It may not be the best press the bike could have received, but it does extoll the virtues of the lighter bike in a world where everyone (including TRIUMPH) seems to be playing the "bigger is always better" game.
Makes a comparison to the water-cooled, fuel-injected KAWA Vulcan 900 (at 10 foot-pounds more torque).
Says the handling is "sweet", but the riding position "tight" for the 6'2" author of the article, Mark Hoyer.
Goes into some of the new styling changes for this year, and starts off comparing the SM to the Rocket III in a back-to-back comparison revealing some "real benefits to living on the lighter, more compact side of the cruiser scale".
A one-page article with two photos.
He makes it sound like having to pull the choke on a cold start is a bad thing, though. Isn't that why it has a choke? It works! How many cruisers today are fuel injected and choke-less? That part I felt was totally unnecessary, and the space could have been better utilized to describe what a really great handling bike this is.
Until a major mag writer "owns" one of these bikes, we will never see the kind of write-ups we really want to see. As many different bikes as they ride, they do not ride any for very long, and therefore come away unimpressed more often than not, obligated to report some negatives to make themselves feel "objective". Often, they have to reach too far to do that.
We know what we know. Some things are sometimes better kept to ourselves.
And any press is better than no press, right?!
