Triumph Trophy SE Custom Seat 2 hour ride report

The Trophy got a new seat this last Friday. This is a custom seat made by Seth Laam at Laam's Custom Motorcycle Seats.

I had long ago determined that I wasn't going to mess around with seating as I did with my K1200LT, After years of research I had determined that the Russel Day Long saddle was what I was going to get.

 

A post on the LD Rider forum caused me to look at Laam. I guess since he is getting started and building his business his prices are EXTREMELY low. I figured at 40% of the cost of the Russel I'd take a chance on Seth's seat. So far I am very pleased. It will take some 1000 mile days to determine if this was a good gamble.

From the time of my initial order until I got the seat was a bit lengthy but this was mostly due to some communication problems. Seth was out of town for a bit and then I was. Once we got this sorted out Seth put me at the top of the list and did my seat in one day. I talked with him on Tuesday AM and my seat was in hand on Friday.

Seth is new to the business but after talking with him I was comfortable with his experience (worked for another well known vendor) and his knowledge of the needs of a long distance motorcyclist.

The seat is very attractive with some nice stitching. It has wings made of firm foam with softer foam in the center of the seat.

With the stock seat on the TT I kept sliding forward. Seth's seat keeps me in position. Per my request he moved me back on the seat as far as possible. The seat is higher than stock but this is not a bad thing. For the US market the stock TT seat is 1.2 inches lower than the Euro version. I think this was a mistake since the footpegs will need to be lowered for most riders. With my 32" inseam I had no problems getting both feet on the ground. I didn't notice that I had to scooch forward at a stop.

I took it out Saturday for a good ride. Over 2 hours I had both freeway, city streets, and stop/go traffic. I wasn't rigged for a long ride, just jeans and regular underwear (no LD Comfort shorts). As such, I was getting a little sweaty and hot on the butt. I attribute this mostly to my riding gear and the weather, not the seat.

I was pleased with how it sat and felt. In my short test ride on this bike at the time of purchase my butt was hurting on the stock seat. This is definitely an improvement.

I'll update as I get more saddle time.

New Ride 2013 Triumph Trophy SE

I got a new bike about a month ago, a 2013 Triumph Trophy SE.

This is a new bike out this year to compete with BMWs R1200RT. The RT was on my short list but when I found this very slightly used (2000 miles) bike at the same price as what I would have had to pay for a more used BMW. It seemed to be a no brainer.

I didn't get much opportunity to ride it the first 3 weeks, I was busy with other things and needed to get my "farkles" on it. I made a mount for one GPS  (more pix here)
 
and a shelf to mount my other GPS and electronics stuff. (more pix here)

The wiring was quick and dirty because I was off on a short 500 mile trip to Sacramento, CA to help out at the 2nd checkpoint of the 2013 Iron Butt Rally.

This was the first real ride on the bike and here are my first impressions.

Triumph Trophy SE First Impressions

I finally got a chance to put some miles on the TT SE. I left San Diego Saturday AM to head up to the Iron Butt Rally checkpoint in Sacramento, Ca. These are my impressions of the new scoot. They are in random order as I think of them.

NOTE: You’ll need to temper my commentary with the knowledge that I am coming off of a BMW K1200LT (LT means Luxury Touring not Light Truck) and moving to a standard sport touring bike.

• The TT SE is about 150 pounds lighter than the LT with an extra 35 horsepower so it’s performance is somewhat of a shocker. At one point I was stopped along the highway so had a good opportunity to “wrap it out” a bit. I was easily at merging speed before reaching redline in 3^rd gear. There is no way one can do full throttle roll on through more than 3^rd gear and not be exceeding any posted limit in the USA. Traffic was too heavy for me to give it a good test. I’ll have to wait for some lonely stretch of Nevada highway for that.
• I’d prefer higher gearing. The horsepower to weight ratio of this bike is such that there is no lack of power available for 90+% of street/highway driving conditions. Based on my limited riding, I’d prefer 3500 RPM at 80 MPH instead of 4500 RPM.
• Even though this bike is only 22% lighter than the LT it feels more like 50%. The turning radius is much less. Parking lot maneuvers and low speed U-turns aren’t nearly the scary proposition they are with the LT.
• I rode out of San Diego and made a nature stop 80 miles down the road. I got off the bike and my fingers in both hands were numb from the vibration. There is definitely more vibration from the triple at cruising RPM (4500ish) than with the K bike 4 banger but it isn’t bad. I can’t explain the tingling numbness in my hands but it never occurred again so I can only attribute it to me getting some “break in” period.
• I’m struggling with the handlebar controls but that would be true of any new bike. With the TT SE everything I’m used to is in a different location. Plus I’m having to relearn the turn signal controls.
• Wind protection is excellent. Buffeting is minimal. The adjustable windscreen allows you to get as much or as little wind as you prefer.
• The mirror placement is very good, much better than the LT. I didn’t have any difficulty seeing traffic to the rear and most importantly, with convex mirrors, I didn’t have any problem judging distances.
• I don’t know if it’s suspension or tires but grooves in the pavement and those nasty Bots Dots were barely noticeable. With the LT I hated driving over the Bots Dots since it would rattle my teeth.
• The instrumentation is easy to read and there is LOTS of information: TPMS, DTE, Gallons TE, Gallons Used. Trip mileage, and more. There are two trip displays and you can customize what is shown all the time. All info is available in a center display that can be scrolled.
• I never thought I’d like linked brakes but they are great.
• The seat sucks but don’t all stock seats suck? I have my spare seat pan out for a rework and should get it back by this weekend.
• Foot pegs definitely need to be lowered.
• Engine heat is well managed but I did notice when the temps went over 105 that there is no way to take your foot off of the footpeg without getting a blast of scorching hot air. When it cooled off I didn’t notice excess heat so I can’t say if the engine heat was combining with the ambient air or not. If you are riding in 100+ temps you need to keep your feet on the pegs.
• The radio system is EXCELLENT!. Built in XM, AM, FM, WX, and Bluetooth. There is a USB port for I-phone/I-pod interface. I bought a Bluetooth receiver, connected it to my MixIt2 and got all the bike stuff connected with all my electronics. It was nice having all the bands available again. The stubby antenna is cute, works well with FM but did show some fading with AM.
• The cruise control works well but not quite as well as the BMW. Engagement was sometimes tricky but once set it holds the speed very well. What I don’t like about the CC is that it will only engage in 4^th gear and won’t engage below 30MPH. On the surface this seems quite rational but where I have found CC to be most valuable is in low speed zones. It’s hard to keep most bikes at 25MPH and if you are velocitized it’s even harder. With the BMW I could set the CC at 26mph and then rest assured that I could through the small towns and school zones ticket free. I’ll miss that and be looking for a software hack. I was able to get the CC set to 100MPH but I can’t say if it would hold it there (obviously).
• Speedometer reads about 4 MPH fast across the scale. Odometer is fast by about 1.5%.
• All this horsepower and acceleration didn’t seem to cost much in fuel consumption. Here are my stats:

Date	Time	GPS Dist.	ODO Dist.	ODO Error	ODO Error %	Gallons	GPS MPG	ODO MPG
6-Jul	1340	248	244.5	3.5	1.41%	5.488	45.19	44.55
6-Jul	1700	226	223	3	1.33%	4.879	46.32	45.71
8-Jul	1333	244	242	2	0.82%	5.12	47.66	47.27
8-Jul	1819	264.5	260.5	4	1.51%	5.756	45.95	45.26
summary
		982.5	970	12.5	1.27%	21.243	46.25	45.66