Benelli TNT 1130

2007

a truly awesome bit of kit!

Honestly, this is one of the madest bikes I've owned.

As Benelli said at the time "The name is explosive, the design aggressive, the engine eruptive, and the sum total is the Benelli TnT 1130, one of the sharpest bikes on the market."

A 1130cc Triple with 127bhp, 117 Nm torque and 199kg weight - figures spec for themselves.

Low seat height and high bars makes for a great bike to ride. It's fairly light for a large cc machine, very well balanced and in some ways feels like a Supermoto fitted with a mad engine.

So what's it like to own and ride...

Firstly the major drawbacks :

Firstly, getting spare parts is an issue. There no main delaers supporting this model and spares on places like eBay are very limited. Mine is currently down as half the console has gone out and it's going to take a time to sort it all out.

Second downside is that although there a lots of 'new' dealerships around selling and servicing the new Chianese type Benelli’s, none have the technical skills to work on these larger triples. This means for me, based in the South East, the nearest qualified dealership is Bennetts in Barnsley about 200 miles away!

Then there's MPG. These are very thirsty machines and on many occasions it's got down to less than 20mpg, so it's expensive on consumables.

Riding :

The bike is a very tight package working together. Everything seems minimalistic excepting the engine and cooling systems.

In use it's pretty brutal to be honest. Just looking at it you can see it's primarily an engine surrounded by a frame with ancillaries like radiators and seats sort of tethered to it, and this is how it rides. The seat is hard and when I got it both the front and rear were also very hard as if it had been used on track and maybe it had been!

I swapped the rear for a Nitron shock and that not only made it less harmful on my backside but also help with the handling.

On the front forks it has 50m USD forks but when I checked they seemed to have more oil in then they should so emptied and refilled with the correct amount of 7.5wt. Still very firm suspension, but better. If I do more than 100 miles then it's a pain in the arse (literally) but that's down to the seat more than anything.

Engine-wise it will pull low down perfectly well as it has bags of torque

The way the factory set-up the bike's throttle has a two stage process whereby the full power doesn't kick in at low rpm and then there's a 2-stroke like explosion of power where the front wheels get light and your hanging on! It honestly feels far more than 137bhp and given the way the suspension was setup I suspect it has some engine work done as well.

The bike certainly has it's quirks and foibles, but boy oh boy is it a blast to ride!

Great triple engine that accelerates like the clappers.

It's a mean and purposeful looking machine which I think is a stunning bike to look at.

Had it since 2010 and still fairly standard with the just a aftermarket Tail cowl, Nitron suspension and the Devil exhaust as extras.

Bits to be aware of :

TNT Switch can be a bit flaky : had to replace mine as it got stuck in reduced power mode

Electrical connectors : Need to be checked as they get water in very easy, especially around the engine

Z25 : This one is costly !!! Symptom I suffered was the bike stopped charging and after checking it wasn't the battery or connections I discovered the Alternator wasn't being spun by the paddle gear from the engine

Long story short and after a lot of checking with various sources including Benelli themselves, it turns out my 2007 engine was fitted with a known troublesome Z25 setup which works its way loose, even through Benelli say they had replaced all these from 2006

I'd managed to catch it before it cam unbolted and was only just lose enough to stop the [addle gear being moved under pressure, so that was lucky - or so I thought

What I then discovered is that the Z25 issue seems to have struck this bike before I'd owned it and had caused some scoring to the clutch basket so for safety reasons (not wanting the engine to detonate under me at speed) I had to get a new Z25 shaft, paddle gear and also a replacement clutch basket - all in about £1000 !!!

Low RPM : not keen running low RPM at slow speeds in standard setup and worse if the exhaust and air valves are opened so need to be careful, completely different to the Triumph triples