Action Photos by Mark Frankenfield

2011 Triumph Sprint GT

We at 2WF believe a few things are true; the Earth is flat; the Sun orbits around the Earth, the Moon landing was shot at a film stage in California; Elvis is still alive; and our readers deserve full and complete motorcycle tests.

While we may be wrong about most of those we know for a fact that the last one we're dead right about. This is why, even though we received our 2011 Triumph Sprint GT a week before any other journalist in the USA had one in their garage, we weren't the first ones to publish a review. We decided to ride ours the full three weeks of the loan period before giving you our opinion.

And it's good that we did because our first impressions weren't our last impressions.

More Power

Taking the 1050cc triple from the ST, Triumph worked to add more power to the mid-range rather than the top end; this was accomplished by installing a new ECU and exhaust system. I was, however, a little underwhelmed by the motor for
the first week or so of riding. The motor is surprisingly smooth below 4500 rpm but does get a bit buzzy between 4500-5500 rpm in every gear except 6^th.

After a week of riding and being underwhelmed, I woke-up one morning and thought “I’m missing something here with this bike”. I promptly went out on the bike and rung it’s little neck on a long back country ride. I played with every bit of the available RPM range, through every gear, in every possible combination and I finished that ride with an entirely new outlook on the motor and the bike in general.

The bottom line is that the motor may be one of the best sport-biased motors on the planet. Not a lot of torque on the bottom end of the RPM range but smooth power delivery without spikes or dips to catch you out or surprise you when you don’t expect it. The Sprint GT is an easy bike to ride at a sporting pace mostly due to its motor and the way it puts down the power.

The fuel injection is, as usual, spot on at almost any RPM’s or speed. The only let down in the system is with the throttle which is lightly sprung making it very easy to grab more throttle than you may have wanted to. Our particular Sprint GT was prone to stalling out when cold if you didn’t slip the clutch and give it a bit of throttle. This problem only occurred within the first couple minutes of starting the bike though and never after the first couple of stops and starts.