This is what it’s like to ride Triumph’s 2024 Scrambler 1200 XE.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 All right folks here we are the official US press introduction for triumph
00:05 motorcycles 2024 scrambler 1200 XE. So for 2024 triumph has made a couple of
00:16 slight modifications. The primary modification on this bike is the use of
00:21 Marzocchi suspension. So they separated their arrangement with Showa who is the
00:27 front suspension supplier and Ohlins who was the rear shocks supplier and now
00:33 they're going to Marzocchi. Marzocchi is an Italian based company. So this
00:39 motorcycle continues to employ an inverted fork but it's now smaller in
00:44 diameter. It's 45 mil diameter instead of 47 and this is the same diameter that is
00:51 fitted on triumph's 2024 scrambler 1200 X. So this fork has full adjustment. We have
01:00 spring preload, compression, and damping adjustment and out back we have full
01:06 adjustment too on the Marzocchi suspension components and the suspension
01:12 continues to offer nearly 10 inches of travel which is three and a half inches
01:18 more than the scrambler X. There's reduced travel of the scrambler X. Other
01:24 changes include a little bit wider handlebar so this handlebar is a little
01:28 bit wider which is always nice and the intake and exhaust of this 1200 cc
01:35 parallel twin have been tweaked slightly. Mainly the catalytic converters have
01:40 been positioned a little bit more rearward to help mitigate excessive
01:45 exhaust heat being thrown onto the operator. This motorcycle continues to
01:53 make use of a single throttle body. Big 50 millimeter throttle body. It was
01:59 increased in diameter. This engine is good for right around 73-74 horsepower at
02:05 the business end of the 17 inch spoked aluminum wheel. Seated at the controls of
02:14 this vehicle the seat is nice and flat where the X is so low and it feels a
02:19 little bit more rearward biased just because the rear end of the bike is so
02:23 soft. This bike feels very planted and even from front to back which I like.
02:30 Seats nice and soft yet has some support. These grips are nice. They feel good
02:36 against my soft dirt biking gloves and I like this little bit wider handlebar.
02:41 The sweep of this handlebar it has got some rearward sweep but it's not
02:46 excessive. Definitely for a scrambler motorcycle I would expect it to have
02:51 maybe a little bit more forward sweep which you can do by rotating the
02:55 handlebar inside this top clamp. You could rotate it forward and that's gonna
02:59 it's gonna mitigate the sweep because the handlebar is gonna be at a
03:04 higher angle but you're also gonna have your hands a little bit higher so it
03:08 just kind of depends on what you like. Now this scrambler 1200 XE is powered by
03:13 Triumph's 1200 cc parallel twin engine. Single overhead cam, eight valve cylinder
03:22 heads. This engine benefits from an uneven firing order which helps give it
03:27 a V-twin like character. So a lot of torque out of this thing right around 60
03:35 pound-feet of torque, peak torque and this thing definitely gets moving without
03:40 having to downshift. This motorcycle puts power back to its 17-inch rear wheel via
03:49 cable actuated clutch and a six-speed gearbox. Oddly enough the chain final
04:00 drive is on the right side of this bike instead of the left. This motorcycle
04:04 does not employ a quick shifter. I wish they would employ an electronic quick
04:12 shifter for its price. North of $15,000 this bike for sure for sure should have
04:17 an electronic quick shifter that functions during the upshifts and
04:21 downshifts. But I guess you'll have to do with things the old-fashioned way. To be
04:27 fair the six-speed gearbox in this motorcycle is very it's very nice very
04:32 positive shifts. This motorcycle is equipped with cruise control. Thank you
04:41 gosh I love cruise control. There's a button here on top of the switch gear
04:48 which you use to actuate it. Alright folks that was a fun road ride. Now we're
04:55 gonna be riding on the dirt. Yeah. So we're gonna go into the ride modes here
05:00 via this M button and we're gonna go into off-road and select it by hitting
05:07 that checkmark. Oh we did the wrong mode. There we go.
