Feb. 22, 2026

Something old, something new

In this episode, it’s something old, something new as we spotlight the iconic Trident and the classic Chief Vintage. Discover how timeless design and modern engineering come together to shape the riding experience, blending heritage with fresh excitement for all motorcycle enthusiasts.

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00:00 - Introduction

00:48 - Triumph Tiger Sport 660

04:34 - Triumph Trident 660

07:28 - Triumph Trident 800

11:38 - Indian Chief Vintage

20:15 - Wrap up

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Something old, something new.

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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, I'll be looking at four newly released motorcycles. Two of these are a refresh of a modern style bike, another is a new modern offering, while the last one is a throwback to the mid-20th century. I'll look at some specs and interesting details about all four bikes you might want to take a closer look.

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So I'm going to start with the Triumph 660 bikes. Now, two of these bikes have just gotten some refreshes, and this is the Triumph Tiger Sport 660 and the Trident 660. So let me start with the Triumph Tiger Sport 660. Now, originally, this was released a few years back as kind of an entry-level bike within Triumph's model range. And the Tiger Sport 660 offered riders a cost-effective way to get a tall rounder or kind of one of these ADV-like bikes, although it was giving up a little bit of a range of engine capacity compared to some other options that were out there, but it still had a nice balance of torque and top end due to that triple-cylinder engine that Triumph is so well known you.

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Now, the new iteration, it borrows from the Daytona 660 engine. This gives it 94 horsepower at 11,250 RPM and 50.2 foot-pounds of torque at 8,250 RPM. And that represents an increase of 13.8 horsepower and 2.9 foot-pounds of torque.

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Now, as I've said many times on to me, 100 horsepower is the sweet spot for most road bikes.

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And at 94 horsepower, this bike is pretty much hitting right at that sweet spot. So it's perfect for a good, fun bike that will still get you some thrills, even in the twisties, but without a engine, without a huge expenditure and also with some pretty decent fuel Now in, the new bike, they've also tweaked the engine in a couple of other ways. First off, they now use three different throttle bodies as opposed to the one that was used on the prior generation.

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And in order to accommodate that, there've been some slight frame changes. They also bumped up the fuel tank from four and a half gallons to 4.9. And that really does help this motorcycle being kind of more of a, almost a touring light type of a bike. It is meant to go for more of an extended ride than let's say a naked bike would be. And this gives it a little bit more range that you would have. There are also some minor visual tweaks, especially around the radiator.

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And of course having 5.9 inches or 150 millimeters travel, both on the front and the rear continues to be this tall rounder target for the Triumph Tiger Sport 660. It's not a full off-road ADV with eight or nine inches of travel, but it's also not a four inch travel street bike. So it, it kind of gives a nice balance of being a little bit taller, gives a little bit more of that commanding presence of where you're sitting on top of the better view of the road while still having a good amount of sportiness to Now, the real thing that's going to help this is the weight is 465 pounds, which is pretty light for a modern motorcycle. And that's going to make this more manageable for beginning riders where a really heavy bike is going to be a challenge to just manhandle as you're moving the bike around in the garage, or even as you're coming to a Now the 32.9 inch seat height is also going to make it approachable for all but the shortest riders. And they did have to bump the price up a little bit. And at least these are US prices. So if you're in other markets, you may see some different pricing, but it bumped from $9, 696 up to $10, 445.

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when you think of the positioning of this, this makes a lot of sense with the 400 now providing the true entry level of triumphs range. And we talked about a couple of the new bikes in the triumph 400 range a few episodes ago. So that's the Triumph Tiger Sport 660. It's a really cool bike, and with the extra power in there is now just making it an even more compelling option. Even with a small price increase of, what, about $800, it's still something that gives you a lot of power.

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It's reasonable for most people, even though it is a little bit more of the, towards the lower end or entry level end of the spec chart, but it's a pretty good bike for what it is.

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So let's switch gears and we'll talk about the new Trident 660. Now, this is the one that I think a lot of people got really excited about because it was a modern styled bike, and a lot of Triumph bikes for a while were all based on the Bonneville.

