My body fit like an awkward Play-Doh mold into Ryanair’s economy-class seat. But that’s not why I was unusually irritable. “I’m going to ride the new Triumph Trident 660 in Alicante. I love this. What’s wrong with me?” I quietly said with hard-stop punctuation. For the first time since I took this job, I felt jealous.
The 660 is Triumph’s entry to the Trident family. While that’s strictly true, the more I gorged on the details of what its 2026 update entailed, the more jealous I became. This model is positioned as someone's first big bike, but as I read the spec sheet, I felt like removing the “first” from that statement. Somewhere between digesting the stats and putting myself in the shoes of who’d buy this bike, I became lost in the memory of my first big bike.
No rider aids, 69 hp, 46 lb-ft of torque, in a 417-pound package (wet). Yes. The venerable Suzuki SV650—vintage 2001. I didn’t outgrow it, not even close. I sold it because I wanted to experience what other bikes had to offer. The funny thing is, Suzuki still sells the SV650, and it’s not that different from the one I owned.
