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Triumph
Motorcycles
When did it start for you?
Do you remember that Harley ad a
couple of years ago? I thought it was great. It showed a baby
wearing a little Harley T-shirt. For a lot of us, our fascination
with motorcycles goes back to when we were kids. I was in the 7th
grade when the bug bit me. I went to a combined junior high and
high school (the grades ranged from 7th grade to 12th grade). Waaaay
back in 1964, one of the high school seniors had a brand new Triumph Tiger, which in
those days was a 500cc twin with a single carb. That little white
and gold 500cc Tiger was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I
used to take every minute I could and just stare at it...recess, lunch, study halls, between classes, before school, after
school...you get the idea. It was an awesome machine and it had me
hypnotized. If you could wear
out a paint job by staring at it, I would have had that Tiger down to the
bare metal.
The guy who owned the Tiger graduated a few
months later, and shortly after that, he traded in the Tiger on a brand new 1965
Bonneville. That was an even more desirable machine. 650cc, twin
carbs, and (get this) 50 horsepower! Triumph held the land speed
record at something over 230 mph in those days, and every one of their
motorcycles came with a "World's Fastest Motorcycle" decal.
To a kid still 4 or 5 years away from a driver's license, this was heady stuff. Triumph
had their
hooks in me. They still do.
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What I consider to be the most
beautiful motorcycle in the world...the 1965 Triumph Bonneville. I shot
this fully-restored Bonneville at the 2004 Del Mar Concours Motorcycle
show. The lines, the color, that cool parcel grid on the tank, the
big Smiths instruments, those incredible pipes...it all worked for me. |
| A macro shot...the 1965 Bonneville gas tank. |
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I guess my enthusiasm was
contagious. I started buying motorcycle magazines and writing
to motorcycle companies for brochures. When I was a kid, they
were all over the house. My Dad got interested, and one of his
friends visited us with a new 305cc Honda Super Hawk. He let my Dad
drive it, and within a couple of weeks, my Dad bought a used CB 160 (the
160cc baby Super Hawk). That only lasted a couple of months. My
Dad traded the CB 160 in on a new Super Hawk, which also only lasted a
couple of months. Then, one of the most wonderful things in the
world happened: He traded the Super Hawk in on a 1966 Triumph
Bonneville.
This is a fully-restored 1966 Bonneville I
photographed at one of the Hansen Dam classic bike rallys. Notice
the highly-polished stainless steel fenders. 1966 was the first year
Triumph had stainless steel fenders on the Bonneville. They came
from the factory with a brushed finish, but some folks (my Dad included)
spent hours at a buffing wheel to bring the fenders to the mirror
finish you see on this specimen.
Triumph went to a smaller gas tank in 1966,
they got rid of the parcel grid you see on the 1965 model above, and they changed the
paint to an ivory white with three orange competition stripes bordered by gold
pinstriping. My Dad was an upholsterer, and he reupholstered
the seat in matching white Naugahyde with three orange pleats bordered with gold piping. Seen from above, the
effect was one of a continuous competition stripe. It was
striking. When Dad took the bike into Cooper's Cycle Ranch for
servicing, Sherm Cooper (the owner, and a big Triumph name on the east
coast) noticed it immediately. A large part of my Dad's upholstery
business after that was custom motorcycle seats for Triumphs and Hondas
(Cooper's other line). |
| A late 60s Bonneville with upswept exhaust pipes. Check out
those great-looking air filters on the twin Amal carbs. |
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This is Triumph's later version of the 650cc twin cylinder
Tiger. The Tiger had a single carb (it was rated at 45 hp), and the
Bonneville had twin carbs (it was rated at 50 hp).
I've owned both models. I really couldn't tell the difference in
performance. They were both great.
Take a look at that shift lever. Nope, I haven't reversed the image. In those days, Triumph's shift
lever was on the right, and the brake was on the left. They had
four-speed transmissions.
