2 years with the Street Triple

It's almost 2 years to the day since I bought the Street Triple and the comprehensive reviews earlier in this blog (HERE and HERE ) still stand good - it's a peach of a bike and I've loved every minute of owning it.  Today was its 20,000 km service so I knew that my wallet would get a lot lighter but hey; it was a sunny, warm day and the 320 km round trip to the dealer down mainly country lanes should take away some of the sting!

I love visiting Hamilton Motorcycle Centre as Heath, the dealer Principal and his team are more like friends than a business entity and it's that high quality personal service delivered with a smile and accompanying leg-pulling which puts them at the very top of the tree.

Whilst Matt, the Chief Technician started tearing the bike down for the major service, I wandered into the parts and showroom area to grab a coffee and look at the bikes as there's always something new and interesting.

Some serious dismantling at 20,000 km

Mighty big holes for 3 - 225cc cylinders!

Let me share some of the nice stuff which the dealership currently has on the floor......

The first bike inside the door is a BSA trials bike, probably from the mid 60's.  Compared with modern bikes, they look so elegantly simple, almost flimsy.  I didn't bother to photograph the whole bike but was rather taken with the simple little muffler.  It was one of those designs which just felt and looked "right", if you know what I mean.

What a neat bit of engineering

The next bike to catch my eye was the touring version of the Triumph Rocket 3.  This was the first one I'd ever seen and it looked far more integrated than the roadster versions - I really liked it.  Woe betide  anyone who mistakes it for a conventional cruiser and tries to show it up on the road - there could be some red faces!

A wolf in sheep's clothing

Next bike to interest me was a new T100 Bonneville.  Bonnies have always had that iconic aura but the paint job on this one was very similar indeed to the early Bonnies when they were arguably the fastest thing on the road.  Triumph play the nostalgia card very well indeed.

Beautiful standard of finish

The Ducati brand really is sex on wheels and a row of them always makes a nice composition, as do the carbon Termignoni carbon end cans.

These get the hormones sloshing about!

..... and so do these, sigh.......

The next bike to catch my eye was the Triumph 800 adventure bike.  The attention to detail is superb with more than a little artistry about the design.  If I was being practical about replacing the Street Triple right now with something else, I think it would be one of these.  It gave me that hard-to-describe emotional connection inside which a lot of other bikes don't, despite them being excellent bikes in their own right.

Horny triple pipes on the 800

Pilot's eye view on the 800

Elegant simplicity

A customer's Kawasaki H1 500 triple was on display.  These bikes had a wicked reputation with the narrow powerband meaning that an incautious and heavy-handed rider was likely to need dental surgery when the front end came up and smacked him in the face.  Comparing it with modern bikes, the forks are ludicrously skinny and no doubt contributed to poor handling.  The narrow drum brake looks scarily inefficient!

Mountain bikes have stiffer forks than these!

Voted one of the top 10 motorcycle engines

of all time in an international poll

The Triumph Tiger is a bike which has been around for some time and for some unexplainable reason, I really didn't pay a lot of attention to it.  That certainly changed seeing the one below.  In hot orange with a deeply-sculpted seat and some of the nicest panniers I've ever seen on a bike, it looked simply stunning.  Nicely done, Mr Triumph!

 

 This is a seriously good-looking bike

That was the last of the photos I took in the shop but one of Heath's regular customers turned up on his Beemer R1200 and sidecar combination - something you don't see every day!  With the 2 big alloy side cases, an alloy top box and space inside the sidecar, it looked like you could tour with self-sufficiency for a fair length of time.

For the serious enthusiast!

Whilst I was waiting for the Triple to be finished, Heath wandered over and said, "Would you like to take the Ducati Streetfighter for a spin?"  This is the bike I showed in the 3rd and 4th photos of THIS recent post.  Would I what!!!!  However, experimentally cocking my leg over it, I was right on tip-toe and a nightmare vision of dropping an expensive piece of art at the traffic lights outside flashed before my eyes.  Sadly, I thought it was better to decline..... at least until I've mentally prepared myself for it!  Heath's generosity shows why he's so highly regarded in the industry.