05:12 So this dash display this is the same dash display that was unveiled on the
05:17 2019 Triumph Scrambler. I like it. It's nice and clean looking but fast forward
05:23 five years and this Trent this face looks dated to me. It's also too small. So
05:29 wow when it came out it was definitely class-leading. Fast forward five years
05:34 and it definitely looks a little bit old. It would be nice if this face was just
05:39 larger. Still we like the analog shape around this bike. It really gives good
05:47 touches to Triumph's history. You got to remember these Scrambler 1200s these
05:52 motorcycles are coined more or less off Triumph's TR6C which was a motorcycle
05:59 that was modified for racing by Steve McQueen and Bud Ekins in the 60s. So
06:07 Steve McQueen obviously is a famous actor and Bud Ekins was a famous
06:13 stuntman at the time. Effectively that's what the Scrambler 1200 XE is. It's like
06:21 a big dual sport bike. It's a big road going dual sport bike that that blurs
06:26 the lines between adventure and dual sport and standard motorcycle. We have
06:34 this Scrambler 1200 XE outfitted in Michelin's Anakee Wild tire. The Anakee
06:42 Wild is a off-road street legal off-road tire designed from Michelin out of
06:50 France. So we have them in OE sizes with a 21 inch front and a 17 inch rear wheel.
07:01 Really like that this motorcycle has a 21 inch front wheel. That is an authentic
07:06 dirt bike wheel size and what that allows is it allows the motorcycle to
07:13 handle much like a dirt bike where it just that big wheel diameter allows to
07:18 roll over obstacles with ease. Here we go with some clear air in front of us. We
07:24 accidentally stalled the bike so we had to manually disable traction control
07:29 again which is kind of annoying every time you stall the bike or turn the bike
07:32 off you have to manually turn that off the first couple hundred feet I had it
07:36 on and traction control off-road traction control in this soft-ish sand
07:43 definitely doesn't jive with this bike so if the dirt was harder packed I think
07:49 off-road traction control would work well because I remember we operated this
07:53 vehicle with off-road traction control as official 2019 model introduction and
07:58 off-road traction control actually worked pretty good back then so to be
08:02 fair we were riding in off the Algarve coast of Portugal and the dirt is a
08:09 little bit more hard pack than this deserty sand. I really like the ergonomics
08:15 of this motorcycle despite being the foot despite the foot pegs being a tad
08:19 high you still have really good control and this handlebar bend works really
08:23 good. We were speaking of the brakes the Stylema brake calipers and the brake
08:28 response of this bike even though we're riding off-road the brake response is
08:32 awesome the brakes aren't overly sharp and it's really easy to modulate the
08:37 front brake pressure with your one index finger usually I'm a two finger breaker
08:43 but right now I'm only using one finger on the front brake and the brakes have
08:49 plenty of power and just the right amount of response that make it easy to
08:53 ride this bike off-road. While we are on the braking note the rear brake on this
09:00 motorcycle has actually changed this bike used to employ a twin piston rear
09:07 caliper now it only employs a single piston Nissan caliper. Realistically the
09:13 back brake still seems to work pretty good but we always rather have a double
09:19 piston rear brake we're big back brake guys so although we can't really notice
09:24 that much of a difference but to be fair we haven't ridden this bike in five
09:27 years the single piston Nissan rear caliper is a step backwards in our
09:34 opinion. Now another neat thing about the Scrambler 1200 is just the
09:40 transmission ratios and the final drive gearing this motorcycle it
09:45 really works well on road and off-road the gears are nicely spaced first gear
09:51 isn't crazy tall yet it's not crazy short either obviously when you're
09:57 riding bikes off-road you always want to be in second gear when you're in first
10:01 gear there's just a lot of chain torque and the throttle can get a little
10:05 herky-jerky so it's always good to lug the engine in second rather rather high
10:10 in first unless you're climbing some crazy steep angle or grade or trying to
10:16 get going up some crazy incline. So four gallon fuel tank it's decent size but
10:23 five gallons would be better four gallons doesn't give you a whole lot of
10:27 range considering this bike gets right around 38 miles per gallon. Maintenance
10:35 wise this motorcycle has pretty pretty good maintenance cycle and maintenance
10:39 duty intervals after the initial 600 mile service this motorcycle can go 10,000
10:47 miles between engine oil and engine oil filter changes how crazy is that
10:52 10,000 miles we love extended service intervals it's a good job Triumph that's
10:58 one of the highest service intervals of any vehicle we've tested in quite a long
11:03 time so good job Triumph motorcycles we're glad you're paid attention to the
11:07 ownership details the valve inspection adjustment is to be made every 20,000
11:14 miles and every 40,000 miles traps that should replace the fuel filter and
11:21 change the fluid in the fork and shocks. Cruising here in top gear engines pulling
11:29 right around 3,500 rpm this engine is really smooth there's definitely some
11:34 vibration that you can feel almost when you're squeezing the fuel tank but it's