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| I went a few misguided years
riding other brands (Harleys, Hondas, Suzukis, Beezers, and maybe one or
two others I can't recall as I write this). Nothing ever looked as
good to me, though, as a Triumph. In 1979 I bought another new
Bonneville. By that time they had grown to 750cc, they had a
five-speed transmission, the bike had disc brakes front and rear, and the
shift and brake levers had changed places. That '79 would pull 109
mph flat out. It, too, was a gorgeous bike. I rode it for a
year or so when I lived in Fort Worth, and then I sold it.
Several years went by. I bought, rode, and sold several older Triumphs before
the collectors priced them into the stratosphere. I had a Harley, a Suzuki TL1000S, a Yamaha XS
650, and a Honda CBX in the garage when my friend Marty told me about a
Triumph he saw on E-bay. That story is here.
Yep, I won that auction, and I did so in the last second of the auction, on a dial-up line (that
experience, and the uncertainty and delays associated with dial-up, caused
me to immediately go to DSL). Here's my 1200 Daytona on one of the first
rides I took with it. I didn't even have it registered yet. I
took the plates off another bike (don't tell anyone). |
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| The photo above is one of my
favorite shots, taken after a 15-mile buzz at 120 mph across California's
Highway 58. That big old Daytona had a lot of things going for it,
not the least of which was a huge gas tank and, because of that, a great
touring range. My friends and I did the Three
Flags Classic in 2005, and I rode the Daytona from Tijuana to
Calgary. (Get it? Three Flags...Mexico, Canada, and the US.) It was among the best rides I've ever had. Here's a
photo of the Daytona in front of Shiprock, New Mexico, enroute to Canada. |
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We caught just a bit of rain
on that trip. Here's a night shot through a 17mm lens, with my
riding buddy Marty's BMW in the background. |
| Rolling through the Kananaskis
National Park in Canada was special, too. Here's a mountain sheep
checking out the Daytona. Marty grabbed this shot of me and my new
friend. |
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I've still got a deep interest,
respect, and desire for the older Triumphs. I love
looking at them.
Here's something we'd all like to find...a
barn bike (perhaps found in somebody's barn; preferably someone who
wants to sell it cheap). This is an original, unrestored Triumph Speed
Twin. It doesn't look bad for a 60-year-old motorcycle, does it?
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| A new Triumph Scrambler up on
Glendora Ridge Road in the San Gabriel Mountains.
My dealer (Doug
Douglas Motorcycles) let me borrow one of these when I had my Tiger in
for service. They are very cool motorcycles. Triumph
reintroduced a modern Bonneville a few years ago drawing on the heritage
shown in some of the above photos.
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| After a while, and for really
no good reason, I decided I had too many motorcycles. I guess I
did. Maybe. Well, who knows how many is too many? In any
event, I sold the Harley after 16 years (wasn't sorry to see it go), and then I sold the TL1000S
Suzuki (that was a great bike!), and then the CBX went (it was another
great machine), and finally, I sold the Daytona. I guess I just got
in the motorcycle selling mode. Before I realized it, I was down to
a single bike, my KLR 650 Kawasaki (don't laugh; the KLR 650 is a
wonderful motorcycle, too).
In my new bike-deprived state (which didn't
feel natural), I took a ride over to Doug Douglas
Motorcycles in San Bernardino one Saturday afternoon on the KLR, just
killing time, to take a look at the Triumph Speed Triple. I always
wanted a Speed Triple. The first time I saw one it was a riveting
experience. The Speed Triple is a visually-arresting motorcycle.
Douglas Motorcycles had the Speed Triple,
but they also had a Caspian Blue Tiger. Wow, it looked beautiful
under those fluorescent lights.
Doug saw the look. He knew I
was a goner. He gave me a price and I did something I almost never
do. I agreed to the first number he gave me. No dickering
around. No negotiation. Just a simple "Okay."
