“Good times come and they go
Even a good man’ll break
He’ll let his troubles bury him whole
Even though he knows what’s at stake
So I’m taking no chances
Carrying over while I’m still good in His grace
Sayin’ I’m no fool, mama
I know the difference between tempting and choosing my fate.”
Justin Townes Earle
IMAGES BY NICK ‘YOU’RE ACTUALLY AROUSED’ EDARDS
It’s like bending time…I’m thinking most “bike reviews” can be shoved fair up the arse of the gronks who cobble these insulting travesties up.
And good morning to you, beast-thing.They struggle, as always, to make the required word-count, display an endless bafflement with English grammar, wedge a few adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions between the specifications, and tell everyone they’re a “motorcycle journalist”.
It doesn’t even look friendly.There’s not a gram of passion, love, or even dignified fapping in a single dreary sentence any of them has ever written. And there never will be. I feel awkward even stating what is obvious to everyone, because it’s like making fun of the less-abled. Except they’re not less-abled. They’re just shit. So, I sleep fine at night.
I am making gurgling noises, like a child at its mother’s teat.With regard to the 2024 Rocket 3 Storm I have been privileged to ride around on for a bit, I feel my own ability to deliver a worthwhile review is compromised.
The exhalation set-up.You see, I love the Rocket 3 Storm. My love, like all love, is unreasonable and makes me a little crazy. And it’s not a question of objectivity. There is no such thing in any bike review ever written. Only the facts in the specs box are objective. Only 225Nm at 4000rpm, 182 horses at 7000 rpm, and a top-shelf assembly with weapons-grade Brembo brakes and suspension to match, are objective.
Even the LED headlights look like mouthless angry skulls.My love for the stupendous end-result is not.
It’s a statement as much as it is a bike.So let me speak of that…
Yes, this is exactly what a nuclear reactor looks like.I love how it looks – dark, brutal and unholy, and unlike any other bike on earth. It cannot be mistaken for anything else. The twin-headlights, the insane in-line reactor of an engine, the stubby pipes, the fat-arse rubber at both ends, and the superb attention to detail, is utterly captivating.
See? Total war-club.I love the noises it makes, on- and off-throttle. I’ve written of them before. It goes “GWWOARRGH!” when you open the throttle, and “BRROGH-BRROGH-BRROGH” when you button off, like it’s grumbling at you for doing so. I have no idea what kind of noises it makes at anything over 170 because the wind-scream is overpowering, but I’m pretty sure it’s a great and good noise.
More stable than the Swiss economy. The bike. Not me.I love how it handles. Or how the Triumph geniuses have made it handle, because looking at it, it shouldn’t go around corners at all. But it does. It so does. It can only be sorcery which involved the sacrifice of living creatures, and maybe there was something that had a little to do with the perfect mathematical combo of rake, trail, and wheelbase. But animal sacrifice for sure. Has to be.
Serious brakes for serious business.I love how you can actually hear the souls of Harley riders scream and die as you pass them. These screams get louder and more desperate as they try and catch you. The sheer pointlessness of those efforts nourish me like the freedom tears they cry.
There’s a dinner-plate-sized Brembo on the back as well. The best back-brake you’ll ever use.I love how sportbike riders dismiss the monster, then either spend the rest of the ride trying to keep it in sight, or wondering why it’s still in their mirrors after a fast, twisty section. They are suitably humbled when they understand that 225 Nm and a fat contact patch punches out of corners harder than Mike Tyson on gak.
Yes, it comes with a radiator cover.I love how you HAVE to ride it. Because it’s long and its tyres are fat, you need to…well, apply it to a corner. It’s not one of those tetchy, sport-bastards you basically wish into corners. No, no, no. You gotta ride the Rocket into corners like you know what you’re doing, like you care about the outcome, and like you’re made of hate and madness. The reward is vast.
A man could put some kind of offensive sticker on that plate above the lights. Or his war-crest.I love the look on people’s faces when you tell them the Rocket 3 has a 2500cc capacity. I love how that look becomes even more profound when you tell them about its torque. It works on many levels. Car drivers (who do not understand torque) make a little wee when they understand the bike has a bigger engine than their car, and bike riders (some of whom do understand torque) struggle to process how this one bike makes more torque than the two bikes parked next to it.
These are the best bar-ends on any bike in the world. They do not vibrate.I love the riding position. It’s neutral and a bit aggressive, though there is a more relaxed, feet-forward, cruiser option on the GT variant, but that can piss off, as far as I’m concerned. And as a result of the R’s ergos, I love how the acceleration makes you hang on for grim death, and how that makes your hands ache like you’ve been strangling dickheads all night. The Rocket rewards and encourages strength in its riders, and that is a great thing.
This is where the dinosaur blood enters. Go on. Ask me about fuel economy.I love how it’s a monster only when you want it to be a monster. When you’re just bumbling through traffic or behaving yourself because your girl is on the back, it kinda just wafts along, making rumbling, atom-splitting sounds in its guts, like dark promises of woe and wonderment.
Mummy sits here, so her wondrous behind can be illuminated a tasteful red. Unless you put the padded sissy bar on she will fall off. I promise.I love how you don’t need to change gears, unless you want to change gears. They’re like an optional thing. That’s what insane torque numbers give you. But I change gears all the time because the acceleration becomes more ruthless. And I love ruthless.
It fits me. Like God Bloor (praise be unto him) had me in mind when he made it.I love how it reeks of quality. The nuts, bolts, paint, instruments, seat, wheels, and overall finish is simply top-shelf. I’m even hot about the pants over the way the shaft-drive looks. It’s like a robotic war-club aching to smash the brains of my enemies. Of which there are many. But the war-club is robust.
The dash tilts up and down and service intervals are 10,000km. See? Objective fact.I love how it makes me feel when I’m riding it. I am awash in a sense of omnipotence. I know I can out-accelerate just about anything. I can kill them in roll-on. I can kill them coming out of corners. I can stay with most things in corners. The Rocket makes me feel more than a little awesome. And what price can be put on that?
That satin blue is the colour of a thunderhead-filled sky.
It’s not for everyone, but it is for me.I could go on and on and on. Such is the depth of my love for this thing. It’s a God-bike in a world befouled by eager little parallel twins developed to make nervous riders tremble less than they do.
It’s stupid and unnecessary and overkill and everything such a creation has to be in order to man-fist some meaning into our pasteurised existence. This is what makes it so magnificent. This is what makes all such crazy bikes magnificent.
I am covered in drool.And it is the bike I would buy.
YOU CAN LOOK AT ALL THE NUMBERS AND PRICES AND COLOURS HERE, FOR ALL I CARE. I’VE SAID MY BIT.
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