Rocket Free My triple and strife
EVERYONE YOU WILL EVER MEET KNOWS everything there is to know about Triumph triples. Even if they’ve never ridden one – or indeed any other motorcycle, ancient or modern – they know all about Triumph triples. Years of blessedly brief encounters have confirmed this. Along with rotary Nortons and Harley-Davidsons, Triumph triples appear to inflame opinion in even the most resolutely disinterested folk. If you doubt this, write a story about a Triumph triple and talk some unwary editor into publishing it. Never fails.
By now you will have observed that the photos which are hopefully nearby do not show a Triumph triple. Correct. I was intending to write about a truly remarkable – and indeed excellent – T160 Trident but caught myself just in time. And there was of course a stumble along the way towards actually writing this story. In The Shed there lives a Triumph triple. A brash orange beast of a bike with ‘X-75’ stickers on the side and an imposing stack of three chromed silencers piled up together beneath the rider’s right cheek. These things – Hurricanes – are another source of uninformed commentary. What is it with Triumph triples? Except that this Triumph is a BSA through and
