Yes Emily

Yes Emily, girls can ride motorcycles!


Sunday, March 3, 2013


"Tour de Garages" -  Post 12: The Triumph Trident

Coop - You got it! It is a 1971 Triumph Trident and I have to say I liked this bike best. It wasn’t hot, it wasn’t sexy, I liked it simply because Ken’s 10 year old “To-Do” list was still stuck to the gas tank, and it gave me a chuckle. Ken has (almost) completely rebuilt this motorcycle since he bought it: a project that started out as simply wanting to “tidy up” a small oil leak. We’ve all been there … and one thing just leads to another. Doesn’t matter what the project is, before you know it the entire thing has been torn to shreds.


Ken finished the rebuild (almost) in 2003.  When he gets those last little jobs on the “to do list” finished he may even start it up.

The Trident was ready for production in 1964 but Triumph didn’t actually start production until 1968. Unfortunately for Triumph, Honda unveiled their “ground breaking” 750, 4 cylinder model the same year and the Trident just couldn’t compete. Still, according to Ken, the Trident was the British superbike of the late 60s and 70s and “its sister bike, the BSA Rocket 3 was good enough to win the Daytona 200 in 1971.”  (Honda won the 200 with the 750 in 1970 and Ken was in Daytona to witness both races, so many years ago.)

And we haven't run out of bikes yet ... this is a?


6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the Trident pics Karen, I'm a big fan. I wasn't at Daytona for the win, but I was in the UK to watch them in the Transatlantic match races. The noise gave me goosebumps!

    The quiz is a real hard one! Going out on a limb, is it a Norton Commando? Only very few of them had the brake calipers at the front.

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    1. This one is not British ... it also is not the original colour. The stripes on the fender were, originally, blue (if that helps?)

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  2. My eyes zeroed in right away on the oil cooler, then other things started confirming the Trident.

    Let's see, Brembo's, rusty cast iron discs, fiberglass fender? It's Italian.

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  3. It should be more familiar to me than it is :)

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  4. Coop you have an incredible eye for detail - I'm sure it's the colour that has thrown you off as well. It had blue stripes originally.

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