Best Montana Motorcycle

I like to classify my bikes.

There are too many great bikes out there for me to pick a favorite but I can rank them by titles.

Such as…

• Bike that makes me want to misbehave – Yamaha FZ-09
• Bike I’m most likely to scare myself on – Ducati Multistrada
• Bike I ride best on a track - Triumph Speedtriple
• Best Trail Bike – Yamaha YZ250fx

But recently I decided to purchase a new motorcycle and the category I needed to fill was “Best Montana Motorcycle”.

To Qualify it needed to fill multiple categories. It needed to be a...

• Great commuter bike
• Easy to ride in town
• Get good gas mileage
• It needed to make long hauls bearable
• Have a Comfortable seat and riding position
• It needed to be fun to ride, which means power, but most importantly…
• It needed to handle gravel and dirt roads with ease.

Montana continues to embody the spirit of adventure and exploration. What good is owning a motorcycle in Montana if you can’t peel off on a whim and take any road that draws your curiosity? How can you only own one motorcycle, if you can’t count on it to get you to your favorite fishing hole (If you can get there on pavement you must have low fishing expectations)? And if you were only going to pick one bike to get you around the fourth-largest state in the union, would you pick the equivalent of a draft horse or one that has the characters of the hardy mule, or better yet, the looks and power of a Montana Quarter Horse?

With these criteria in mind, the conclusion was easy. I had logged about a quarter of my miles last year on the Triumph Tiger 800XC and was impressed. When I saw the reveal of the new Triumph Tiger 800XCX (better fuel mileage (54mpg), adjustable traction control, adjustable abs, custom map modes and cruise control) I knew I had a winner!

In the first 1,300 miles it saw highways, gravel, city streets, harrowing single track, multiple wide creek crossings and still I continue to be impressed. Now that I am past break-in, I love to hammer the motor through the RPM range and listen to the growl of that triple pouring out power. Especially when I’m pounding through the turns at 45 on the gravel roads and blasting over 60 on the straights (It just eats up gravel like it’s on pavement in the off-road setting). I’m not afraid to drop it, but it just doesn’t want to let me down, no matter what I put it through.

While it might be a big title for a big state and you might ask yourself who am I to declare it… simply said, I’ve ridden the rest and it passed the test. Triumph. I declare the Tiger 800 XCX the official bike of Montana!