23rd November 1999

When I put the ST in for it's 6,000 mile service a couple of weeks back, I was expecting the usual loan of one of Carl Rosner's house Tridents. Thus it was a pleasant surprise to be handed the keys to the Rosner demo Tiger. I'll not comment on the styling - you've all seen it, make your own minds up. Looking beyond that, first thing I noticed about this new Tiger, as opposed to the T3 version which I tried courtesy of Mat Bell, is it's comparative lack of bulk. No hernia getting it off the stand here, unlike with it's predecessor. However, once upright I find myself on tiptoe; the boingy bits on the T3 Tiger simply gave way under my weight so that I could almost get both feet down flat, but the spendies on the T5 seemed firmer at rest...

Firing it up, I'm impressed when pulling away in the confined space of the combined Rosners/Railway station car-park, with it's excellent poise, incredible lock and tiller-like low-speed steering. In other words, I'm turning 90 degrees right then left, in very little space, at walking pace, without wobbling, on a bike I've never ridden before. Cool.

Once out on the road, even at 30mph my summer-begloved hands appreciate the rather tacky looking but effective hand guards. Nice. Similarly the rather pathetic looking fairing, which, being the size of a postage stamp and several miles away from the rider, you'd wrongly assume didn't work very well. Having praised it, I suspect it wouldn't work quite so well at motorway speeds - and if I'm right, the human parachute riding position would make superslab and fast A-road work something of a pain.

If I didn't already have a deep and abiding love affair with the Triumph triple motor in all it's guises, T3 and T5, I'd wax lyrical about it at great length. Excellent in every way. Nuff said.

Finally, roundabouts were not negotiated in quite the entertaining fashion that they were on the T3 Tiger. The elephant on stilts feel is still there, but in terms of a hint rather than the full on twang! experience. Fork dive is exaggerated sure, but controlled and controllable, as is the rebound. Use the brakes or the throttle on the T3 and the steering geometry was changed radically enough that you feared you might easily put yourself through a hedge if you made the mistake of going into a corner deep on the brakes then nailing it out. You don't get that with the T5, at least not to an extent which would cause you a problem as far as I could tell.

Net result? I saw the new Tiger and it was good. As a town bike, excellent stuff! Two wheeled Range Rover. Excellent on the twisty B roads as well. Questionable on A roads, and horrible on the motorway would be my guess…

Conclusion¹: If you are looking covetously at an R1100GS, take a look at a Tiger as well...