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Even the Speed Twin, which was their sort of modern, really borrowed a lot of elements from the regular Bonneville, whereas this was a full departure, and it of course had that really sweet triple engine. And a triple, if you're unfamiliar with it, is kind of kind of bridging that gap between a more traditional inline four that you see in a lot of sport bikes, which is going to be smooth.

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It's going to be a lot of power, but it doesn't have a whole lot of character to it. It doesn't necessarily have a whole lot of torque to it. Whereas a Twin tends to have more character. It tends to be a much more interesting engine, at least from a dynamics perspective. Not fast on the top end as a four cylinder would be, but it tends to have a little bit more torque than a four cylinder would. So a triple kind of splits the difference between these. And that's what makes these particular bikes really interesting. And with same power that we got out of the Tiger Sport 660, we're looking at a motorcycle that is getting pretty close to the power of a Ducati Monster, which is another naked And this bike now, they've also changed a couple of other things into it. It now has a new Showa rear shock, which adds in rebound dampening and giving it a little bit more tuning than the prior generation model had.

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It has 4.72 inches or 120 millimeters of travel up front and 5.12 or 130 millimeters out back. And this really does put it into that more of a street focus of riding, offering a little bit sportier feeling than you would get with the it's Tiger sibling, mostly because it's going to be a little bit lower to the ground. Now the 3.7 gallon tank does mean that the fun ends a little bit earlier than on the Tiger. But given that the Tiger is a little bit more of a touring or commuting focus versus this Trident, which is a little bit more of a naked bike, sort of fun street bike, it makes sense. But 3.7 gallons, this bike with a 660 is probably going to do 45, 50 miles a gallon, which means you're going to get at least 150 miles of range on this bike. That's still going to be more than enough for a bit of fun on the bike. Now the other thing with this bike is it is a little bit lighter, of course, than the Tiger Sport 660. It doesn't have as much of the body work, a little bit smaller suspension. So it's 430 pounds of weight. And this is really, really close to that Ducati Monster in terms of weight. Now it does have a bit of a price bump, just like the Tiger Sport 660. It's going to be selling for $9, 145 versus the $8, 595 of the prior model.

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So those two 660s are really representing the refresh, if you will, of some of these modern styled bikes.

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But Triumph didn't want to just sit on its coattails with that. And they've introduced a new model, which aesthetically looks like this Trident 660 that we just covered, but puts the motor from the Tiger 800 into it. So it's now going to be an 800 CC engine, and this is going to give it a little bit more power. So in this configuration, it's generating 113 horsepower at 10,750 RPM and 61.9 foot-pounds of torque at 8,500 RPM. Now, remember that sweet spot bike that I mentioned a couple times, that Ducati Monster. The Ducati Monster produces 111 horsepower at 9,000 RPM and 67 foot-pounds at 7,250. Making these two bikes almost identical when it comes to, certainly, top-end power with the Triumph edging it out ever so slightly while the Monster has a little bit more torque, these bikes are fairly evenly matched when it comes down absolute power. And the 436 pound wet weight of the Trident 800 nearly matches the roughly 410 pounds of a Ducati Monster fully fueled. Now, Ducati does list a wet weight, but without fuel. So when you figure in the fuel, it's going to be about 410 pounds given the tank that's on it. So it's slightly lighter on the Monster. So you do get a little bit more performance out of that Monster just by being a slightly lighter bike, having a little bit more torque, But they're really, really close.

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Now, the Trident 800 compression and rebound dampening adjustable on the front fork with 4.72 inches or 120 millimeters of travel just like on the Trident 660. It has adjustable preload and rebound dampening on the rear shock with 5.12 inches of travel or 130 millimeters. So the suspension between these two bikes of the Trident 660 and the Trident 800 is nearly identical.

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I will say this. This is the thing that I'm really, really impressed with when it comes to the Trident 800, the pricing.

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This is a mid-sized naked bike with a triple for about $10, 000.

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I think suggested retail price is $99, 95. It's less than $1, 000 more than the Trident 660, and it has a little bit more suspension adjustment in the front with both the rebound and compression dampening out there and about 20 more horsepower. So when you think of that price delta, I think this is where in some ways, even though the 660 comes at a little bit of a lower price and it's still an awesome bike, 800 really becomes a compelling bump up because you're getting a little bit more power. You're getting a little bit more suspension tuning up front, and for not really a whole lot more money. And this is where I think it really becomes super compelling is I keep referencing the Ducati Monster. In my mind, the Ducati Monster is almost the standard bearer when it comes to a naked bike on the market today. had a history going back to the 90s, just beautiful stripped down elegance, a good amount of power.

