A great tale for a cold night

[Blackbird]

This is a great biker tale written by an old school friend living in England. Rick was the financial manager for a UK company and whether he was tight-arsed as befits his profession or simply a traditionalist, the great love of his life was an early 1970’s Triumph Trident. It must have been the incredible wail from its 3-cylinder motor as there wasn’t much else endearing about it. His long-suffering wife was forever trailering the thing home from different parts of the countryside when its Lucas electrics failed for the umpteenth time. He was even on first name terms with all the AA patrolmen in both his county and surrounding ones.

In his early 50’s, (a middle age crisis, one presumes) he went completely nuts and bought a Honda Fireblade! Not being content with such a radical departure from his Triumph, he elected to ride from England to Prague with some mates!

This is Rick’s superb tale and a good example of age being no barrier to riding fast - enjoy!

Geoff

[Motu]

My wife had a 71 Trident - I just loved to ride behind her,what an incredible noise - the only things that sounded like them were commer TS3s and Fodens...both 2 stroke diesels.

oh,ps - good story - hard keeping up with looney mates.

[LB]

My wife had a 71 Trident - I just loved to ride behind her,what an incredible noise - the only things that sounded like them were commer TS3s and Fodens...both 2 stroke diesels.

oh,ps - good story - hard keeping up with looney mates.

or perhaps Rocket 3's??? (yeah, they have such a distinctive sound - lovely)

[vifferman]

Or maybe even the 3-cylinder Laverda? P'raps?

[LB]

No, the 3c's and Jotas sounded quite different. The Tridents and Rocket 3's have this sort of whine to them, very unique.

[Blackbird]

I was in the UK when the factory Tridents and Rocket 3's were racing on open megaphones and the sound was incredible. The MV's and Honda 6's etc simply didn't measure up in terms of sound quality. One of the Triumph development engineers, Norm Hyde, used to drag race a supercharged nitro-burner and that WAS noisy

Incidentally, I was in Chch a a few weeks ago and went into a vintage car showroom opposite the bus station for a nosey. There's a racing Trident replica in there for sale, complete with Rob North frame, Norm Hyde head and all the biz. Painted in factory colours too.

Geoff

[Motu]

Laverda gave up on the 120deg crank and went for a 180deg job,so they sound like a 4cyl with a plug lead removed.Contery to popular belief a triple is one of the worst balanced motors there is - static balance is fine as you'd expect,but when running the forces are all over the show - stand back from a GT750 and you can just about see the thing dancing around.The Daihatsu Charade had a balance shaft,but still felt rough at idle - it had a big bore exhaust and with the turbo felt like a Trident to drive????

An inline 6 is two 3cyls coupled together which cancles out the imbalance,same as a 4cyl is two twins together.

Anyway - I reckon the Trident/Rocket 3 was one of the best sounding bikes ever made,and you had to be riding one to get the full effect - I remember when my wife came back from her road test on the Trident (it was Ian Norton's) with a big grin on her face...''I don't care what you say,but I'm having this!!!''