If you've read the last few issues you already know 2005 has shaped up as the Year of the Streetfighter-whether it's battered and bruised stunt rats or $40K chrome-and-candy custom creations, the high-barred, bare-naked streetfighter aesthetic has swept the extreme end of the sportbike segment. And where the hardcore enthusiasts go, more casual riders (and the motorcycle industry) will soon follow. This inevitability has us anticipating a huge boom in streetfighters and naked bikes in the coming season. Production streetfighters are nothing new, but so far these naked bikes have been mostly marketed as "sensible sportbikes" for aging riders who want a more relaxed riding position. We're talking about something different here. The new streetfighter enthusiasts don't want "sensible" anything. This is a generation that grew up watching StarBoyz and Urban Streetbike Warriors stunt videos, not On Any Sunday. These riders want something even more aggressive and in-your-face than a conventional, plastic-wrapped sportbike, and they are building their own streetfighters to satisfy this desire.
All this brings us, in a roundabout way, to our choice for the 2005 Super Streetbike of the Year: the Triumph Speed Triple. The Speed Triple, first introduced in 1994, is one of the original factory 'fighters. More importantly, it's always been one of the most authentic and true to the streetfighter genre. Most production naked bikes are dumbed-down versions of their pure-sports siblings, with motors retuned for midrange (read: detuned) and cheaper steel frames, softer suspension and wimpy brakes. Not so the Trip, which from the beginning was always very close to its top-dog Daytona brother specs-wise. Never has that been more true than with the new-for-'05 Speed Triple, which features a bigger and more powerful 1050cc three-cylinder motor, cutting-edge components like a 45mm Showa inverted fork and radial front brake calipers, and even more aggressive styling with a blunt, sawed-off tailsection, huge boom-can underseat exhaust and, of course, high MX handlebar and signature twin spots. The '05 Speed Triple gives up virtually nothing in terms of performance to the Daytona or other sportbikes, yet it looks like something lifted straight from the backstreets of London or, more to the point, a bike night in Brooklyn. This is no poseur bike or soft-serve street standard, but a production streetfighter in the truest sense of the word.
A bike like this latest-generation Speed Triple suggests to us that Triumph has been paying close attention to the street scene you are a part of, anticipating the same trends we've noted on the pages of this magazine. Further proof the company is ahead of the curve: Triumph North America recently inked a multibike sponsorship deal with Florida-based stunt rider Kyle Woods, one of the most talented and accomplished street freestyle riders in the nation, which shows the company knows exactly what's going on in our portion of the sportbike world. All this makes Triumph especially worthy of recognition by Super Streetbike this year; more to the point, the '05 Speed Triple-a kick-ass, brutally styled and almost pathologically fun-to-ride production streetfighter-is the natural choice to carry our Super Streetbike of the Year designation. Congratulations to Triumph for this achievement.