- Triumph’s off-road project began in 2018, with the company deciding from the outset to commit fully to developing a completely new range of motocross and enduro bikes.
- Legends including Ricky Carmichael and Iván Cervantes were brought into the project, adding genuine top-level racing experience to the development programme.
- Impressively, the gamble has already delivered results, including Supercross, motocross and enduro wins and podiums, with Triumph continuing to expand its factory racing programmes.
Triumph didn’t just decide to build a motocross bike – it recruited legends including Ricky Carmichael and Iván Cervantes, started from scratch and went racing against the best in the world. A fascinating new documentary reveals how it happened.
Building a motocross bike from scratch was always going to be a huge gamble for Triumph. But rather than cautiously dipping a toe into the dirt-bike world, the British manufacturer recruited some of the biggest names in the sport, developed an entirely new range of machines and went racing at the highest level. Now a fascinating new documentary reveals how it all happened.
It’s easy to forget just how unlikely the idea of a Triumph motocross bike sounded when the project was first revealed.
Triumph was a company known for Bonnevilles, Speed Triples, Tigers and Rocket 3s. It had plenty of racing pedigree on the tarmac, but taking on KTM, Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki and the rest of the established off-road world with an entirely new motocross motorcycle?
That was a very different proposition.
But Triumph wasn’t interested in simply building a dirt bike, sticking its badge on the tank and seeing what happened.
It went all in.
And a fascinating new four-part documentary series from Triumph gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how one of the most ambitious projects in the company’s modern history went from an idea to race-winning motorcycles.
Called ALL IN, the series charts Triumph’s journey from its first off-road collaborations and development work through to competing – and winning – in international motocross and enduro racing. The opening episode features key figures including Ricky Carmichael, Iván Cervantes, Steve Sargent, Ian Kimber and Rod Lopusnak discussing the decision to enter the dirt-bike market and the enormous development programme that followed.
And if you’ve got even a passing interest in motocross or motorcycle development, it’s well worth a watch.
FROM A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER
The interesting thing about Triumph’s approach was the scale of the commitment.
The project began in 2018 and, according to Triumph Head of Global Racing Programmes Ian Kimber, the company knew from the outset that it couldn’t approach the off-road market half-heartedly.
That meant establishing partnerships, developing dedicated testing programmes and even creating a bespoke dealer network to support an entirely new family of motocross and enduro motorcycles.
More importantly, Triumph surrounded its engineers with people who knew exactly what a competitive dirt bike needed to do.
And there aren’t many names in motocross bigger than Ricky Carmichael.
The American is one of the most successful motocross racers of all time, and bringing him into the project as part of the development process immediately gave Triumph something it couldn’t manufacture in a factory: decades of experience at the absolute highest level of the sport.
On the enduro side, Triumph brought in five-time Enduro World Champion and multiple Dakar finisher Iván Cervantes, providing another enormous pool of competition and development knowledge.
Rather than develop the motorcycles internally and hand finished prototypes to its star riders for approval, Triumph’s strategy was to involve experienced racers in creating the machines in the first place.
That’s a significant distinction – and one of the things that makes the story behind the bikes so interesting.
BUILD IT, THEN RACE IT
Triumph also understood that producing a convincing motocross bike was only half the job.
It needed credibility.
And in motocross, credibility comes from racing.
Triumph announced in 2023 that it would enter the MX2 World Championship and the US SuperMotocross series in 2024 with the TF 250-X.
There would be nowhere to hide.
Instead of spending several years establishing the bikes at club level, Triumph effectively put its new machinery up against the best motocross bikes and teams in the world.
Results followed surprisingly quickly.
Triumph scored its first Supercross Main Event victory in February 2025 and has achieved podiums in AMA Pro Motocross, while the factory MX2 programme has also delivered podium finishes and a first moto victory.
For 2026 the programme has expanded again, with Triumph competing in AMA 450 Supercross for the first time with the TF 450-X as well as continuing with the TF 250-X in 250SX and running both capacities in AMA Pro Motocross.
That’s quite a progression for a manufacturer that didn’t have a production motocross bike a few years ago.
AND IT DIDN’T STOP AT MOTOCROSS
The really ambitious part of Triumph’s strategy is that motocross was only the beginning.
The range has expanded to include the TF 250-X and TF 450-X motocross bikes, TF 250-E and TF 450-E enduro models and TF 250-C and TF 450-C cross-country machines.
Triumph has attacked enduro competition with much the same philosophy.
Five-time World Enduro Champion Paul Edmondson was appointed Team Manager of Triumph Factory Racing’s enduro programme, while riders including Jonny Walker have helped establish the new machinery in some of the toughest events in the sport.
Walker finished runner-up in the 2025 SuperEnduro World Championship aboard a TF 250, tackled Erzbergrodeo on a near-standard TF 250-E and then won the AMA EnduroCross Championship on the TF 450-E.
Triumph has also scored its first Enduro1 overall victory and an EnduroGP podium, while its machinery competed at the International Six Days Enduro.
In other words, Triumph didn’t just build a motocross bike.
It has created an entire off-road division.
ALL IN – WITHOUT COMPROMISE
That’s what makes the new documentary particularly interesting.
It’s easy to look at Triumph’s current range of TF motocross and enduro bikes and forget that none of it existed a relatively short time ago.
Episode One, appropriately called ALL IN – Without Compromise, goes back to the beginning and explores the decision to enter off-road competition, the development of the motorcycles and the challenge of taking an established road-bike manufacturer into one of motorcycling’s most fiercely contested markets.
Three further episodes will follow.
