Tiger Sport Would You Trust The Tiger 660 With A 10k Miles Road Trip?

I'm trying to figure out which is the right Tiger for me and tbh I'm a little biased (read: almost decided) towards the 660. Reasons are several: first of all I come from a 765 R and I loved the agility and overall performances on the street (as in 'the asphalt'). The main use would be commute, so I'm planning to clock in a lot of miles already there using it at least 10 months a year.

That would be an easy choice then (for the 660 that is) if it wasn't for some serious mile munching I'm planning for the next summer. Austria, north of Italy, France, the UK, possibly Norway and Sweden too. No offroad planned but who knows, maybe up north there's not much of a choice. Nothing that really requires a proper adventure bike I hope but at this point in time I have no idea really about where I'll be going exactly.

Do you think the 660 could have troubles handling 10k miles with luggages and whatnot (no pillion) in say 3 to 4 weeks? Where would you draw the line between an year-round commuter and a proper mile muncher?

 

Ok you've got me, I haven't specified a lot of stuff so let me see if I can get my facts straight. First of all: I'm young, tall (6'1'' or 185cm), perfectly fit and excruciatingly handsome. I can handle a fast bike too but I'm no track dweller. I consider myself experienced enough having had more than 5 bikes in my repertoire through a couple of decades (more like 10-15 including all the 50cc and 125cc in my teens). Never a proper adventure bike though, that's not really my style but a Tiger GT is as far as I could go if needs be.

I like a bike to be light, agile and to follow them twisties but I want to use it to commute as well, then carry my most valuable self all around Europe in the summer. Personally speaking I think my favorite bike to tour the world with would be the Speed Triple but comfort and luggages start to be a serious concern on that one. And let's be honest, it's a total waste if you're forced to keep the damn 70 day in and day out. I should also admit I have a 'speed problem', I struggle to keep them damn 70 most of the times so something that doesn't have 200 happy ponies would be advisable, at least to bring the driving license back home. Another thing worth mentioning: I can have only one bike so the cheap commuter + the shiny tourer is not an option.

The main thing I'm trying to understand is: what benefit a mighty Tiger 850 or 900 GT can offer over the little one? As I said I wanna tour the far north and I'm pretty sure there are tons of small roads up there through forests and mountains and fjords and shores... you tell me. But those I'm afraid could present some major limitation for the 660. I can handle light gravel on a street bike (I consider the 660 still a street bike having the 17'' to the front) but not if it's 200 miles straight in one go. And then again the day after for a couple of weeks.

Then there are reliability issues. How does it handle with 40kg of luggages for a month? Am I right thinking that custom side panniers (like the GIVI V37) are way better than the OEM ones? Does it have any problems that I should be aware of? Like, when I was touring Corsica and Sardinia on my Aprilia Shiver I had problems to my dash. Basically after being exposed to the merciless sun for hours it would just go blank. If the bike was running, nothing bad happened (except me sh..tting myself) but if it was not running it wouldn't switch the engine on. The solution was simple, just cover it few mins in the shadow and let it cool a bit but trust me the first time it happened I freaked out thinking the bike was dead in the middle of nowhere at 42c lol

I've heard people saying the 660 is a bit 'plasticky' especially around the tank, the foot rests are cheap and slippery, the rear brake pedal is super spongy (not the brake, just the pedal), the side stand may be prone to cracking. Then: does it vibrate a lot? I mean it's a triple, the smoothest engine out there but you never know, there are lots of parts that can vibrate apart from the engine, maybe the plasticky bits gets loose overtime. I'm not too worried about the suspensions because I'm planning to replace them with adjustable ones but how do the stock one behave after 10 or 20k miles? How does it handle some occasional offroad? What's its limit in the dirt? It won't climb on wet rocks nor cross icy fords, but how about sand, weedy bits, roots, gravel...? Can I just mount a tasselated rubber and keep going or do I need a whole different bike for them bits?


TL,DR: I want to put 70k miles on this bike in the course of the next 5 years and travel from Sicily to Norway. That's my definition of 'mile muncher'. Is the 660 a proper mile muncher?

 

I went to the dealer last saturday and tried em both. The 900 was in the 'rally pro' sauce, but with street tyres. I have to admit, I felt a bit underwhelmed by the 660. It was easy to ride and light enough to still be called agile, but everything seemed like a compromise.

Riding position as well as mere HP available doesn't make it sporty enough to compare with the street triple, power delivery was all different, I felt the lack of a sport map as soon as I opened the throttle. The seat and the forks make it a pretty stiff bike overall. I'm sure with the comfort seat things may vary but still, you're locked into one position and can barely move your bum around. The heat at the ankles is also very noticeable. Bear in mind it's full blown summer here but it was also 9.30 am when I tried it. I'm sure on long miles on the highway the lack of a cruise control would be noticeable as well but there are aftermarket mechanical solution for that. The foot rests are really ugly, cheap and slippery as I heard they were. One more thing that would require an aftermarket solution. The dash is nothing to write home about too so, my personal overall verdict for 10k quids worth of bike was a big MEH!

All in all, a nice ground to build upon. But for the same token, way too expensive if you consider that 2k more quids are basically required to transform it into a proper tourer. And no, I wouldn't do any kind of offroad on it.

Coming to the 900, that felt like a properly refined platform. And surprisingly agile too considering it has a 21'' in the front (and that the last time I rode a 21'' front was about 20 years ago). Of course it was the pro version so that's the least one can expect but that's also what I would call a 'proper mile muncher'.

There is one big thing I was absolutely surprised by in the 900 though, and I mean in a negative way: the unbalanced firing order makes a MASSIVE difference in the way the engine delivers the torque. I did NOT like that at all! It really feels almost like a twin. I mean the sound is beautiful, but boy that is not the triple I was looking for either.

All in all: I see a Tiger 800 XRT in my future