Featured What you been doing with your TRIUMPH today??

Today I replaced my clutch cable on my 2018 Speedmaster. It's done 26,000 miles and for at least half of that the rubber gator over the inline adjuster has been split, so probably letting in water. I've been meaning to do this for ages, and carry old cable as a spare, and was finally prompted into action by a friend having a cable failure.

On removing the clamp for the cables I found the protecting sheath over the indicator wires was badly cracked


That sheath isn't at all flexible and I patched it with 2 sorts of tape as I've already had to do where the cable goes into the indicator housing.

With new cable fitted and lever pivot cleaned and greased it was time for a test ride to enjoy the sun and a silky smooth clutch

 

New seat, screen, farkle installed!


Farkle (Motone) looks nice.

Dart Classic screen works well up to 60-65 mph. After that not much help. I do like the look on the bike though, especially the dark tint.

New Motone Seat:

Good - Looks nice, seems well made, the little scoop to the seat along with the slightly tacky material keeps me planted in one place. It's also narrower than the stock bench which helps me and my shortish legs.

Not so good - Right now it's quite firm. Hope that breaks in. Also, not crazy about the little gap between front of the seat and the tank. I made sure it was as far forward as it would go, but doesn't fit quite as flush as the stock seat.

Thoughts?

 

Knew Sunday was going to be a no-ride-possible day so I was anxious to get in some Friday and Saturday; trouble was Friday was eaten up with tasks and Saturday forecasted to be 100% rain.

HH thought I was a little silly to insist on riding Friday afternoon the dozen roundtrip miles to pick up our take-and-bake pizzas (to fuel home pizza and movie night with the 12- and 14-year old). He was doubtful I could successfully strap them on my bike..."They'll get squashed when you tie them down." "You'll crash messing around trying to keep them on." "Just take the minivan." Not in my best defense I offered up the point that I'd once wasted a pizza in the minivan when it fell off the seat and then out the door when I opened it and didn't catch it in time before it flopped upside down on the pavement...oops. Realizing that wasn't the best point I could have offered all I could do was laugh and assure him I'd let the pizzas go before I'd impair my riding. And if I couldn't adequately strap them on I'd just fold them in half and stuff them in my panniers.

Pizzas wrapped, strapped and delivered home without incident


Trouble was this short ride only whet my appetite for more to take advantage of the gorgeous weather. Convinced HH to go on a ride-about before pizza and movie. Invited our son to ride pillion for the first time...had to clip and peel the tags off his helmet and I helped him do it up. First time he's worn it except to try it on. He rode with HH and was so excited and loving it he kept pointing out all kinds of roadside sights as if he'd never noticed things previously. Ahhh, yes, riding does let you interact with the scenery in a new way that car-riding doesn't allow.

Started to cool off a little on the last third of the ride so I was concerned Son might be chilly; HH had worn his perforated gloves and his hands were definitely chilled. Sixty miles later we pulled in the drive and Son had nothing but positive comments and a huge smile. I was surprised how late it suddenly seemed and that's when I realized I'd never changed my bike clock when the time changed. Oops. Guess dinner will be a little late. No complaints...pizza baked and movie watched...



Saturday was a crazy day...torrential rain in the morning and thought it was supposed to rain all day. Was bummed when I came out of a store I'd lingered in since it was raining but found the sun was shining...I'd wasted time shopping when we could have been riding!? Hustled home and worked on convincing a highly-doubtful HH we needed to take advantage of the break in the weather (I adore this man).

Yes, you know where this is going... the first part was fine but about 15 miles from home we realized we were going to get absolutely dumped on. No use pulling over to wait it out since it seemed it'd go on and on. Had to put my visor up for most of it because there was too much water obscuring my view. HH heard some strongly worded assessments of the rain pelting my face as he followed me with the same situation. Certainly not the first time we'd ridden in rain but it'd been a long time and this was no ordinary rain. I was cautious about leaning turns because I really had no idea how far I could take it with this much water on the roads and tires I'm not really sure of (partially due to comments about them on the forum).

A mile from home it slacked off then quit and we pulled in the drive soaked. It was good practice but not looking to repeat it anytime soon. I stopped to wipe down my bike before I stripped off my wet gear...for some reason that made HH laugh...yes, HH, bike comes first. All in all we laughed and counted it a good ride.

 

Seat looks really nice. Always love the black and white bikes and your T120 is gorgeous. Good to know the screen isn't useful above 60-ish. About 65-70mph is when I start wishing I had one but hesitant to splurge and experiment with one that ends up not being useful to me.

 

It's a T100 but thank you! The Classic screen I still prefer to no screen, but I think for long Interstate rides I would prefer a larger touring screen.

Pizza looks delish!

 

I stole my wife’s bike (it’s faster and better in the twists than my Scrambler 1200 XE), took a half day off work and blasted to The Blue Ridge Parkway. Here’s to a better year ahead.

