2016 Triumph Street Triple 660 ABS review

Learner bikes keep on improving and nowadays some of the LAMS bikes are good enough to be keepers long term, like Triumph’s Street Triple 660.

You’re looking at not only the most expensive LAMS bike you can buy but also at the quickest machine a learner can legally aspire to. If you see yourself racing around on track in the future, this is the benchmark LAMS machine.

And it almost never happened. Initially when Aussie asked the bean counters at Triumph for a LAMS version of the Street Triple, they demurred but when they heard NZ wanted in as well, that seemed enough to trigger some action. With the two countries promising to take 650 units, that was sufficient to get the Street Triple 660 over the line. Triumph had seen the success Ducati was having with its 659 learner machine (no longer available) and wanted a slice of the pie.

The clincher was that Triumph techos didn’t have to do a massive re-engineering rejig to make the LAMS bike happen. For it was possible to get the 675cc triple to 660cc, the maximum LAMS displacement permissible, without creating something from scratch. They did it by simply repositioning the conrods to shorten the stroke from 52.3 to 51.1mm. That was not the hard part; reducing the power to fit the LAMS formula proved more difficult, and in the end adding ballast to the bike was the final action needed to get the job done. The last thing they wanted to do was make the Street Triple a Bleak Triple.

Now the cunning part of the rejig is to limit power without affecting torque too much, for the LAMS formula imposes no limit on newts. With an ECU reflash and softer cams installed, the engineers managed to retain 80 per cent of the Street Triple’s peak torque but ensured it arrived 4500rpm sooner, at just over 5000rpm (105km/h in sixth gear). And to make things even easier for learner riders, they conjured a rapid build-up of torque from 2000 to 4000rpm, making launches from the lights that much easier. As a result, it cruises around town effortlessly at 2000rpm in top.

But that’s not all. While power is down from 106 to 55hp, which might make it seem toothless on the face of it, that doesn’t translate on the drag strip. It comfortably sees to our current quickest LAMS machine, the MT-07, getting to 100km/h 0.3sec quicker (4.4 vs 4.7sec) and is half a second quicker on the overtake 80-120 (3.0 vs 3.5sec). While the 660 will hit 100 in first gear, it’s actually quicker hooking second around 8000rpm. The only time you notice a loss of top end power is when you wring it out through the gears. There’s a kick from 6000-8000rpm but above that the revs don’t accumulate so quickly. Fortunately that simply is not an issue for there’s so much torque from middling revs, around 5000, that you never really need to shift out of top gear once ensconced there. It easily aced our torque test, running from the Pink Store at Kaiaua to Clevedon township, via the coast road in sixth gear without downshifting once.

What you see here then is arguably the most complete LAMS bikes ever. It’s not the cheapest mind you, at $14,990 including ABS, but with every category there has to be a most expensive contender, and it’s often the one with the most speed and the best components. There’s really only one other player for category supremacy and that’s Yamaha’s MT-07 LAMS machine, at $11,600. However, it’s a twin versus a triple, so doesn’t sound as good, and while it generates similar numbers to the Triumph, a good twin can never quite match a good triple in a straight line. The numbers are surprisingly similar, the 660 good for 55hp at 9300rpm and its 55Nm is produced at 5150rpm. The Yamaha, by comparison, does 51hp at 8000rpm and 58Nm at 4000rpm. Weights are also line-ball at 186 vs 178kW, respectively.

What you see here then is arguably the most complete LAMS bikes ever. It’s not the cheapest mind you, at $14,990 including ABS, but with every category there has to be a most expensive contender, and it’s often the one with the most speed and the best components. There’s really only one other player for category supremacy and that’s Yamaha’s MT-07 LAMS machine, at $11,600. However, it’s a twin versus a triple, so doesn’t sound as good, and while it generates similar numbers to the Triumph, a good twin can never quite match a good triple in a straight line. The numbers are surprisingly similar, the 660 good for 55hp at 9300rpm and its 55Nm is produced at 5150rpm. The Yamaha, by comparison, does 51hp at 8000rpm and 58Nm at 4000rpm. Weights are also line-ball at 186 vs 178kW, respectively.

In most other respects, the 660 is all but identical to the donor bike. ABS was added for the extra security that provides to all riders. Why change a winner formula anyway? A major overhaul of the Street Triple a couple of years back saw the underseat exhausts ditched for an underslung MotoGP style of muffler, for better mass centralisation, and a better look and sound too. And geometry was tweaked at the same time to make the bike a bit more stable at speed, without reducing agility unduly. Suspension was also tuned for a little more ride comfort, which it needed. It’s still relatively basic in terms of adjustment, with only preload variable at the rear, but nothing wrong with that if it’s done right. And despite the addition of ballast to meet the LAMS formula of 150kW/tonne maximum (it squeaks in at 149.2) the bike is still a lightweight thanks mainly to its aluminium twin-spar frame. Brakes don’t look anything special but work fine, not having to haul up too much mass.

The rear shock is still perhaps the least impressive aspect of the Street Triple, with a bit of crash and bang over sharp bumps taken at highway speeds, but oh how this bike handles. I rode it wearing my Triumph denim jeans, which have no knee sliders and inadvertently managed to poke a hole in the right knee. That’s mainly a reflection of the amazing rubber this comes with (Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corsas) and the fantastic chassis that underpins the bike. Even back when it first launched in 2007 it was a bit of a revelation. The 2012 tweaks worked, planting the front end better. Not that the 660 Street Triple can’t overcome those extra few kg of weight up front. Despite the halving of power output, it will still wheelie but only in first gear and you need to use full power and revs to get it up there…where it hangs beautifully. This chassis is so together. It will teach you more than just the basics too. Learn to ride this bike to its limit and you will be as quick through twisting bits of road as almost anyone.

Okay, so it’s not cheap by comparison with other LAMS machinery, but what price brilliance?