How did Triumph get it so right?

Wait for it...

Triumph has been around a long time and have hired the right people and have $$$

The eventual Deegan whinge? 😂

That's the fundamentals right there. 

Bloor has vision and is ok with listening to smart people. 

Is say already  having strong foundations in the motorcycle industry defiantly helps but not rushing also , getting the right people to do the right jobs in the right timeframes 

Ummm…whether or not they got it right remains to be seen.  I have yet to see one at a track that isn’t a dealer demo.  Up until now they have done a great job of spending lots of money.

They learned from BMW’s misstakes.

As said before, Triumph is a large company with a long racing history. So is BMW but they tried to re-invent the wheel with the bike. But had some-what the same approach regarding hiring top tier riders and test riders.

Triumph hired good enough riders, but focused on building a good bike instead of something we never had seen before. 

Companies like Beta, TM and what ever small brand that don’t have the same budget never have a chance to do the same thing as Triumph did.

Um...pretty sure they didn't get it "SO RIGHT" in the USA. Its been really hard for the team to get parts to build the bikes. Many parts breaking/failing on Factory bikes. Seems like the MXGP bikes and team have had better luck. The team had 2 of 3 multi-year contracted riders quit the team for undisclosed reasons. Now they think they're going to field a 4 main team to be announced in the coming weeks. We'll see I guess. They absolutely have the potential for greatness. That motor seems to be a close rocket ship to Star Yamaha's, they just need quality riders.

Because they made a black ktm

As a first time Triumph owner back in 2020, I bought a completely redesigned 1st year model Tiger 900 RP.    Everyone says 1st year models are to be avoided.    I've had zero issues with it and I've beaten the hell out of it off road for 4 years now.   Any issues with it have been due to  poor rider line selection and dumping it,  😆

Triumph builds some phenomenal products.   It's pretty clear they put 1000% into development of their MX bikes.   The finished product is 2nd to none. 

Gratuitous drone selfie...

Another one of your monumentally bad takes. Only one of their riders left for "undisclosed" reasons, and it turned into a blessing in disguise for Triumph because he only scored points in a few races all season. Savatgy left because he couldn't get a 250SX exemption and Triumph didn't have a 450 available yet, so they parted ways on seemingly good terms.

they listen to the market. they're not arrogant. they know how to make a bike handle. they have a strong moto3 program. 

I don’t mind Jett but his fans are the worst 

They didn’t want to be known as CannondaleV2.

Seriously, a motocross bike isn’t a very difficult thing to build, but getting the details right can be a bitch. It looks like Triumph took the time and spent the money on development and settings so they don’t release a half baked bike. 

Reminds me of early/mid 2000s KTMs. They were fundamentally pretty decent bikes but the customer had to finish development to end up with a good bike.  KTM didn’t get close to finishing the job back then, but it sounds like Triumph did.

It's primarily money #1 first and foremost.  Follow that with complete commitment to the process without expecting a fast financial payback (see #1).  Quality people having the freedom and flexibility to do what they know how to do best - coupled with no financial restrictions (see #1).

At some point, there will be financial accountability, but right now isn't the time.  And if the product isn't done right, the financial accountability piece becomes far more difficult down the road.

Is it too early to put in a request for a 350 4-stoke MX bike at somepoint??  :-)

That guy is an idiot, so there’s that!!!

Would the 450 that just got announced not be ready in time for 2025sx?

As they say K.I.S.S.- keep it simple stupid. At this point a motocross bike is a known commodity/entity. Theyre not at the bleeding edge of engineering/technology/manufacturing like aerospace, semiconductors, rocketry…etc. There was a time where having roller rockers on your single cam 450 was bleeding edge, not so much anymore. On dohc 250’s the move to finger followers has come to almost all bikes at this point. Even the center port exhaust just recently has come to almost all of the aluminum framed bikes in the last 3ish years. Everybody knows what makes a good bike right now. 

In order to make an sx/mx winning 250 you know what it needs to have. It needs to be a high revving screamer so it needs a wide piston with a short stroke… eg: an over square engine with roughly a 2:1 bore stroke ratio. You can play with this a bit for example yamaha is a little bit closer to 1:1 than ktm which gives it a longer stroke and smaller piston which gives it more torque. It needs to have dual overhead cams to feed air to this high revving engine, those cams need to be actuated by finger followers which allow for more aggressive tuning. The air going to those cams needs to come as straight as possible from the airbox in a downdraft intake and leave the cams from a center port exhaust. It needs to be high compression which means getting close to 14/1…… and many more things. 

I think the real challenge for triumph will be gaining marketshare over the more established bikes. That being said making a high quality product right out the gate is a good way to start. 

^^What he said^^

They were smart not to reinvent the wheel, and as a result the bike in the hunt right out of the box.

And yet, it is differentiated enough (backbone aluminum frame, KYB, Brembo, stable geometry) to have a reason to exist. 

I personally am very interested, due to these choices. Anxiously awaiting reports on the 450. Previously I would have never imagined myself as a Triumph buyer.

As far as the team goes, I'm not sure how you can expect much more. Swoll rode well, I expected more from Savatgy but he had moments too. They will likely take another step forward with Smith and Forkner. The Euro effort was a bit more dialed and Haarup delivered.

I don't know how successful they have been commercially so far - I have seen exactly one Triumph in the wild. It seems like there is a lot of potential upside for them though. 

DICK response.  Magoo himself would have cringed......

They trusted the process

It's a real tough time for motorcycle sales right now. We'll see what happens in a few years time, hopefully they survive. 

No. 

You would think KTM got it right, but we are seeing them losing money. Big money. 

We can only say Triumph got it right when it (the Off-Road line of bikes) is making profit. 

Up to now I don’t see many of them at the track. Nor do I see/hear many people saying they “really want one”. 
Nor have I read magazines testing it saying it’s revolutionary and we all need one to go faster. 

I’ll save judgement on whether they got it right, it’s still very very early days. 

 

KTM are losing money because they've spread themselves very thin, and the MotoGP program is a financial black hole and a hiding to nothing against the Ducatis. Triumph has succeeded (so far) because they've put a lot of time and effort into one bike and got it close to perfect before moving onto the next one. It's pretty much how they got their road bikes off the ground years ago so they knew how to approach this too.

As bad takes go, this is right up there with the worst. The MXGP team has run like clockwork and the bikes have been bulletproof, with both riders getting their best results, and scoring podiums. As others have said; the two riders who left the US team did so for widely-publicised reasons, not "undisclosed reasons". And neither were to do with problems with the bike.

As for any mechanical issues; If two teams are using the same bikes and one is running like a swiss watch, and the other is having a lot of issues, then maybe it's the team and not the bike that has a problem.