longer than the wheelbase of my '75 Corvette.  The gas tank holds 6.3 gallons of fuel.  And the weight?  It's a ground-pounding 807 lbs for the RIII Roadster and a whopping 869 lbs for the RIII Touring.  That's twice the weight of a Triumph Daytona 675, also a triple.

Alright, we've established that the RIII is an oil tanker-sized motorcycle with a big ol' boat anchor of an engine.  What kind of power does this lump produce, then?  In the RIII Roadster, the 2.3L triple puts out 146 bhp.  That's a lot in some respects but not a lot in others.  A liter sports bike like the BMW S1000RR will touch 200 bhp.  In this case, the Bimmer puts out 193 bhp  The 1.7L v-four in the Yamaha VMAX, a close competitor, puts out 174 bhp.

The real trump card for the Rocket is the torque responsible for propelling this machine down the road.  That big ol' boat anchor belts out 163 ft.lbs at a diesel-like 2,750 rpm.  Ninety percent of that torque is available at 2,000 rpm.  The VMAX puts out a piddling 113 ft.lbs way up at 6,600 rpm.  And the BMW with all that horsepower?  It puts out a positively microscopic 83 ft.lbs all the way up at 9,750 rpm.  Pathetic. 

The RIII is a celebration of all things big.  It's no wonder the model was introduced first in the U.S., the country that loves big, in 2003.  To continue my theme of unique and oddball motorcycle, the RIII fits perfectly.  This bike is an excess-is-best approach that one can't help but enjoy.   I think the RIII is a fantastic bike and it makes all the other supposedly big cruisers look like play things.  Cruiser guys love to talk about engine size but nothing short of a Boss Hoss can touch a Rocket in that department.

And the RIII isn't just some fat lump.  It's fast, too, and quite a good handler.  Triumph originally marketed the RIII as a pure cruiser but the traditional buyers didn't know what to make of it.  The RIII was then re-branded as a muscle bike and a tourer and I think it's found its niche.  The Roadster is the muscle bike, all black and sinister, and the Touring is the, um, tourer, all soft and chrome.  I think the RIII makes more sense this way.  Triumph was never going to steal sales from HD with the RIII and this lets the bike be free to go its own way.