A Triumphant Try-Out
Neda has been having lots of issues with her Norden 901 lately and we are gearing up a for a big trip later on this year. As a result, we're getting a bit wary about taking this bike on the road if it's going to continue to cause us problems.
I've been trying to persuade her to trade it in for an R1300GS, but she finds that bike a bit too chunky for off-road, and it's definitely a step down in off-road prowess compared to the Expedition model that she's riding.
Anyway, we went window shopping the other day and dropped into the Triumph dealership to check out the Tiger 900 Rally Pro, which is more off-road-oriented than the R13GS. To our surprise, the sales guy who greeted us was a friend of a friend - we had met at a party a couple of years ago. That's what you get for living in a small town. He wasn't the Triumph guy, but introduced us to the sales lady in charge of the Trumpets.
We've never bought anything from this dealership, so I was not expecting to be offered a test ride, but our friend told the saleslady that she could trust us to test ride anything we wanted.
WELL ALRIGHTY THEN!
2026 Scrambler 1200X + 2026 Tiger 900 Alpine Edition
Unfortunately they didn't have Tiger 900 Rally Pros in stock. Those are a very popular model and they don't tend to linger on the showroom floor for very long, so the saleslady offered Neda a test ride of the 900 GT Pro - a more street-oriented bike but with the same engine.
I wasn't really shopping for anything, but she asked me if anything sparked my interest. I've always been curious about the Scrambler, so she wheeled one out for me.
Cool!
This is the Scrambler 1200X model. Street-oriented suspension (6.7" F/R) vs the long-travel off-road suspension of the 1200XE model (9.8" on either end). Since Neda was riding the street version 900, this was fine.
We weren't going off-roading, but we did want to put the bikes through its proper paces, so we hit our favorite twisties!
WEEEEEEEE!
Fun bike!
When I first lifted it off the side-stand, the 500+lbs of wet weight made itself known. But once moving, the short-ish wheelbase, wide handlebars and the steeper rake of the X model made for a surprising nimble bike in the corners. The XE has longer rake, longer swingarm which makes it more stable straight-line and and when combined with it's taller legs, would probably do better in the rough stuff at the expense of corner-carving ability.
The standout here was the grunt of the 1200cc parallel twin. Meaty! Plenty of pick-up-and-go in any gear, should you get lazy with the shifter. At first, I found that the bike ran out of revs quickly, but then, looking down at the dash, I noticed the tachometer blink angrily at me everytime I hit 5000 rpm, way before the 7500 rpm redline. The bike only had 25 kms on the odometer and was still in its break-in period!
They gave me a brand-new bike to test-ride!!!
Holy cow.
I can just imagine how much more torque that final 2500 rpm would deliver if the bike was past its first 1000 kms!
Bonneville engine
One particular downside was how slow it was to change directions when attempting mischievous chicane-ry. The Scrambler seems to carry its weight up high and you certainly feel it when trying to transition from lefts to rights and vice versa. The heat emanating from the exhaust shield just underneath your right thigh was a constant reminder that the powerplant was ready and willing to deliver anytime your throttle hand puts in a request. And I made plenty of requests during this ride...
The base X has minimal electronics, minimal dash information, compared to the XE with more (off-road) riding modes and full-colour TFT display. Nissin brakes and 310mm rotors on the road-going X vs Brembos and 320mm discs on the off-road XE, which seems a bit backwards to me. But I guess Triumph has to justify why you're spending almost $2K more for the XE...
Half-way through the ride, Neda and I switch up and I got to ride the 900 GT Pro.
Except that it wasn't the GT Pro. At least, not anymore...
Tiger 900 Alpine Edition
For 2026, Triumph has renamed the Tiger 900 GT to the Alpine Edition, and the 900 Rally Pro is now called the Desert Edition. Same bikes as the previous year, just with different livery and badging. The saleslady told us it was an end-of-model run change before they revamped the Tiger 900 line-up for 2027.
Interesting!
What an entirely different bike and riding experience.
The Scrambler is more of a heritage building, lots of styling cues from another time long gone, a motorcycle focused solely on the riding experience.
The Tiger 900 Alpine is a modern city skyscraper. Well, it's not that good... Maybe a modern mid-rise building? A nicely furnished condo with all the newest appliances.
At 106 hp, the Alpine's 888cc inline-3 pumps more horses than the Bonneville 90hp powerplant, but it's the lack of torque that is very apparent - 66 ft-lb compared to the 1200X's 81.1 ft-lb. Certainly no replacement for displacement!
The engine likes to be revved and thankfully this demo model was past its break-in period, so we could push the powerplant to its grin-inducing 10,000 rpm redline in each gear. And you kind of have to, since most of the fun-factor lived north of the 5K rpm mark.
Specs on the Alpine Edition are very street-ish - 19" front wheel compared to the 21" of the Desert Edition, lighter cast wheels vs spoked, shorter suspension travel, etc. Most of the electronics were the same, so we got to thumb through menus on the full-colour TFT display between corners. Neat. Nothing revolutionary compared to the other offerings by other manufacturers. That inline-3 has to be the most unique feature.
As far as handling, the Tiger is only a few lbs lighter than the Scrambler but wears most of its heft lower, which makes it feel more lighter when off the side-stand. Flickability was slightly better than the 1200X, but not as much as I expected. The Alpine seemed to be more appliance-like, especially lacking the low-end grunt of the Bonneville engine. I could see it being a good commuter - it has all the buttons and 'tronix to distract you while you dawdle around in traffic, but for storming through the back-roads, my choice would be the Scrambler hands-down, despite its relatively spartan feature-set.
I like the Scrambler.
The upshot of the test-ride? As interesting as the inline-3 layout is, Neda found it as anemic as her 901 so that was a wash. Also, the under-slung gas tank of the 790/890 platform really contributes to the nimbleness of the Norden. What we really needed is a test ride of the Rally Pr... er, Desert Edition to make a fair comparison. The sales lady says she may have one coming in next week, she'll call us when it does.
I still like the Scrambler...
