Triumphrat

1stgarry · 09-07-2006

Went to a local Triumph owners club meet last night. Mostly old farts with old Triumphs, and most of 'em turned up in cars (despite the good riding conditions) !!!!

Anyway, met another Thruxton owner who only lived a short way from me, so we had a cracking blat back home along with a speed triple. The ride was dual carriage way with plenty of roundabouts. Time was around 10 - 10.30pm so not much traffic on the roads.

The entire ride was spent up near the red line and cranking it over at the roundabouts, then blasting past each other just to hear the TOR exhausts. Now I know what my bike sounds like

When I got to bed it took me ages to get to sleep because I was still buzzing from the ride. That's what makes the obsession worthwhile

tham · 09-07-2006

Quote:

On 2006-09-07 07:56, 1stgarry wrote:
Went to a local Triumph owners club meet last night. Mostly old farts with old Triumphs, and most of 'em turned up in cars (despite the good riding conditions) !!!!

hahahaha........Similair experience.I... had shown up to a few of the local "Ducati Club" rides on some seriously beautiful riding days....& they would show up in cars, or on their morning jog.
Excuses ranged from "I don't ride on the street"," its broken", "all my bikes are set up for the track".......bahhhhhh!...

(To be fair..some of them ride alot & very well I might add.

Nice story...funny*****...

:-D

[ This message was edited by: tham on 2006-09-07 09:25 ]

09-07-2006

Cool! I'm buying one for exactly this reason. Time to get back into a bike where you can have a laugh at saner speeds, and has a bit of character. My mate has just bought a tiny Monster for the same reason. Unreal that the blokes turned up in cars though. I once rode through 2 inches of snow for 20km to turn up to a bike display in France. I was the only one that did though. I had no car at the time admittedly, or I wouldn't have bothered.

What do you reckon to your TORs then? A local dealer has offered a 'stage 1' type 'tune' by removing AI, TORs and Dynojet kit, will cost around the equivalent of ca. 400 quid. I know. I know, I'm thinking of souping it up already :-D , it's just I reckon it could breathe a bit easier and sound a lot nicer. Did you ride it stock? Worth another 10% of the price?
BTW I used to be a Box Hill regular. Sundays and Thursday nights, Chelsea Bridge Friday nights. Now out of the country and it's about the only thing I miss.

1stgarry · 09-08-2006

I really like the TORS. Can't think why anyone would want to keep the standard pipes, they are so quiet you can hear yourself think (which isn't a good thing in my case :-D !

There's a campaign building up (amongst the legislators) to crack down on aftermarket exhausts. the police over here are pulling anyone with loud pipes. We had a police van park up at a local bike meet and just wait for bikes to leave, any that were deemed to be loud (or were fitted with loud aftermarket pipes) got pulled and fined.
Don't want to lose my licence so the TORS are just about right - loud enough to let me know it's a Brit twin and make me smile, but not enough to get plod's attention!!

The Thruxton is still under warranty (till next April) so I haven't removed the AI yet, but it is top of my list for Easter

Box Hill is still a cool place to hang out, but the police do spend a lot of time there these days, so not as much fun as it used to be.

Chelsea Bridge meet has been outlawed by the police. Residents in nearby newly built penthouse flats have complained about the noise, and as you know, money talks. The police have banned the meeting now!!! The few have spoilt it for the many, FFS :evil: :evil:

Bury Hill is growing as a meeting place for bikes, just north of Arundel and away from any towns so not to congested and noise isn't too much of an issue, and some great twisty roads to blat around

09-08-2006

Can't believe that about Chelsea Bridge. How can they 'ban' it? They tried before to make it illegal to park on the pavement, but it would be tricky to ticket 100+ bikes...? No reaction from bikers? Outrageous.

I suppose the car cruise around the park is banned too? Crazy. ***** property effing prices obsessed little England. Don't feel as bad about having left now.
:evil:

I don't know Bury Hill, but we used to spin down to Newland's Corner a lot too. Less bikes meant less attention = more freedom. I can still remember when the dual carriageway down to Box Hill was chevronned into a single. Of course they made the chevrons pretty lumpy to make it hard to use that lane anyway.

Thanks for the TOR recommendation. Am hoping to pick up a nice looking 2nd hand black one as soon as the busa sells. Typically, the main interest I have is from a bloke that wants to ride it back to Beirut. :hammer: Why not just some normal bloke? It's never simple.

Being in CH it's important that the pipes don't attract too much attention. It's a ban here for meddling with stock exhausts. Only approved ones are the Sharks, which sound nice, but I'm not too sure of the look. The Thruxton I test rode had a set of high level Sharks on it. It was great to burn my thighs at traffic lights. Almsot beats the smell of two stroke.... :razz: