How big and powerful should an adventure bike be? That’s the question running through my head as we gunned the new Triumph Tiger 1200 Rally Pro across the narrow dirt trail through the deodar forest. It’s only at this altitude you get some big deodars (bigger than the usual pine trees you encounter lower down the Himalayan foothills). This morning though, we aren’t on a quest to re-discover geography and botany lessons, but to ride and experience the latest generation Tiger 1200.
With a 775 mm seat height and over 249 kg kerb weight, the 1200 Rally Pro is not what you’d call a lightweight adventure bike.
The 1200 Rally Pro I’m astride, is big all right. With a 775 mm seat height, it does make tip-toeing a task; after all, it’s still a tall and big bike! Its 249 kg kerb weight doesn’t help make matters any easier either if you were to use terra firma as anchor points for leverage to take a u-turn. But once you gain momentum, the big Tiger growls and sprints with nonchalant ease over gravel, rock, and the fresh mud puddles, brought on by the rains the evening before.
The new 1,160 cc engine is still a triple, but it sounds and feels completely from the last generation model. The T-plane crank design with a 1-3-2 firing order is designed for better low-end grunt.
The new engine with the T-plane crank sounds and feels a lot different than the smooth whine of the last generation Tiger 1200. It’s still a triple, alright, but with a different firing order of the pistons, making it feel and sound more like a v-twin at lower revs. The engine’s soundtrack is guttural; more acid rock than smooth jazz. To me, it’s an acquired taste, but as the morning progresses, the new Tiger 1200 begins to grow on me. Aural pleasure is one thing, but overall capability is what matters; more so, in a big, burly ADV.
Engine & Performance
The highlight of the new Tiger 1200 is of course, the new engine, which has more performance than before. The 1,160 inline three-cylinder engine now makes 148 bhp at 9,000 rpm and 130 Nm at 7,000 rpm, gaining 9 bhp and 8 Nm over the last generation Tiger 1200. The significance of the T-Plane crank design is that it allows the engine to have the low rpm grunt of a twin-cylinder engine with the high-revving performance that was always characteristic of the triple cylinder configuration.
At idle, the new engine sounds and feels gruff, and the first gear is tall, for more low-end tractability. A little too tall for my liking, and during our morning’s off-road excursion, I found myself mostly in first, with only a few occasional shift ups to second, and speeds on the trail in first gear were over 45 kmph. But the low-end grunt certainly did make the Tiger 1200 feel extremely tractable, only in extremely tight hairpin bends did one need to feather the clutch lightly. On the narrow twisty tarmac roads of our test route, the 1200 Rally Pro offered fantastic confidence, taking a set of several corners, or when accelerating through the empty mountain roads to keep up with our relatively fast-riding convoy of Tiger 1200s.
The Tiger 1200 GT Pro with its 19-inch front wheel, 25 mm less seat height, makes it more accessible and friendly. Handling, despite its weight and size, is quite nice and is up for some twisty road corner carving shenanigans if you’re up to it.
Ride & Handling
The new Tiger 1200 also gets a brand-new chassis, the design is slimmer and sleeker, and the overall changes, including the aluminium fuel tank, has helped Triumph focus on weight saving. The new chassis itself saves over 5.5 kg weight, and overall, the Tiger 1200 GT is 21 kg lighter than the previous generation model, while the 1200 Rally is 12 kg lighter than the earlier model. All models now come with electronically-controlled semi-active Showa suspension, allowing several levels of damping adjustment, with automatic electronic preload adjustment on the rear, and with custom damping settings across each riding mode, of which there are six in the Rally Pro, and five in the GT Pro.
The 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 GT Pro immediately comes across as the more accessible and friendlier variant, thanks to its lower seat height, and smaller 19-inch front wheel.
On tarmac, the 1200 Rally Pro makes an immediate impression. Ride quality, whether over gravel and rocky trails, or over a twisty mountain road, is superb. The bike just gobbles up all kinds of surfaces you may want to introduce it to, without a care in the world. Around a set of tight tarmac covered corners, the 1200 Rally Pro remains planted, and gives very good confidence to the rider, despite its big 21-inch front wheel, and tall stance for some spirited riding. When we switched bikes later that afternoon, for some tarmac riding on the GT Pro, it immediately comes across as more accessible and friendly, and will possibly endear to a lot of riders, primarily due to its lower seat height and slightly more friendly stance, thanks to its 19-inch front wheel.
The 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 GT Pro has all the goodies of the Rally Pro, but gets cast alloy wheels, with a smaller 19-inch front wheel, lower 750 mm seat height, and misses on the Off-Road Pro riding mode. It also gets 20 mm less suspension travel, with 200 mm travel at both ends.
