Staff bikes: Triumph Street Triple - Breaking it in

The first 1000 miles of riding the Street Triple was a real bonding experience between myself and the bike.

Feeling the engine develop from a tightly-wound, tense machine into something more fluid and smooth gave me a real sense of understanding its potential.

As a new-ish rider (full license last July), this left me excited at the prospect of growing with the bike, as I’d learn to handle it at low speeds before gradually pushing it further for longer.   

Riding the Street Triple away from the dealership, I was surprised at hot it became, and how quickly. Thankfully I was wearing thick jeans or I’d soon have begun to sizzle like frying bacon. I didn’t worry for a moment though as I was far too excited.

I’ve since discovered that this was perfectly normal. The Street Triple is such a niftily built bike that the friction of each moving part working against its neighbours is quite considerable when the bike is new; hence the heat. Past about 100 miles on the clock this swiftly reduces as the engine gently wears down to become the high-performing beast I’ve come to love.

Tenderly (and perhaps over-cautiously) I followed Triumph’s instructions to the letter: up to 5000rpm for the first 300 miles, 6000rpm for the first 500. As agonising as it was, I was still getting some decent speed out of the Striple and was safe in the knowledge that the engine would be immaculately broken in for when I began to rev harder after the 500 mile service…

… and now, 2000 miles later, I’m routinely nearing the 13000rpm red line and the engine’s loving it. It actually feels like it’s disappointed if I’m not regularly hitting it’s peak power band at around 9000rpm!

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Further reading:
Staff bike blogs | Triumph Street Triple blog