I’m currently poring over the great Haynes Workshop tome for the Bonnie, spending most of the time in the electrical section. It’s near illuminated script like writing gives step by step guiding in all things mechanical and an attempt of thing electrical. Along with the Meriden published Owners Workshop and Parts Manual is absolutely essential for any Trumpet tinkerer or hair puller…
Guard rails are great when they are thought out and help prevent head-on vehicular collisions thus saving lives: however, when a steel cable system is utilized they just give me the willy’s. Here’s an example of cables used along a Minnesotan roadside; and seen in other Midwest states too. This is a contentious issue on European roads where the motorcycle is a more common mode of day-to-day transportation and riders safety is given more consideration. Some research from places such as Australia and Germany are not fully conclusive however some testing shows both the posts and cable rails create issues. Racetracks use W profile barriers (and hay bales!) More thought is needed in this area.
Just a quick photo to show off the new Sparx handlebar switch. Whoop-de-doo! Well it’s better than no news of lack of spark from the ignition.
Got the Bonnie rewired with a new handlebar switch, a nicely made item from Sparx in the UK. Well, all the light, horn and indicators worked out good. Coloured wire to coloured wire. So… I took ‘er out for a run around the blocks for a cobweb blow; all fine and dandy. A couple of start and stops to see it kick over. No problems. Bring it back to the garage and kaput! Dam, dam and blast it! Nearly there… But not quite (quietly fume).
During our long haul up to Minnesota this weekend I spied this Bonneville haring along. The captain has a bit of a speed tuck to raise velocity.
A hot June day viewing motorcycles galore down on Lincoln Avenue. All on street parking for two-wheeled transporation only. And by noon they were well and truly crammed in! Nicely organised into type e.g. British, European, Japanese, American. All personalized to some degree. The best section was the l-o-n-g line of Triumphs: old Meriden sweethearts to newer Hinckley brutes. Good craic with owners too. I’ll spend the next few enties on some of the visual delights there. Shame I couldn’t have ridden in on the Bonnie; but, hey, there’s next year.
They keep coming out of old barns’ woodwork: a wartime Beeza, the utilitarian M20. My grandpappy’s North African Moto. This one is for sale locally; wanna get one someday but at four G’s it’s a little steep. Apparently they ended up in hedgerows acros England after dubblya dubbla two. There must be one or still under an oily tarp somewhere ready for a smudge of great, petrol fed into its infernal veins then kicked to life. Someday!
Roll on twenty five years and we’re up to the Golden celebration. To commemorate a half century with a crown balanced on her Royal Bonce the Hinckley lot came out with a latter day Bonneville like the aforementioned silver model – this time called a Golden. Here they are together looking jolly spiffing: just requiring a sash of bunting to complete a royal party.
HRH Queenie Betty has been the Monarch of Blighty for three score years now; and to celebrate this momentous occasion all the citizenry of The Isles have a four, yes read that as a 4, day bank holiday weekend…. Well, it seems appropriate to recall a limited edition Triumph from 1977, Lizzies Silver Jubilee. The T140J 750cc Bonneville. Only 1,000 were made of this silver, blue and red pinstriped special. A royal blue saddle with red piping surely a throne for royal riders all.
Like some feint streakline of a charged particle in a bubble chamber, such as an alpha or beta ray; here is some image manipulated view of a Scrambler. The glowing outlines defining the effervescent lines of this Brit modern classic.
…when those four are on the corners of a smasher of a sports car from the seventies. In this case the unparalleled Triumph TR6 the young sibling of earlier raceworthy greats like the TR2 or alternative cousin to the sweetlined, albeit underpowered, Spitfire. The inline 2.5l six gave oomph enough for a spirited drive around the countryside. The proportion of the square jawed body with large wheels designed by the German Karmann house gave this sportster a fresh and desirable look for any respectable driving glove-clad, tweed cap wearing ‘autophile’. Indeed the sparse dashboard provides the road-pilots cockpit; backed with wood and instrumented by Smiths.
Tribsaton: the wholly trinity of Brit Iron. Here’s a nice line-up seen earlier today at Ace Motorcycle & Scooter’s Rocker Reunion. A well ridden BSA A65, a 90’s Triumph Sport, and a truly scrumptious Norton Slimline ES2.
4G or nor for gee: the latest advertising ploy of T-Mobile (my phone carrier) is the leather-clad Ducati ridin’ lass speeding at a blistering pace past a blue trimmed Triumph Bonneville. A slow-mo replay shows her winking and peace-signing the ‘lowly’ Trumpet rider before speeding off. Yup, I’d take the Duc, though not pink, but like the look of the 4 decade old moto. You gotta remember that bike came from an age of rotary ‘phones, telegrams and letterwriting. Slower yes, but not necessarily worse times.
The owner has been found of a Harley-Davidson that drifted to Canada after being swept out to sea in the 2011 Japanese tsunami. Details from the motorcycle’s licence plate helped to locate Ikuo Yokoyama.
According to CBC News, Mr Yokoyama lost his home and three family members in the tsunami. The shop that sold the motorcycle to Mr Yokoyama is now hoping to ship the Harley-Davidson back to Japan and restore it.
The Harley-Davidson motorcycle was discovered by Peter Mark on 18 April on the coast of an island in British Columbia. Mr Mark said it was caked with “a lot of corrosion, a lot of rust”, but that he could see the manufacturer’s distinctive logo.
Ikuo Yokoyama told Japanese TV he had bought the bike five years ago
The Canadian realised that the bike could be part of the tsunami debris after he noticed that licence plate was from Miyagi prefecture, the area hardest hit by the March 2011 disaster.
Mr Yokoyama’s bike was inside a large white container he was using as a storage shed, which eventually washed away, leaving the bike partially buried in sand.
“This is unmistakably mine,” Mr Yokoyama told Nippon TV when shown photos of the motorcycle. “It’s miraculous.”
He told the Japanese TV station NHK that he wished to thank the man who found it personally.
In February, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials said currents would carry much of the debris 4,000 miles (6,400km) to the coasts of Alaska, Canada, Washington and Oregon between March 2013 and 2014.
Lighter items, such as buoys and bottles, have been among the first to wash ashore on the continent. Last month a football found in Alaska was returned to its owner and a derelict fishing boat was sunk by USCG due to its endangering shipping lanes off Alaska.
My Blackberry phone has a neat photo app that plays around with color, contrast and inversion. It’s this latter one with the image sent through a couple of times that gets this graphic of my Bonnie. Techmology is Kool…
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