Jousting With the Gladiateur 999

Jousting with the Gladiateur 999

CW RIDING IMPRESSION

THE FRENCH DO A TRIUMPH

NEED A DOSE OF SMUG, BURN-THE-BASTARD-AT-THEstake heresy? Here, try this:

"Triumph is in danger of becoming stale and old-fashioned. The chassis and styling are horribly boring and unimaginative. The initial excitement of seeing them back in the showrooms is over, and now there's nothing to thrill people with. That's why we made the Gladiateur 999."

It could only be a Frenchman talking, right? But this Frenchman speaks with authority that comes from the sharp end of the sales wars. He's Thierry Henriette, France's top Kawasaki dealer. He's also one of the nation's top three Honda dealers, France's largest Ducati dealer, one of the top Triumph distributors, and he also sells Bimota, MZ, Aprilia, Cagiva and Husqvarna.

So when Thierry says Triumph needs some pizzazz, maybe Triumph had better take notice. Certainly Henriette's Boxer Gladiateur, as he calls his Triumph based design exercise, deserves to be taken seriously.

The Gladiateur is based on a 998cc Triumph Four, because that's what was available. Henriette is quite aware that the 900cc Triumph Triple is the engine that has caught the enthusiast imagination, and he says pro duction examples of the Gladiateur, if this project gets that_far, could use that engine.

To create the Boxer Gladiateur's frame, chassis guru Claude Fior, who designed it, had to overcome the hand icap of the tall, bulky Triumph engine. He retained the stock Kayaba front and rear suspension used on the 1000 Daytona, as well as the extruded aluminum swingarm. the Nissin brake package, the instruments and wiring loom. He designed and fabricated his own aluminum chassis using a swingarm pivot milled from solid alloy. Then he added a tubular aluminum space-frame from which the engine is underslung. Stylist Sacha Lakic's radical bodywork clothes the result. Smoked Lexan side panels provide a flash of the handsome Triumph Four. With no real attempt at weight-saving, the prototype Gladiateur tips the scales at 452 pounds dry-a startling 66 pounds lighter than the stock Daytona 1000.

In spite of this downsizing-the Gladiateur’s 58.3inch wheelbase is about a half-inch less than the Daytona 1000’s, and its 30-inch seat height is about an inch lower-the Glad feels big and long. The riding position is stretched out, and the bike feels

rather bulky and cumbersome at low speeds. Also, the lOOOcc Daytona engine (superseded by an 1180cc Four in the current Triumph range) doesn’t have a lot of zest. So first acquaintance with the Boxer 999 Gladiateur had me wondering-why bother?

The answer is supplied as soon as you hit top gear: Faster is better (isn’t it always?). Although it uses stock Daytona suspension, Fior’s chassis is tauter and offers more responsive handling, with infinitely sharper, more precise steering that makes the Boxer much easier to flick from side to side. Naturally, the bike has a few detail problems typical of a prototype. The centerstand grounds all too easily on the right, the riding position needs to be improved, perhaps by raising the footrests a little and pulling the bars back a touch, and the rear suspension needs sorting-the bike hops and chatters over bumps. But the front brakes work much better than on the stock

Triumphs, perhaps because of the braided hydraulic hoses fitted. And in spite of the more radical steering geometry-steeper head angle and less trail-the Gladiateur is extremely stable around fast sweeping turns. Its sharper steering hasn’t been purchased at the expense of high-speed handling.

So though it’s a ways from being a production-ready product, the Boxer Gladiateur provides a tantalizing glimpse of the potential of the Triumph mechanical package to sire a truly dynamic motorcycle. The next move is Triumph’s.

Alan Cathcart