perform exceptionally well against other brands . Steve McQueen even desert-raced one in the 60s – a 1966 Triumph Métisse Mark 3 TR6 to be exact . Yes , I am far too young to know anything about it , so had to google that . Come my life-time though , which started in 1981 , Triumph wasn ’ t a brand I was ever interested in . I like dirt bikes and it was all Japanese machinery for the first 25 years . Now with the likes of KTM , Sherco , BETA , and CFMOTO ( just to name a few ) making bikes I really want to ride , Triumph now slides in perfectly with ‘ other ’ brands I have my eye on . I had ridden a Triumph Tiger about 14 years ago , but it was in road trim and quickly lost my interest . So , this is something of a re-birth for Triumph and off-road racing motorcycles . I could say that the new Triumph TF 250-X and TF 450- RC come from a long , distinguished lineage of off-road racing , and on paper that might be true … but connecting anything from the days of Steve McQueen to what you see today is a very long bow to draw . There are no similarities here and , from my point of view , thankfully
so . But if there is one thing I can say Triumph has plagiarised from those early ‘ All-Terrain ’ days , it ’ s the passion . Passion for performance , passion for ingenuity , and passion for being the best .
THE BIKES The United States of America - where everything is bigger , badder , and much more expensive thanks to our terrible dollar - was the location of the global launch of the new TF 450-RC model . Journo ’ s from all over the world were invited to Triumph ’ s US racing facility to test out RC ’ s new 450 MX machine . Sadly for us , New Zealand has been tagged as a ‘ Wave-2 ’ market for the TF 250-F , which was launched earlier in the year at Gator Back Raceway . This means NZ won ’ t see any of the 250-X machines until much later – early 2025 by the sounds of it and probably at the same time as the 450 . I was lucky enough to have both the 250 and 450 at the launch to play on . However , this was a little bit of a doubleedged sword , as although riding both bikes was awesome and totally the right thing to do , it
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