 

I have both the Dart Classic and Dart Marlin screens in the attic gathering dust. I found that they kept the wind force off my torso at speed, meaning less effort holding on to the handlebars, but that benefit wasn't worth the the noise and buffeting from the turbulence around my head.

I ride a 2018 Speedmaster with 'normal' handlebars fitted (rather than the stock beach bars).

 

Love reading your ride reports etc. It's like reading a book. Usually you get "went out on the (insert bike), went to (insert town), it rained". Keep them coming.

 

Took it to work

 

went out for a coffee

 

Put a new (loudish) pipe on

 

After kitchen chores prepairing stuffed pork loin (it's a national holiday here today, celebrating the king's birthday) to go on the BBQ tonight, I thought I'd check my tyre pressure, as speedy had been sliding a bit lately. Well, I found out why - 1,4 bar of pressure in the rear tyre... All sussed now, 2,5 front and 2,9 rear, as if on rails again!

 

By the way, pork worked out well...

 

Ride out to the Churchill Arms for a cuppa and stopped off for pics on the way home

 

That's what I get for using a tiny screen...saw the "carburetor" and it looks like what's on the 2020 T120s whereas my T100 has a different cover and the paint pattern is what's like the 2020 T120s. That "T100" script on the bike would have clued me in (and puzzled me) had I not been using my tiny screen. Anyway, love the black and white and the T100.

 

Thanks, @brown mouse, for the screen info. That's what I'm trying to avoid...a storage area of stuff that didn't work out. Even with that, I'm thinking I might give the Madstad screen a try.

 

Thanks, @andypandy. Sometimes not sure the extra commentary is appreciated but it's how it tumbles out.

 

Took my '93 Daytona 750 to my favoured MoT tester (TREEN's in Crediton) by trailer on Tuesday - mainly because I'd recently attempted to remove some fairing panels to make the job of replacing a badly split oil feed pipe a bit easier. Unfortunately, fate intervened and the fairing screws decided they weren't going to play ball so I thought I'd get Clive at Treens to sort the fairing screws out, replace the pipe and MoT the bike ready for the riding "year" ahead! I'm a loyal member of the 'fair weather rider' cohort so, in this country, a riding year usually equates to a riding 'quarter'! That quarter then gets split between four or five road legal bikes and becomes a few riding days! <SIGH> The things one has to sacrifice for the artifice of keeping a motorcycle clean and dry ..........

Any road up, m'duck - back to the story, morning glory.

I absolutely hate, loathe and detest seeing my bike on a trailer bouncing around in my rear view mirror so I decided that, when the work was completed, I'd ride it home as it's still insured and the MOT was a booked appointment so no road tax needed for the journey - happy days. Being a (self assumed) smart @rse I planned to take my Street Triple down for its MoT; collect the Daytona and ride it home! Great idea! The Street ran like the champ that it is and I enjoyed a nice ride down the Exe valley rather than the motorway.

Got the lowdown on the repairs from Clive; went to start up the bike and it ran like a dog! Running on two and sounded like it was misfiring on one of those two!! On Clive's advice, I let it run on choke for a while then it seemed to clear itself slightly at higher revs. so I assumed it might have been a pilot jet partially blocked and might have cleared. ASS. U. ME. Yep, it ran like crap at low revs, wasn't too bad if kept revving at higher revs and was sublime once revved to the higher reaches of the tacho. but, since that entailed some rather illegal speeds and I didn't particularly want the attention of the boys in blue, I kept the speed in check ... ermmm ... by and large! The handling of this bike belies its size, weight and age and I had an enjoyable ride back ...... until I got to a T junction about a mile from home, where I was turning left. Rolled to a crawl, checked the traffic - all clear, went to pull away and the bike bogged completely! I lost momentum and just about got my left foot down but .... too late! The laws of physics intervened and old age succumbed to those laws and the weight of the bike. I'd forgotten just how heavy (and top heavy) the old T3s are, especially when it's got clip ons and it's difficult to lever upwards against the weight of the bike. Down it went. OH THE SHAME! I was, fortunately, helped to pick the bike up as it didn't seem to want to change its unnatural recumbent position at the side of the road!

The damage was relatively minor - front indicator broken (I have a couple of spare 'repros' as the originals are no longer available) and some slight scratches to the left middle fairing section. Oh, and immeasurable damage to my pride and self respect! I'll have to try to get the indicator fixed as I've booked the bike back in to TREEN's to have the carbs pulled, ultrasonically cleaned and new pilot jets fitted - but I've got a week and half to sort that out with a bodge of some sort.

In the meantime, I did get back to Treens to collect my Street Triple - this time on the '96 Speed Triple ready for its MoT! What a palaver.



The Daytona before its fateful journey.

 

clean it once a week with a satin wax from angelwax, spray on wipe off, 10 mins...... only had it a month or so but i do keep my bikes mint.....

 

test riding, stripping carbs n checking float heights,, bigger pilots test n ride