Levka on Nostr: nprofile1q…le56z I rode Bonnevilles for years. For a few years in the 1970s and ...
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I rode Bonnevilles for years. For a few years in the 1970s and 1980s I made my living restoring them. Brits are avid tinkerers, Americans are not. That's why Japanese bikes took over the market here. A lot of Americans bought Triumphs because they handled better than anything, but Triumphs needed tinkering. As soon as they died, lazy Americans would put an ad in the back of the paper. That's how it was done in those days. I'd pay him $2-300 bucks, throw it in the truck and haul it back to my workspace, where in most cases I could make it run in an hour for the cost of a piece of sand paper and an hour's work massaging the Lucas "Prince of Darkness" electrical system. It was usually the connectors. The components worked fine. I'd give it a bath, put a for sale sign on the tank and ride it around to various places where motorcycle enthusiasts (and wannabes) hung out, where I'd park it out front and nurse a beer till it sold. Usually it sold for $8-1100. While the supply of "dead" Triumphs lasted I usually managed to sell one or two a week.
Or I could have got a job in somebody else's shop and start at $9 per hour and workedmy way up to $16. I didn't do that. So by definition, I was a small business. It just wasn't on the books, that's all. I had one employee, me. I was pretty good at it, too, for which I credit excellent labor relations.
I'm seriously old now. I had a stroke a couple years ago. My balance is kind of wonky and I can't ride a bike. I can't even stand on one leg without holding on to something. I miss riding, but I'm glad to have survived. I rode in traffic for decades and never got myself killed, not even once. I broke a few bones, but nothing important.
What year is your Triumph? I'm guessing 1970 or 1971. When they started putting the oil in the frame, the handling suffered, but was still better than anything from Japan.
An interesting Triumph enthusiast taught me how to wrench on them:
https://thevintagent.com/2021/06/20/paladin-nobody-is-born-a-biker/
What a character he was. I rode a custom hardtail he designed for a few months. It not only had no rear shocks but sported a Cobra seat. I figured when I hit a pothole, I'd just post, but quickly found out I just wasn't quick enough, also there's a lot of potholes in the East Bay where I lived then. (I'm in San Francisco now). I couldn't see them coming sometimes. I sold that bike and went back to using rear shocks. That was three decades ago. By back still hurts.
I rode Bonnevilles for years. For a few years in the 1970s and 1980s I made my living restoring them. Brits are avid tinkerers, Americans are not. That's why Japanese bikes took over the market here. A lot of Americans bought Triumphs because they handled better than anything, but Triumphs needed tinkering. As soon as they died, lazy Americans would put an ad in the back of the paper. That's how it was done in those days. I'd pay him $2-300 bucks, throw it in the truck and haul it back to my workspace, where in most cases I could make it run in an hour for the cost of a piece of sand paper and an hour's work massaging the Lucas "Prince of Darkness" electrical system. It was usually the connectors. The components worked fine. I'd give it a bath, put a for sale sign on the tank and ride it around to various places where motorcycle enthusiasts (and wannabes) hung out, where I'd park it out front and nurse a beer till it sold. Usually it sold for $8-1100. While the supply of "dead" Triumphs lasted I usually managed to sell one or two a week.
Or I could have got a job in somebody else's shop and start at $9 per hour and workedmy way up to $16. I didn't do that. So by definition, I was a small business. It just wasn't on the books, that's all. I had one employee, me. I was pretty good at it, too, for which I credit excellent labor relations.
I'm seriously old now. I had a stroke a couple years ago. My balance is kind of wonky and I can't ride a bike. I can't even stand on one leg without holding on to something. I miss riding, but I'm glad to have survived. I rode in traffic for decades and never got myself killed, not even once. I broke a few bones, but nothing important.
What year is your Triumph? I'm guessing 1970 or 1971. When they started putting the oil in the frame, the handling suffered, but was still better than anything from Japan.
An interesting Triumph enthusiast taught me how to wrench on them:
https://thevintagent.com/2021/06/20/paladin-nobody-is-born-a-biker/
What a character he was. I rode a custom hardtail he designed for a few months. It not only had no rear shocks but sported a Cobra seat. I figured when I hit a pothole, I'd just post, but quickly found out I just wasn't quick enough, also there's a lot of potholes in the East Bay where I lived then. (I'm in San Francisco now). I couldn't see them coming sometimes. I sold that bike and went back to using rear shocks. That was three decades ago. By back still hurts.