I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I can’t see if this is for safety or just an easy way to tote a pail.
It’s just like Oor Wullie wi’ his bucket…

Only in the Sunday Post every weekend, and the biennial annual.

Ho ho ho!

“Reminds me of that fella back home who fell off a ten-story building. As he was falling, people on each floor kept hearing him say, “So far, so good.” Tsk, so far, so good.” Vin (The Magnificent Seven)

The operation I rented the motorcycle from was the respected Dubbelju. http://www.dubbelju.com

Great selection of Triumphs, Ducati’s, BMW’s amongst others. Reasonable rates and very helpful staff.

Well how do you do young Willie McBride?
do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside
and rest for a while ‘neath the warm summer sun 
I’ve been walkin’ all day and I’m nearly done
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen 
when you joined the great fallen of 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean 
Willie McBride was it slow and obscene
CHORUS
Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly, 
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus,
did the pipes play the “Flowers of the Forest”

And the beautiful wife or the sweetheart for life 
in some faithful heart are you forever enshrined
and although you died back in 1916 
in that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
or are you a stranger without even a name 
enshrined forever behind a glass pane
in an ould photograph torn tattered and stained, 
fading to yellow in a brown leather frame? CHORUS

Now the sun shines down on the green fields of France 
a warm summer wind makes the red poppy’s dance
The trenches have vanished under the plows, 
there’s no gas no barbed wire, there’s no guns firing now
but here in this graveyard it’s still No Man’s land, 
the countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
for man’s blind indifference to his fellow man, 
to a whole generation that was butchered and damned CHORUS

Now Willie McBride I can’t help wonder why
Do those who lie here do they know why they died
Did they really believe when they answered the call
did they really believe that this war would end wars
Forever this song of suffering and shame 
the killing the dying was all done in vain
for young Willie McBride it’s all happened again, 
and again, and again, and again and again.

Eric Bogle

The standard kicker interferes with the new rearset trials pegs. So I have obtained a KTM kicker with swing-out. It still needs the peg to be hinged up to operate but I already do this with the Bonnie so it’s no bother. However the Triumph uses a cotter pin, the KTM a spline fit. I’ll need to fanagle some attachment to transmit the downward hoof to turn the engine over.

Gotta look the part when hoofing along to Goodwood. Calf-length riding footwear, stiff canvas trousers, Tweed (Kevlar lined mind you) and a hefty divers watch – Doxa or Seiko.

A well planned event took place in cities around the world. To raise money and awareness for prostate cancer. Those taking part were obliged to turn up in dapper outfits befitting a gentleman’s club or Royal Ascot outing. I chose a bright flowery tie with my waistcoat.

About 200 motorcycles and scooters turned up for the Chicago event and after meeting up at 9am headed off in a x2 caravan through the City. Outrider blockers halted cross traffic so that momentum of the ride was maintained.

Triumph made up a good proportion of the bikes , both old and new. My Bonneville fought valiantly along the slowish riding, a hot clutch with feathered throttle slipped a few times. However the last stop. I turned my lights on rather than off so the bike was dead as a dodo and wouldn’t start for the short ride home… Deans Ford Ranger came to the rescue to haul my sorry moto back to Evanston.

That late model Thruxton looks better all the time!

Been a very busy few days recently… Hence the lack of in depth blog entries. My wife and I renewed our vows over the weekend. We surely Do!

Back into the Workshop Manual to brush up on the innards of the Bonnie as I get ready to reinstall the clutch plates. I cleaned them with a heavy degreaser soak, then washed with the solvent brake cleaner and gave the metal plants an etch with muriatic acid and a sand as well as sand a roughen tot he friction plates.

I also deburred the tangs to ensure a cleaner shift (hopefully). I’ll do the same with the basket tang slots. 

RIP James Garner 1928-2014. One of most laid back Hollywood dudes out there; an effortless charm and good looks too. Whether you remember him from his Maverick days as the titular gambler Bret; or the Pontiac Firebird Esprit driving private eye Jim Rockford, he certainly had a strong worthy character whomever he was playing.

Of course I remember him as Hendley; requested items acquisition… Or Scrounger. Here he is pillion with buddy Steve McQueen and James Coburn in the chair.
His racing career both on and off the screen peaked with the magnificent Grand Prix, the legendary John Frankenheimer film about racing life given pure sixties graphic treatment by the Saul Bass cinematography on 70mm. Garner ad Pete Aron.

Across America The long highways between growing cities, sprawling suburbs and the breadbasket countryside riders were taking to Triumph motorcycles to haul them across the big miles. Experiencing their land. The swift lines of the Speed Twin, Tiger, Thunderbird…  The same year NASA was formed and the space race was well and truly underway.
Meanwhile the ‘other’ Triumph – Germans TWN ‘Boss’ two-stroke 200cc was shown hauling a combination through the Casbah of Marrakech.

…elsewhere Fidel tours Havana Cuba…

” …quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing.”

What a year ’58 must have been.

The gearbox was a little more cumbersome than the manual gave reference to. I had assembled it at least a half dozen times but the shifter plate, though meshed with the pair of shifter forks wouldn’t sit for the pivot pin to drive home. One of the gears was the wrong way round! A subtle but critical Alignment. Once flipped I managed to buttoned things up: gears mesh, kicker pawl clicked-in, return spring wound and covers bolted on. Once sat upright and gear lever attached it clicked positively through the gears: first, neutral, second, third and fourth.

Johnny Giles, Triumph rider, seen here on his works Cub in the 1962 Perce Simon trial organized by the Ringwood club. Johnny was a preeminent off-roader seeing numerous ISDT’s including the infamous ’64 one riding in the British team. Eventually claiming twelve gold medals and six silver over a decade and a half. Here he is; a hale eighty-odd year old, looking forever youthful on a McQueen Trophy special…

Good form: a latter sixties period image of him running a 490cc Triumph in Germany’s Six Day.

If it had two wheels and a Triumph badge on the tank then Giles was your man!

British bulldog fronted UK insurance company Churchill has jug-eared actor Martin Clunes haring around the English countryside with the company’s titular mascot as passenger in a sky blue Triumph combination.

Clues we know as Doc Martin as well as one ‘arf of Men Behaving Badly. 

These kits were more popular back when motorcycles were a utilitarian tool, and when snowmobiles were limited to the greater latitudes or Minnesota. tack some skis to the front hoop; whip off the rear one and bolt on the mini track. I think this would be a lot of fun in fresh powder. And it’s a Cub too…

“Shackleton, Shackleton! You need a couple of these glacier ski-doos mate!”