Triumph Test Ride

We had a string of warm, dry days at the end of last week, and the roads got dry enough for me to take the Triumph out without fear of getting it dirty.  Unfortunately, by Friday afternoon when I got time to go for a ride, Carolyn was out of town, so there is no video of me riding off on my test ride.

Given the fact that she was not there to come and get me if the bike quit, and also due to the fact that our steep driveway means not being able to push it back to the house regardless of where it quits, I started out with baby steps.  First, I made a few turns around in the garage apron, and that is when I first got caught in the backwards foot controls.  I was heading towards the garage after gassing it a little, and when I went to put on the rear brake I had a moment of panic when it seemed I had no brake.  Then I realized I was automatically pushing down with my right foot, which was the shift lever on the Triumph.

I made a few loops around the garage apron and then cautiously headed down the driveway, all the time chanting the mantra "left foot brake, left foot brake".  Then I rode one way from the house for about a mile and then back and the other way for a couple of miles and back.  Then the seven mile loop around behind the house, and finally the twelve mile loop to Amboy and back through Farger Lake.  Altogether I rode about 25 miles and the bike never missed a beat.

Here are my impressions of the bike:

It steers really nicely......light and easy to turn.

The riding position is surprisingly cramped.  The seat feels low in relation to the footpegs and my feet are pretty far forward.

Suspension works, but isn't all that great.

Brakes are better than I expected, but it took awhile to even begin to get used to that left foot rear brake.  Thankfully, the front is still the same as what I am used to and that is the most important one anyway.

Engine vibration is bad.  Back in the day, Triumph twins were noted for their smoothness, but compared to a modern bike, especially my CBR, it is a real paint shaker.  Sometimes it seems the CBR is almost too smooth; the other day I was going 75 mph on the freeway for quite a ways before I realized I was still in fifth gear, not sixth.  The bike is so quiet and smooth there are not the normal clues.

Power seems plenty adequate.  I only got up to about 50 mph indicated, but even with only four gears, there is plenty of torque to climb hills in top gear.  The sound, of course, is wonderful.

It's no fun to start.  I can stand on the kickstarter when on the compression stroke, and nothing moves.  I have to make a real stiff legged jump on it to get through the stroke, and often that still isn't fast enough turnover for it to start.

It reminded me a lot of driving the Mustang........pretty physical and somewhat crude, but cool.  Things were really different back in the sixties, but so was I.

Well, no blog is any good without pictures, right?  So here are a couple of pics I took while on a ride with my friends last Thursday over to the coast to get some fish and chips.

This herd of elk was at a wildlife viewing area we stopped at, and is the largest herd of elk I have ever seen.

 And here is a small herd of motorcyclists.