World's greatest bikes #2: Triumph Street Triple

No model is more significant in the success of modern Triumph than the Speed Triple.

The café racer-cumsuper naked is the bike Triumph admit gave the Hinckley marque their mojo. The bold, individual, ‘retro-mod’ style set the British marque apart – the real-world blend of road performance and triple character creating a template for a family of Speed Triples which lives on to this day and, with nearly 100,000 now sold, provided the financial foundations for Triumph’s enduring growth.

Which is why it’s a surprise to learn that the original Speed Triple, launched in 1994 on something of a whim, was effectively a ‘parts-bin special’ built for just three years with only 1421 actually made…