They say buying a motorcycle is an emotional decision. It sure was
for me when I saw that Tiger. I had been looking at the Tiger for a
couple of years. It's Triumph's answer to the BMW GS series of
adventure bikes, and it seemed perfect for what I wanted: A touring
bike with range, some pretense toward offroad riding, and most
importantly,
it was a Triumph. |
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I do a lot of riding in Mexico,
and the big Triumph dual sport is everything I hoped it would be.
Here's a shot on a ride to Bahia de Los Angeles on the Sea of
Cortez. This is somewhere south of El Rosario, where the true Baja
really begins.
The Tiger can get over 50 miles per gallon
if you take it easy, but I usually don't take it easy. Normal riding
returns about 45 or 46 miles per gallon. The reserve light comes on
at around 215 to 220 miles. I've gone as far as 250 miles on a tank
of gas.
This bike has legs! |
| Baja sometimes gets heavy
fog. On the ride to Bahia de Los Angeles it got thick. I pulled over when I
couldn't see the ground beneath me. The fog
had lifted considerably when I took this shot.
More photos from the Bahia de Los Angeles
ride are here. |
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This is in Yosemite, on our Los
Cincos Pasos ride through California's northern Sierras. |
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My Tiger and my friend Joseph's
Sprint overlooking Bahia Concepcion in Baja. The Tiger is a perfect
touring machine for a place like Mexico's Baja
peninsula.
Those 955 motors are awesome.
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| My Tiger up on Glendora Ridge
Road. |
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A cool shot of
my friend Joseph's Triumph Sprint.
Triumph
redesigned these bikes when they went to the larger 1050 motor, but I
think the above model is a better-looking motorcycle.
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| I put a lot of miles on my
Tiger, but I still had the Speed Triple bug gnawing at me. I called
around to get some prices, and then I took the best one back to Doug Douglas
Motorcycles in San Bernardino. It's a great shop, and the guy who
runs it, Art, is a great guy. I just like the feel of the
place. It's not one of those slimy megamalls, and the people who
work there are motorcycle enthusiasts. Art looked at the number I
gave him, rolled his eyes a bit, and said the same thing I did when I got
the number on the Tiger:
"Okay."
Hee hee hee. Ha ha ha. I was
gonna get me a Speed Triple! |
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I got a hell of a
deal.
It turns out Triumph was running a special
when I bought the Speed Triple. Buy a new Triumph, and they give you
a thousand dollars worth of accessories. I was a kid in a candy
store.
I got the flyscreen fairing, the gold
anodized radiator guards (they pick up the gold anodizing on the forks
nicely), and Jardine carbon fiber mufflers. Art reflashed the chip
for me (because of the less restrictive mufllers), and I was in the Speed
Triple business!
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| The Speed Triple just oozes
character (so does the Tiger). This thing is fast (so is the
Tiger).
In other ways the Speed Triple is very
different than the Tiger. This motorcycle is basically a stripped
down Daytona, and the Daytona is a no-compromise, hard-edged sports bike.
To make things even more interesting, Triumph put a bigger engine in the
Speed Triple (it's a 1050cc monster).
The Speed Triple rides rough, its
acceleration can only be described as fierce, and it is the coolest
looking motorcycle I've ever owned. The first week I had it a local
cop stopped his car and got out to examine it. I asked him if there
was a problem. "There sure is," he said. "It
doesn't belong to me." Everywhere I go, the Speed Triple
gets that kind of reaction. It's a motorcycle people just want to
stare at. Kind of like that kid in junior high school over 40
years ago.
I got the color I wanted, the
accessories I wanted, and the deal I wanted. It's a tough
combination to beat. |
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Brendan, one of my riding
friends, and his very sharp, highly-polished Triumph Speed Triple in
Joshua Tree National Park. |
| So, what's next?
Well, there's no doubt in my mind that I'll
always own a Triumph. It started for me when I was 12 years old, and
that gut-level lust for Triumphs has never gone away. I've probably
owned close to a dozen of the things (both the older ones and the modern
ones). I'm convinced that Triumph makes the best modern bikes
in the world, with performance, panache, and personality.
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