Golden Gate Guys…

Flying back from a tremendous vacation to the West Coast. Down the Pacific from San Francisco to Los Angeles. A couple of days up north enjoying the winding roads of Route 1 as well as the delights of a modern Triumph.

Go West!

Bags packed, plane tickets ready… We’re off to California for a week. A road trip from San Francisco along route 1 to Los Angeles. …

(Image from Vintagent of typical Pacific views – that ’73 Triumph TR5T  a perfect moto for such a locale. We’ll have a new Bonnie for a couple of days )

Muddy Slope

Good simple action shots of a Triumph Cub and its rider tackling a dirt incline.

Get the kettle on!

Baz is taking things easy in his caravan during some race event in the seventies. Flowery curtains. Smoking was cool then…

Even on his No. 7 Suzuki. He drags on his fag.

How do you like them apples?

Dick Sutton’s Cheney framed Triumph as it currently looks. There are very particular details noted for off-road use: inboard pipes, high muffler, rearset pegs, easy access to ignition innards, alloy ‘tins’, thick seat, & Eric Cheney fettled suspension. The green frame and raw tank look stunning.

Here it was back in the day. ’67 Poland where a bronze medal was attained.

A golden line-up

Giants of the British racing scene in the sixties: Photo of British Trophy Team in regulation Barbour International jackets L-R Ray Sayer, Ken Heanes, Ray Peplow, Sammy Miller, Johnny Giles, and Arthur Lampkin. All individual champions; put ’em together and a great team to romp across Sweden in ’66. This is a Triumph engined and forked BSA.

Here’s a view of someone fettling the ignition mid-route of Lampkins BSA/Triumph mongrel.

Six of the Best

Just lovin’ these race photos of Triumphs used in anger at the ‘Trials. It seems a waxed jacket is correct dress for the conditions expected: wet and muddy. Big off-road boots too. Jim Sandiford (above) gravelly cornering in style on his Cheney 504 Triumph. Darned good looking motorbike.

Dennis Glover of the Metropolitan Police team in ’73 zooms through the undergrowth. Slow and fast riding of the Saint Trophy specials.

Johnny Giles (below) makes it look easy…

Steady does it!

A good film to watch some of these exploits is Bruce Browns 1971 documentary ‘On Any Sunday’ which, amongst other two-wheeled adventure, show off Malcolm Smiths excellence in any realm on a moto.

…and on the seventh day

Triumph was a major player up until the early seventies in the International Six Days Trial. Here are a few classic ‘action’ images of what the riders had to endure. Rocks, roots, rivers, roads,,,

Quick tire changes obligatory. As are all on road repairs being undertaken by rider with carried tools.

The clock is ticking too! The event has been held for 100 years (as of 2013) except for the war years. Now it is the ISDE (E for Enduro) and truly globally located – up until the early 80’s is was European. 1250 miles is a long way under trial and scrutiny.

Girl Friday

Also known as the ‘Jane-of-all-Trades’; this ‘Go-To’ lass is there to take care of the task at hand when all seems lost. The lady who you can count on and knows what needs to be done and how to do it! And never takes credit. This vintage Triumph off-road rider certainly looks like she means business.

Cary Grant’s character Walter Burns certainly knew whose his Girl Friday was in Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson.

Specialized & Utilitarian

Here’s some well-lit studio portraits of the pure ISDT tool.

Set up for timed route finding over a range of road and trail conditions displaying riding and mechanical skills both. Gold medals are hard to come by.

Compressed air cylinder for tire inflation.

Looking good from all sides.

TriBSA trials

After a disastrous show at the Isle of Man ISDT in  ’65 the British manufacturers joined forces to prepare Arthur Lampkin to take on the world in a factory special.

Here’s a complete article about the gilded history of this machine: http://speedtracktales.com/folks-n-motors/arthur-lampkins-1965-isdt-tribsa/

No Man’s Land

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 Trusty

Let’s keep on events and life of one hundred years ago. Horses needed fed and the noises of the whizz-bangs startled them. Pour petrol in the flat tank; set the oil lubrication, air in the balloon tires, leather drive belt tensioned and off you go.
It also became everyday transport for the lad about town post conflict.

Lest We Forget

“We’ll be home for Christmas” was the typical retort of the lads in Europe as hostilities commenced in 1914. Well a century later we know that wasn’t the case. Four years of ever increasing devastation. Trench warfare as the 20th Century machine age began. The soft tissues of life lost…

Triumph Motorcycles had their single cylinder Model H utilized to get much needed messages to the front lines from the rear echelons.

Other uses included adding a machine gun to a sidecar combination.

The 90km from the Ypres Salient to Calais probably took an hour. The Front at Ypres was maintained for four years.

Get your kicks on Route 66

A whiff of drilling and smattering of grinding I managed to fit the splined KTM kick start with the wider swing arm to the cub. Basically drilling a through hole to fit a cotter pin. Broke three bits to get through the hardened steel. And my Dremel died when fine tuning the fitting. But it works well and looks capable whilst folding neatly against the engine.

We just drove along one end of Rt66 today: Lake Shore Drive here in Chicago.