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Oftentimes they would take the same motor that was used in some of their sport bikes and bring it into it. But you've got nearly identical power between the Trident 800 and the Ducati Monster, nearly identical weight.

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But the Ducati is about $4, 000 more expensive than the Trident.

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yeah, it's $1, 000 more than the Trident 660, but it's $4, 000 less than the Ducati Monster.

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This is, this is incredible. And to me, I think this is really a big game changer for Triumph, because Triumph has notoriously been awesome bikes, but a bit pricey, especi when you consider the mass majority of them that at least we receive here in the US are now made in Thailand. Now the pricing seems to be a little bit more recognizing that situation and where if it was made in England, we might be willing to pay a little bit more.

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But being built in Thailand, the pricing now seems to be a little bit more reflective of the true value that that bike should be coming to market on.

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Now I did promise in the opening that we were also going to talk about something old, and I have to admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for Indian and my family has had a weekend house up in Massachusetts, not far from Springfield, Massachusetts from before I was even born. this is where the original Indian motorcycle was founded was in Springfield, Massachusetts, and I've seen the old factory. It's now been converted into apartment buildings. There's a wonderful museum up there with lots of old Indian motorcycles, so they really do embrace the history of Indian as being a local business that had been there for a long period of time. Of course, the original Indian motorcycle closed in after the post war, Now when Polaris came out with the new generation of Indian motorcycles back in 2014, the Chief Vintage really caught my eye with those valenced fenders.

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And I did rent it actually for a weekend and I loved the engine sound. I loved the torque in the engine. I thought it was a really nice looking bike. But I had two gripes with that original model. Now, the going to be some listeners who maybe say, but that's what I love about it. But these are the things that I don't like about it. And the first one was, I'm just not really a fan of chrome in general. I just don't like it.

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I think it looks a little gaudy to my eye. I think it's a pain in the butt to clean up. It's- you just have to require so much attention on cleaning up the bike all the time. And I'd rather be riding than cleaning.

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So chrome is not something that is an appeal to me. And that bike just had a huge amount of chrome all over the bike. The second thing is that it had really long forward controls.

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And I'm six foot four. So the problem that happens when you have a low seat height bike with forward controls, which you really do because of that low seat. Now, what happens is that my feet are way out in front of me. My arms long. So what happens is that I'm actually leaning back because of the handlebars, because they also come really far back. So I'm leaning backwards with my legs kind of in there, all of the of my body is sitting directly on my tailbone. And what would happen is that about 30, 40 minutes into the my tailbone was just in utter, utter pain. And the funny thing is I was riding with my uncle in law, who was up in Massachusetts where we both rented the bikes and he rented one as well. And he's also my height. And he turned to me at one of the stoplights and he's like, is your butt hurting? And we were both in the same exact situation because the bike, while it was gorgeous, while it had this beautiful design to it, while it had an amazing engine, just forward controls just doesn't work for me in terms of seating. So that was the two reasons that I did not buy that bike. Now, eventually the sort of the Chief Vintage has sort of become less of a priority for Indian motorcycle. They've really gone to some of the other bikes. They've gone to focusing on, they added, of course, in the Scout a couple of years later, which was another great bike. And then some of their big touring bikes as well. They've started to remove some of those valenced fenders and gone for more of a traditional fender look under sort of fenders, I mean, they're functional.

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They're not as eye-catching. And there's going to be some people who will look at the valence fender and be like, I don't really like that. And that's fine. But when I look a lot of the Indians today, you know, when you look at them from a distance, they're really not that indistinguishable a generic Harley or a generic Japanese cruiser. They really just kind of look the same. And that to me misses out on it. What I like about the valence fenders is it was something that was uniquely Indian. And you could see that from a good distance away. Of course, as you get closer, you'll notice, oh, this is an Indian as opposed to a Harley or a Yamaha, for example. But the valence fenders to me were such a uniquely Indian aspect that I really appreciated them. Now, Indian in just the past couple of weeks has actually come under new ownership. It was announced a while ago that they were going to bought by a private equity firm, but now that that has fully closed, they just announced the new Chief Vintage.