Just before I left for home, I was having a chat with 2 biker gang members who proved to be really interesting as well as entertaining.  One of them uttered a sentence I thought I'd never hear, "Man, Harleys are sh*t, don't know why we had them".  They both had Rocket 3's; more effective for doing a runner on, that's for sure!

The ride home was glorious with warm temperatures and sparkling seas on the coast road.  In the town of Thames, a Triumph 675 Daytona and what was possibly a Triumph Bonneville America pulled out of a gas station  and followed me north up the twisty coast road.  I wasn't going to get sucked into a dick-waving contest so more or less stuck to the speed limit and maintained high cornering speeds to see what happened.  The Daytona rider stuck with me but made no attempt to pass and the guy on the cruiser got dropped off a bit.  The convoy re-grouped when I got baulked by a car in the twisties for a few moments which I then overtook down a straight bit.  The Daytona rider was content to sit on my tail at a sensible distance but the cruiser was hell-bent on getting past.  Unfortunately, it took him most of the straight to do it and he entered the next bend far too hot for his ground clearance and basic suspension, dancing all over the road with sparks coming off his stand or footpegs - quite a sight!   He must have been really close to filling his underpants as he slowed right up and waved me past.... what a hoot, but the consequences could have been much, much worse for him.  Would imagine that he felt a complete dick.

All in all, one of those days which makes the soul sing and most car drivers simply couldn't begin to understand.  Oh, and considering that I had a new air filter, oil and filter, new plugs, cam shim check, full diagnostics and a thorough check including a test ride; I thought that the charge of just over NZ$500 (US$400) was extremely reasonable!

Embarassing motorcycle photos!

Like most people, we've got boxes and boxes of photos from pre-digital camera days.  Some are so awful, not even our kids will get to see them until we've croaked it.  Some of them make me wince but I'm prepared to make an ass of myself in the (faint) hope that other bloggers will be stupid enough to follow suit.

Me, in Dad's helmet and goggles, aged 5

I started motorcycling at 16 when my grandparents bought me a Suzuki 50.  I don't have any photos from that period (thank God), neither the 350cc Triumph which followed shortly afterwards.  However, I do have one with my 1955 Tiger 100, taken in 1966/7 at 19/20 years of age. 

Slim and plenty of hair - 1966/7 

Looking back, it's amazing how often I changed hairstyles and clothes - probably no different from most young people then and now .  Hard not to blush looking at some of them.  I think the following photo was taken in 1968.  Rushed home directly from work without changing for a photo and article in the local newspaper about my Mk 1 drag bike.

Failed attempt at respectability

At the dawn of the 1970's, clean-cut was out and hairy was back in.  The photo below was taken in 1970 at Santa Pod Drag Strip, UK.  The item I'm holding is a bent pushrod from the Mk 2 short-stroke drag bike.  The alloy pushrods didn't take kindly to violent cams and heavy valve springs but titanium replacements did the trick!  In the way that only true friends can have a sly dig at a mate, one of them reckoned that I looked like an extra from the original TV series, the "Avengers".  It's ok to snigger, honestly!

Ohh... the shame - 1970

The next photo is a non-motorcycling one taken in 1975 within a few weeks of emigrating to NZ.  Only noteworthy for the mid-70's male fashion sense (or more accurately, a complete lack of it).  Dear God, what was I thinking of???  The photo was taken at a geothermal area in NZ - I should have jumped in.  Anyone remember the Weston Master camera exposure meter hanging on my front?

The shame continues

The following photo was taken in 1987 after a decade and a bit without a bike whilst building a career and raising a family.  The Honda GB400 TT was an impulse purchase and Jennie was less than amused (an understatement).  At least it scratched the motorcycling itch!

Less hair and filling out a bit - 1987

This photo was taken in the mid-90's when I owned a BMW K100RS.  Our eldest son was very keen to own a bike and after a period riding a small trail bike on forest fire breaks to build his skills, his mother grudgingly gave permission for him to get a road bike.  Mercifully, she remained ignorant of just how quick those Suzuki X7's were!