The GT Pro has all the electronic goodies as the Rally Pro model, but over broken surfaces, the slightly less suspension travel, coupled with the cast alloy wheels, make the GT Pro’s ride quality feel a tad stiff, compared to the superb suspension and ride of the Rally Pro. Unlike the Rally Pro’s 220 mm suspension travel, the GT Pro gets 200 mm travel at both ends. It’s not a deal breaker, but once you experience the Rally Pro’s ride quality off-road, it’s difficult to appreciate the GT Pro that much. Braking is superb, with Brembo Stylema M4.30 calipers gripping 320 mm front discs offering sure-shot stopping power, and customisability across riding modes.
The design of the new 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 is more in line with the Tiger 900 range. It’s near identical, except for a few small changes.
Design & Features
The design of the new Tiger 1200 range has been completely changed from before, and it almost looks identical to the Tiger 900 range, except for a few tell-tale signs, like the 1200 badging on the fuel tank, and the drive shaft on the left, instead of the chain drive on the Tiger 900. The Tiger 1200 Rally Pro comes with six riding modes, Road, Rain, Sport, Rider, Off-Road and Off-Road Pro, with individual customisation across throttle maps, traction control, ABS settings and suspension damping, while the GT Pro comes with five modes, missing out on the Off-Road Pro mode of the Rally Pro.
Prices, Variants & Competition
The 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 range is offered on sale in four variants in India, with Triumph giving the base GT and Rally models the miss. The GT Pro and Rally Pro models come very well-equipped, with standard semi-active electronic suspension, cornering ABS, traction control, and customisable riding modes. At the top-spec trims, the GT Explorer and Rally Explorer offer standard tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS), heated grips, and bigger 30-litre fuel tanks, along with radar-powered blind spot detection system.
Our test route on the Tiger 1200 Rally Pro included back roads with varying off-road surfaces; not very technical, but enough to keep things interesting and test the rider’s skill and confidence with a bid adventure bike.
Verdict
Triumph has made no bones of the fact that the new Tiger 1200 is squarely pitted against the BMW R 1250 GS, the most popular full-size adventure bike across the world. Compared to the last generation Tiger 1200, the new model is indeed a revelation! It has superb road manners, a punchy engine which is up for some spirited shenanigans on a twisty mountain road, and is very well up to the task, when the road ends and the trails begin!
The biggest takeaway is that the 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 has versatility and genuine off-road capability. It’s packed with electronics and features, and offers a compelling choice in the full-size adventure bike segment.
The Tiger 1200 may have the GS set in its sights, but it will still be quite a task to dethrone the Beemer, particularly in India, where the aspirational value of the GS remains unparalleled. That’s not to say that the new Tiger 1200 lacks in any way when it comes to what is expected from any big ADV in this category. The new Tiger 1200 gets semi-active electronic suspension, top notch chassis components, and is a definite improvement over the last generation model, giving it versatility and actual off-road capability.
On-off throttle transitions feel a little snatchy and that’s the single-most distracting thing that made the Tiger 1200 feel a little less as a latest-generation model.
There are a couple of things to nitpick about though. The fuelling isn’t that smooth and the power delivery feels a little snatchy with on-off throttle transitions when tackling a relatively fast and wide twisty mountain road. The first gear is tall and takes some getting used to; on the off-road sections I ended up slotting it in first and only shifting to second closer to 4,000 rpm, when speed is nudging 50 kmph. With its almost 250 kg kerb weight, the Tiger 1200 still isn’t what you’d call an accessible adventure bike. Yes, the big engine should sit comfortably over long distances on the highway, but our test route didn’t include any fast and straight highway stretches to see how the new engine feels over long distances on the highway. Sure, it has off-road capability but if you drop it, which is bound to happen on any off-road excursion, you’d better have a friend or two for company, to help wrestle it up!
The Tiger 1200 GT Pro is the more accessible model, with 9 kg less weight, 25 mm less seat height, and a 19-inch front wheel, shod with road-oriented Metzeler Tourance rubber. The GT Pro only misses out on the Off-Road Pro mode, and it’s almost as capable. But the alloy wheels, slightly less suspension travel doesn’t quite make the GT Pro as appealing to me, when you experience the way the Rally Pro just glides over all kinds of surfaces. And considering the GT Pro is just priced a lakh less, at ₹ 19.19 lakh (Ex-showroom) than the Rally Pro at ₹ 20.19 Lakh (Ex-showroom), it’s the Rally Pro which is the pick, but it has its height and girth to be considered as well.
Overall, the 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 has a lot of positives which makes it difficult to ignore. The pricing makes it even more appealing and at the very least it definitely deserves a test ride for anyone in the market for a full-size adventure bike. As for the GS, the new Tiger 1200 has arrived with claws sharpened, and whether it has the goodies to challenge it, is a question only a back-to-back comparison will be able to answer, the new generation Tiger 1200 is a hugely improved adventure bike, which has a lot of capability and versatility to make for a compelling choice in the segment.
Highlights
- 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 prices begin at Rs. 19.19 lakh for GT Pro
- 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 Rally Pro priced at Rs. 20.19 lakh (Ex-showroom)
- All-new engine, new chassis, new electronics, and significantly lighter
Keyword: 2022 Triumph Tiger 1200 First Ride Review