The New Triumph Rocket III Roadster

The Triumph Rocket III and Triumph Rocket III Classic are dead. All to be replaced with the Triumph Rocket III Roadster from now on, the motorcycle comes with ABS as standard and features more power, more toque and a better riding position than its predecessors. You won't believe how much fun this English Rocket is...

I firmly believe that someone at the English Hinckley Triumph headquarters is listening in on conversations of Triumph Rocket owners about how to make motorcycles better without changing their basic feel.

You see, there was only two real criticisms people had of the old Triumph Rocket III. The overly harsh rear shocks and the stretched-out riding position.

The first issue was only apparent when the Triumph Rocket III was really being hustled over choppy, country roads. Hit the bumps too enthusiastically and the old Rocket would pitch and jar as the rear shocks tried to cope.

As for the riding position, well I never thought there was much that could be done about that. My own physical appearance is similar to a monkey, long back, long arms and relative short legs so the reach with the legs to the old-style footrests was not exactly endearing to me.

But I did enjoy the old Triumph Rocket III. It boiled down to two grin-making factors that included the huge dollops of easy-going power from the 2300cc engine and the way the motorcycle had real physical presence.

There's no getting away from it, the Triumph Rocket III was a motorcycle that said a lot about the person riding it. Allied to the fact that it handled very well was the lack of pretense about the biggest ever Triumph motorcycle. If you rode a Rocket III, you were pretty serious about your machines.

So when Triumph announced that it was replacing both the Rocket III and Rocket III Classic with the Triumph Rocket III Roadster, a version of the motorcycle with a better rear suspension and a riding position that was altogether more attuned to shorter-legged individuals like most of us in Asia, I was very much looking forward to riding it. And of course a little more convinced of the Hinckley firm's ability to get more people excited about the Rocket III Roadster...

Could the Triumph Rocket III Roadster become the ultimate Asian touring motorcycle?