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Now, this is built on that newer Chief platform that was released a few years ago, and there's a couple of things that are really interesting about this bike.

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Number one is it has a sort of a floating seat design, which reminds me of the Triumph Bobber, and I really love the Triumph Bobber when it comes to just visually what that looks like.

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That floating seat just visually, to me, is a really cool idea.

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It's reminiscent in a lot of ways of a Springer seat that we had back in that time period in the mid-20th century. And that seat has a little bit higher seat height than the Vintage that was from 2014. that 2014 Vintage had a 26 inch seat height. This has 27 inches. So it will give a little bit more bend in your knees than you had when you were sitting basically on the floor. It's gonna help in terms of your, hip angle. So I like the fact that it is a little bit taller seat height.

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Now the original 2014 Vintage did come with bags and a windshield, and it was weighing 804 pounds. Whereas this new Chief Vintage doesn't come with bags or with a windshield, though they are available on the accessories. And it comes in at 721 pounds. So again, you save about 80 pounds. I can guarantee you, it's not gonna be 80 pounds to add in bags and a windshield.

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You know, it might be 30, but it's not gonna be 80 pounds. the reason why that this is also a little bit lighter is that 2014 Vintage, given it had the bags on it, it was kind of intended as more of a, a touring bike in a sense with having the saddle bags on there. the older bike had a five and a half gallon tank, whereas the newer one is more of a four gallon tank.

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Again, it's not necessarily meant for touring. It's a little bit more of a, hey, go out for a day and have a fun ride, though you can add on the bags, just like you can on some of the other Chief models. But it's really, it's focus is a little bit less on the, hey, I'm just gonna be sitting on the highway for hours on The other big thing, and this is where I think you'll feel a little bit of a different dynamic when you ride the bike, is the original 2014 was 67 inches of wheelbase. And this new one is 64 inches of wheelbase. So a little bit shorter wheelbase. And that original 2014 had the Thunderstroke 111, which is an 1811 cc engine, whereas the new one has the Thunderstroke 116, which is 1890 cc. So a little bit more engine capacity has a little bit more torque, a little bit more power. It's not a huge amount difference, but it is just a little bit more oomph and get up and go. But here's the big thing that to me is when I saw the first couple pictures of this when it launched was no more chrome. Instead, a lot of the chassis, a lot of the forks, everything that had been chrome on that original 2014 vintage is now black. And to my eye, that looks more like the bikes that were actually in the mid 20th century. They didn't have a whole bunch of chrome on them.

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They were more of a, hey, here's a basic working bike. And especially in the red colorway with the black, it's a really nice contrast. And I think it looks amazing. when I saw it, the big thing, and I was going through my notes as I was trying to just think about what we were going to talk about for this episode. And the thing that just kept coming to my mind was I just love this bike. It has all of the elements that I really liked in the 2014 model. It had the engine, which was really reflecting of the style of that engine that we had with the side ports in the mid 20th century.

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It has the valenced fenders. It has all the good bits of that authentic old look. It has a little bit more oomph from the engine and the lighter weight and the shorter wheelbase should make it even carve better through the corners. Now, I have an R18 because I liked that bike better than when I even retested with the Indian around 2021, when I was looking to get the bike. I liked the handling of the R18 better, and I personally do like to ride more in the twisties than on the highway. So the R18 was the better bike for me. But this bike looks like it could be a little bit more fun in the twisties because of that shorter wheelbase and that lighter weight. So this could really be a phenomenal bike.

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So let's wrap up. We covered the new Triumph 660 bikes with the Tiger Sport 660 and the Trident 660, both getting nearly a 20% power bump versus the outgoing model. We also looked at the new Trident 800, which competes nearly head on with the Ducati Monster on specs, yet it costs $4, 000 less.

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And could this be a new direction for Triumph where it's not just good bikes, but also more affordable? And finally, we looked at Indian's new Chief Vintage with looks straight out of the mid-20th century. So my question for you this week is, do one of these new Triumph triples inspire you? What about the new Indian? Share your thoughts through the Text the Show link in the show notes or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening.

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I'll talk to you next week.