11:40 the right kind of vibration it makes the engine makes it feel like you're riding
11:44 you're having fun the vibration through the handlebars fairly muted as it is
11:50 through the foot pegs good job you downshift some gears and get the engine
11:56 spinning a little higher and then we feel a little bit of engine vibration
11:59 through the foot pegs and the handlebar above 5,000 rpm but when you're lugging
12:06 the engine at low rpm there is not a lot of vibration. The view from the rear view
12:13 mirrors I like this view this this circular mirrors look it looks very in
12:19 tune with the aesthetics of this motorcycle and the mirrors do a good job
12:23 of showing you what's behind there is a little bit of vibration creeping
12:27 through the mirrors but I wouldn't say it's bad. Definitely the bike you feel
12:34 the bumps through this even 10 inches of suspension travel isn't enough to dampen
12:40 out the these bumps we were kind of not going crazy fast but going a little bit
12:48 quick for a second and we actually hit these bumps and the bike started
12:53 head-shaking like crazy which gave me the horrendous flashbacks to when we
12:58 operated this vehicles south the border for a YouTube video episode that ride
13:07 this bike was head-shaking all over the place you really have to be careful when
13:13 you're riding through those whooped out sections with the high frequency whoops
13:17 you got to make sure that you really lean back on this motorcycle you don't
13:21 want to have a lot of weight over the front end because it's gonna make this
13:25 bike head shake like crazy so stay on the back of the bike through that stuff
13:31 it would be nice if Triumph was able to fit a more heavy-duty steering damper
13:37 that would allow it to mitigate that crazy head shake in the whoops area of
13:47 course because it's a big dual sport you probably have to be a little bit
13:50 mindful or always mindful or operating any type of vehicle but you have to be
13:57 careful because this thing does weigh 500 pounds and it can get away from you
14:01 pretty quick you would not want that weight of a vehicle falling on you which
14:09 brings up to another good point on this bike this bike is crazy nimble for a
14:13 500 pound motorcycle you'd be really surprised how agile and nimble this
14:19 thing feels in the dirt it's also nice how well the suspension tracks the
14:25 suspension it has really nice action even though the suspension manufacturers
14:34 switch from show it to Marzocchi the action of this fork feels every bit as
14:39 favorable as we recall on the 2019 version this bike has really good
14:45 damping response and it rides really nice within the stroke of the suspension
14:51 it's not crazy low it's not crazy topped out it's right in the mid area where you
14:55 want it to be this bike just tracks really nicely in this stuff I can't
15:01 believe how much fun I'm having in these two track ruts this bike really it goes
15:05 through the rut you choose very well it tracks nice and straight it's really
15:11 easy to maneuver it's just easy it's a relatively easy bike to ride for a
15:16 hundred five hundred pound street bike and just like that folks we are back on
15:22 the asphalt the whooped out asphalt from all of the heat that nukes this tarmac in
15:30 the summer how cool is triumphs 2024 scrambler 1200 XE just like our original
15:37 experience on this bike five years ago this motorcycle proves to be very
15:42 versatile very fun capable whether you're riding on the street or off-road
15:48 it's literally like a 500 pound street legal dual sport bike and for those
15:53 reasons I really like it at the 2019 model introduction with the XE and XE I
16:02 would have gravitated more towards the XC now fast forward to 2024 and without a
16:08 doubt I would absolutely buy this XE over the X model there's not even a
16:14 question in my mind this motorcycle is really high performance it checks a lot
16:18 of boxes and if you're looking for a do-it-all standard street bike this
16:26 scrambler 1200 XE really checks a lot of boxes for you and which brings us to the
16:33 price of this vehicle this vehicle rings in just north of $15,000 it's a little
16:40 bit less expensive than the outgoing XE but to be fair it doesn't have the
16:45 show-off fork or the oh lean shocks and now as the Marzocchi suspension and the
16:51 single piston rear caliper versus the double piston Brembo I believe was the
16:57 brake supplier on that 2019 scrambler 1200 XC and XE well folks there you have
17:04 it our review of triumphs 2024 scrambler 1200 XE would we purchase this
17:10 motorcycle absolutely if we wanted a stylish motorcycle that we could cruise
17:15 around town on and yet still womp on on some light to medium duty off-road this
17:21 scrambler XE totally fits the bill I would totally buy this bike I like its
17:27 aesthetics I like its fit and finish I like that it has such lengthy
17:33 maintenance intervals this is a motorcycle you'd buy you're not gonna
17:37 have to be wrenching on in the garage all the time besides putting new tires
17:41 because you you're gonna be riding it so much well folks that wraps up our
17:44 official review as always make sure to surf on over to MotorcyclistOnline.com
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18:01 feedback counts here at Motorcyclist Magazine and we'll see in the next
18:05 episode thanks for ride with us
18:08 (water splashing)