A Spanish race track, a British road bike and an awful lot of American greenbacks

What makes a Speed Triple special? Well, unlike virtually every other naked performance bike, it was conceived from the ground up to be what it is here. No detuning, no decontenting. That may not sound like such a big deal, but the result is a cohesive package in which every component has been conceived from the beginning to emphasize accessible performance over race track success. A motorcycle free to be the ultimate riding machine for the road rather than one being pressed into service away from its natural race track home. But, this new Triumph Speed Triple R adds some very superbike-like components with its top-drawer Ohlins suspension, Brembo brakes and lightweight wheels. Does a road bike really need race-spec components? Maybe somewhat counter intuitively, we went to Jerez this week to find out.

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