On July 28, 2023, Triumph Motorcycles finally gave interested fans around the world its first sneak peek behind the scenes of its motocross bike development process. Teasers on its social media pages invited viewers to tune in to a brand-new series that Triumph would post on its official YouTube channel, showcasing different aspects of the creation of this bike. Ricky Carmichael presented the teaser series, and also added that he might even ride the thing before the series wraps up.
The first video in the series features Ricky Carmichael, Bobby Hewitt, Dave Arnold, Ivan Tedesco, and Stephen Westfall chatting about and revealing the new chassis design. They talk about what a unique opportunity it is to come into a project like this and be able to impact its development from the beginning, rather than working to change someone else’s ideas and plans that have already been implemented.
While we don’t know what kind of budget the team had to develop this bike, it’s clear that a manufacturer like Triumph has more resources than you or I might do, sitting around a kitchen table. Thus, it’s kind of understandable when the team discusses what a special situation it’s in, having both a clean sheet of paper to work from and the resources to make their combined vision a reality.
One of the first decisions was whether to go with steel or aluminum for the chassis. They ended up choosing aluminum, because they felt that it gave the correct balance of lightness, strength, and rigidity while at the same time allowing enough flex in the right ways to work with how riders would want to use it. Having all those characteristics in the correct balance is key to development of a successful chassis, and one that riders will hopefully appreciate.
The team also mentions that these chassis are hand-welded, rather than using the more common combination of mostly-robot- and sometimes-hand- welding seen on many mass production machines in 2023. Clearly, no one can say much about the finished bike and how this might affect it since no one has experienced it yet, but it’s something that Triumph wants to make sure that everyone knows.
In each video in Triumph’s MX teaser series, the team will reveal one new element of the bike at a time. What’s next? According to Carmichael, we should expect to see the engine on August 15, 2023—so stay tuned.
