@HelmutVisor and I both went to a local bike meet on out Triumphs (Helmut’s is filthy because he went to Ride To The Wall yesterday!). To cut a long story short it used to be primarily a bike meet, turned into a car / bike meet where the bikes got pushed into a separate car park out of the way, the atmosphere went downhill and very few bikes came. For various reasons, the person who used to organise the “car” side has taken that elsewhere so this is back to being mainly bikes, with cars welcome - but car owners who dislike the “car scene”. It was great - lovely atmosphere, music, a pizza oven man making mini pizzas, lots of interesting bikes and Zoe Cano https://www.zoecano.com/ there chatting to people and selling some of her books. I bought her latest book and a copy for my stepdaughter (Helmut’s daughter) who has just passed her test; both signed.
There were some great bikes there - my favourites were the rather lovely blue and white Daytona (I have a real soft spot for them) and the Indian FTR which had been heavily styled / modified, it just looked fun (as did the Grom in Repsol colours, ridden by a 17 year old lad who had come with his Dad on his Tracer). Helmut was rather taken by the Aprilia Tuono Nero and the Indian too.
Oh I do miss my Daytona… if I had the cash I would have another one, just to sit in the shed and have the occasional sunday blast on. Not a practical bike but so so lovely
Burnt something was the name of that colour. I can’t remember now but it is gorgeous! That picture looks more bright yellow than I remember, I always remember it being a more off yellow
Edit… duh, the colour is named on the picture and I was wrong
The one today was like this (it was in a row of bikes, so no good photo - plus I was not the photographer and one of us likes Daytonas a whole lot more than the other one ):
The blue is beautiful! It was really dark but when you seen it in the sun it was lush! It was only on the non R, the R was black and white with a red sub frame. You don’t see many now, well not over here anyway and they aren’t that old. 2013-14 was when that model was available.
That worked smoothly but second bearing didn’t quite seat tight enough, so used press kit as it was intended and gave it a gentle tap with hammer which seated it perfectly.
Now waiting for new bearings to arrive which I’ll hopefully fit right this time…
Commute today for me. A chilly 4c when I set off with the sun not coming up until I was well on my way to work - it was a lovely sunrise, but also a reminder that it won’t be too long until I am taking advantage of the buttock - warming properties of the heated seats in my car as the route to work is a twisty, unlit, flooding and debris - prone one in the main so doing it in darkness would not offer much in the way of fun. Lovely mild, dry return journey .
Still waiting for front wheel bearings to arrive so for something productive to do thought I’d give the underside of the mudguard a thorough clean, being as it was off bike, then did a couple of coats of Hammerite spray paint to protect the rusty patches a bit.
I got this back today from the engineering chaps. I really thought it was unrepairable due to the amount of rust on all the journals but they’ve done an amazing job and have only ground by 20 thou. Proper pleased…
The rods are toast though but they used them and some shells to get the sizing correct. The timing side oil seal fits as snug as a rug as well now even though a previous dismantler had hammered it into a mushroom.
I so thought it wasn’t going to be good for anything other than a doorstop I hadn’t cleaned out the sludge trap…eeeek, that’s nasty
Not today but at the weekend I managed to re-arrange my first IAM observed ride. I’d already deferred the ride because of the state of the roads after the crap weather on Friday but both the roads and the forecast were looking good for Saturday afternoon and the assigned observer was willing to re-schedule so an afternoon meet was agreed.
All went well until the ride route took us west out of Tivvy towards Mid Devon and Witheridge. It pimply sissed it down and a road closure meant a turnround and return to Tivvy for the ride debrief.
Nope, don’t have one showing just how filthy it was and wouldn’t care to show it if I did have one!
But a couple of hours effort in the gloamin of Saturday’s fading sun returned some stability to my equilibrium and probably helped wash away some of the nervous tension built up by the debrief following the ride.
That’s a beautiful thunderbird, I always liked them. I had one as loan bike in the 90’s and even enjoyed the backfiring. It’s a shame triumph dropped them and concentrated on just the bonnies, I thought they’d carved out their own niche, not trying to be a modern incarnation of an old bike, just a new interpretation of a classic.
Don’t worry too much about the weather on your observed rides. I started my IAM in October and it was usually wet - took the test in early February and had to cope with floods and it snowing!
Thanks Andy. It definitely looks nicer when it’s clean and polished!
Thanks wattie! Your loan bike probably had TORs on! AFAIK the silencers on mine are the originals. I think I’m going to have to remove them and have them rechromed - if that’s possible - as they’re showing signs of micro-pitting especially on the top surface.
The TBS is a great looking bike and it reminds me a lot of the T160 with the ‘forward slant’ engine and upswept silencers. For a 23 year old bike this one IS in very good condition, though a recorded mileage of around 7,000 means it hasn’t been much abused and overused in its life to date. The problem now is finding original spec. replacements for anything that does need to be replaced - it’s a common theme across the T300 range of bikes, unfortunately.
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