Bike Trader
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Triumph Explorer on sale for £11,149
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12 January 2012 | |
• Standard bike £11,149
TRIUMPH’S Explorer adventure bike will cost £11,149 OTR when it goes on sale at the end of March.
Dealers also report that deposits are rapidly being placed on the bike, with some even taking money down back when the bike was first announced last October.
We’ve been waiting for an official price for some time and the announcement of £11,149 is a clever move to tempt us away from the BMW R 1200 GS. While a standard BMW R1200 GS has a lower £10,550 price tag, the real beauty of the Explorer is that the standard model includes ABS, cruise control and traction control. To have this on the Beemer costs an additional £1,410 (the Dynamic Package) sending the price up to £12,005 – nearly a grand and a half more.
And when we head into the dealer at the end of March there will be two launch edition models to choose from. Triumph has limited the numbers on these but hopes it will boost early sales, not that it needs help with shifting them.
Two editions are on sale; one priced slightly higher than the standard bike at £11,999 which, for £450 more, comes with adjustable touring screen, fog lights, hand guards and engine protection bars.
The other edition comes with a fly screen, belly pan, gel seat and tyre pressure monitoring for £12,499 – a price tag which, again, fares favorably against the dynamic-packaged-up R1200 GS.
We mustn’t rule out Kawasaki’s new Versys though, which also has traction control and ABS (but no cruise control) but is 200cc less, yet is on sale for £9,499, some £1,650 cheaper. Another superb rival is Ducati’s Multistrada (1200cc just like the Explorer) which is on sale in various forms but the ABS model is priced at £11,995. Again the Explorer comes in £850 cheaper but has the cruise control which the Ducati lacks. Don't dismiss Yamaha's Super Tenere either - this was the top-selling adventure bike in the month of December 2011 thanks to a price drop to £11,999 and the availability of ex-demo machines for just £9,495. Visit your local dealer and haggle for a bargain.
Remember, you can request brochures and book test rides for many of these models directly from our New Bikes section.
Triumph acknowledges that interest in the Explorer is high and they expect it to sell extremely well. Guy Masters is the general manager of Triumph UK and said that since they unveiled the bike at Motorcycle Live in the UK last November, the reaction from the press and riders alike has been fantastic.
He added, “Dealers are already reporting high levels of interest in both models, with a healthy level of pre-orders confirmed.”
By Dan Tye Bike Trader Editor Page 1 |
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