Swing And A Hit
Story by Trevor Hunter, Photos by Simon Cudby
Triumph invited us out to the high desert to shake down their newest enduro offerings with the TF 450-E on hand. The “competition enduro” bike is comparable to KTM XCF-W and other like models and is not intended to be a street legal dual sport.
As always, we only had the bike for a limited time today and that took place in a dry, desert terrain so we don’t know all the little ins and outs of the bike just yet, but we can say that the bike left both of our riders impressed at the end of the day. It doesn’t have any stand out features that blew our wigs back, yet it doesn’t do anything glaringly bad either. For Triumph’s first crack at an off-road bike, they hit the mark dead on.
The power delivery is very smooth and linear, yet there is plenty of it and just enough character to make it exciting and lively. There is a lot of torque and chug down low that makes the engine very rideable, but as you climb the RPM range, it builds in a smooth yet quicker manner. Trail bikes can often feel sluggish and lazy through the powerband, but the TF 450-E has that quicker revving sensation that pulls well into the upper mid-range to lower top-end and blends race performance with ease of rideability.
One of our riders who has a small amount of time on the 450 RC model actually liked power delivery on this 450-E better than the motocrosser. The MX bike s pretty soft down low, but the torque and low end power down low on this model feels better than we remember the RC having and is certainly appreciated for off-road riding, but could even be good on a motocross track. This bike pulls third gear and runs lower RPMs much better than the MX model. Additionally, the rev limter is pretty abrupt on top end. We wished the bike would rev out just a bit more, especially under heavier loads climbing big hills or in the sand.
We tried some of the different maps and features on tap with the control cluster but we mostly kept it in stock trim today. Some of the features showed some improvement in some areas, but also retracted from other areas and on this day, we felt the stock package was the best overall setting.
The KYB suspension feels sporty and works well with the bike as a uniform package. As we maintained a faster pace on the trail, there isn’t much fault you canfind in the suspension setup as it has decent hold up, is controlled throughout the stroke, and balances comfort and performance to great degree for a competition enduro bike. Late in the day, our heavier rider clicked the bike around to a more “comfort” setting and slowed his pace for it. While it did add more bump comfort and compliance, it took away from the bike’s agility and made it feel slightly heavier and almost too stable at times.
Our faster, more aggressive tester felt the front end was a tad low and would get deep in the stroke under heavy braking and bigger bumps. However, the bike worked well like this in the plethora of singletrack and with very limited time on it, we didn’t get the chance to play around with the setup as we plan to once we get our hands on this bike for long term.
The chassis, much like the motocross models that we’ve ridden, is tough to find much fault in. It’s so easy to jump on and feel at home, and together with the rest of the bike, really comes together to create a well balanced package that fits such a wide variety of riders. Traction in the dry, dusty desert was limited, and we feel we could get a little more performance out of the bike with some different tires, but the Michelin Enduro tires weren’t all that bad.
Trying to find some complaints about the bike on day one, they’re tough to come by but we were able to nitpick the bike a little to find some minor ones. The biggest would be both of our riders struggled with stalling the bike more frequently than we’d like. We can attribute some of this to setting up our levers to be closer to the bar than most might set theirs up to (a personal preference thing), but we also felt a small amount of movement in the lever when we were on/off throttle. Additionally, it didn’t always restart right away. It’d take a few cranks to restart or when we’d go to bump start it, it didn’t always work.
In our short time with this bike today, we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this bike to anyone. It’s very neutral in everything it does, yet it has enough character to stand out in a good way. We don’t feel that you need to “uncork” the engine with thousands of dollars in mods and aftermarket parts, the suspension components are quality, and the chassis is a great base platform that is comfortable, predicatable, and versatile. We’re looking at getting this bike long term to deep dive into it and see what it’s really about in a variety of conditions, but day one has us impressed to say the least.
