Al,
Well the love of my life(okay, the mechanical one...not the living one, namely: wife) started out as a 1970 Bonneville T120. The guy that I bought it from in 1997 told me it was a basket-case that he had picked up around 1993 and he had wanted to make a dirttracker out of it. He had a couple of the guys at L.A.Triumph start working on it about 1996. At the time, L.A. Triumph had just recently opened for business selling the new to USA, Hinckley Triumphs, and as a side business was for a short time rebuilding old Meriden Triumphs. The ironic thing is that I watched the bike being reborn when I'd drop by the shop to have my '95 Sprint serviced. I would ask if the bike was for sell, but Bob and Adrian who were building it, would say, "Nope, sorry Dwight. this rich guy's having us build it for him. He's got us using the best of everything on this puppy. He must have at least 10-11 grand in it already."
I remember being there the day they finished it and rolled it out into the showroom. It was a thing of beauty! It kind'a broke my heart to know that this bike would be residing in some other guy's garage and not mine.
However, fate is a quirky thing.
A little over a year later, I was riding with the So.Cal Norton club on a run to see the Otis Chandler Car and Motorcycle Museum in Oxnard, Ca. I had just finished looking at one terrific collection of machinery and I walked outside to see a guy in a pickup with this very bike in the bed of the truck. He had a For Sell sign attached to it.
It turned out that he lived in a huge house in the Naples section of Long Beach with a canal boat dock attached to the back of the house. However this beautiful house only had a two-car garage. He had already in his garage the requisite Harley RoadKing, a beautiful old Ducati SS750, two dirtbikes and a humongous SUV of some kind. Ron(my ultimate benefactor) said that he had just bought a Jag XK8 for his wife and he needed room to park it, so he would reluctantly have to sell the triumph and the dirtbikes to make room for the Jag.
I think he took pity on me, for after I came back from a short evaluation ride, he could see that I was in love. He wanted 6 grand for it, but I had only 5 to spend. He said that he would sell it to me for the 5 because he said that he could trust me to take very good care of her.
Over the years I've changed a few things on her, must noticeably the front brake, the tail-section/seat, mirrors and some of the paint. Bob and Adrian did a great job on the engine as it's been a very reliable bike. But riding it is absolutely one of my great joys. It handles better than most modern bikes due to it weighing only 340lbs WET. That's about 40lbs lighter than a stock Bonnie of the same vintage. Many parts on it like the forks(Baders from a Bultaco) and rear hub(also Bultaco), aluminum and fibreglass shortened fenders make it a light and powerful(and torquey) wonder.
Dwight
(Sorry, this has run on for far too long. I'll tell you about the '69 El Camino another time, if you'd like)