Lyndon and me - mid 90's

The next photo was taken in 2005 on the edge of winter whilst waiting for the ferry to take us to the north island.  I was taking part in the Southern Cross round NZ in 5 days endurance ride.  Approximately 4000km of low-flying! Quite an experience, contributing to hair loss I'm sure.

My beloved Blackbird - 2005.  Now wearing spectacles to see where I'm going!

The final bike shot was taken last month whilst setting off for the 1000 miles in 24 hours Grand Challenge.  Only noteworthy because of a "full circle" return to the Triumph brand just over 40 years after my first one.  Oh, and one other thing..... considerably less hair than the early photos.

Over 40 years riding and still in one piece (more or less)

There's one non-motorcycling photo I wanted to include which was taken in 1972.  It would be hard to disagree that in most of the photos, especially the early ones, I look like a complete ummm... dork.  The subject of this photo most certainly doesn't. It's a genuine mystery with respect to what Jennie saw in me 38 years ago.  She's had a lot to put up with in that time, with me being an anal engineer AND a complete bike nut.  Can't believe my good fortune and I'm still unashamedly crazy about her.

 Venice on our honeymoon - 1972

Jennie - current date

Ok, so who is prepared to stick some photos of their early motorcycling days on their blog???

3 cylinder Triumphs - full circle

I guess that most people know that I currently ride a Triumph Street Triple which is now 8 months old and I love it to bits - perfect for the type of riding I do at present.  There's a nice symmetry to owning a Triumph now because after the Suzuki 50 which my grandparents bought me to learn on in 1964 whilst still at school (arrrgh... 46 years ago!), my "formative" years were all spent on Triumphs; including a spell on the drag strip.

The 675 cc 3 cylinder motor in both Daytona and Street Triple guise is a peach of an engine and the bikes have won many awards and continue to distinguish themselves creditably on world racetracks. However, you probably have to be a Triumph enthusiast or a sad old git like me to know that the origins of it go back 48 years to 1962!  This was the year that two talented engineers at Triumph (Hopwood and Hele) laid down the original design for an across the frame triple.  Typically for Triumph at that time, politics and poor management delayed the launch and it wasn't until mid-1968 until they were launched in the guise of the 750cc Triumph Trident and the BSA Rocket 3.

Unfortunately, the production delays only saw it launched weeks before the first Honda 750 4 which was a higher specification bike in all respects.  Nonetheless, the 750 triples enjoyed huge racing success in both Europe and North America.  I was privileged to attend the first UK Transatlantic Match Races in the very early 70's where the UK's finest competed against the likes of Nixon, Mann, DuHamel, Rayborn and many more.  At one stage, both teams had factory-backed Triples and in my humble opinion; hearing the howl of 6-10 triples with unsilenced 3 into 1 megaphones warming up in the pits is still one of the greatest motorcycle sounds ever.  I saw a replica Rocket 3 racing in a classic meeting in Auckland early this year and the howl still gave me goosebumps!

Here are two photos I took at the 1971 event.  Despite it being nearly 40 years ago, these bikes still look fantastic!

Dave Aldana's Rocket 3

Paul Smart's Trident

Completing the symmetry between the original 1960's 750cc Triple and today's 675, it's interesting to compare a few key specifications.  Top speed of the 750 was around 130mph (210km/hr) with a 0-60mph time of about 4.1 seconds.  The Street Triple has a top speed about 5 mph up on that but the 0-60 mph time of ~3.3 seconds is far superior thanks to the better power to weight ratio (~220 kg for the 750 compared with ~170kg for the 675).  So despite the passage of time being over 4 decades, there's not a huge difference in straight line performance and the same goes for the racebike versions of both capacities too.  In the handling stakes of course, there's no comparison! 

There's also no comparison in terms of reliability.  A close friend of mine in the UK still has an early 70's Trident.  Admittedly, it rarely comes out of the shed these days but he has so many memories invested in it that selling is completely out of the question.  When he used to ride it regularly, electrical (un)reliability was such that his wife claimed he was on first name terms with every Automobile Association recovery team in half the country!

Personally, it's almost Karma for me having returned to Triumph after an association which started so long ago - long may it continue!