Tearaway triples
It must be in the genes. How else could three bikes from different continents and decades produce such a similar effect on the rider? Whichever one of these three I wheel out of the garage, it’s always the same story; we start off nice and sensibly, enjoying the sunshine and smelling the hedgerows, but before long the pace hots up a bit. Then it hots up a bit more. Then… you get the picture.
Singles with their big flywheels are great for relaxing trundles. Twins generally seem happiest to settle into a canter at one particular engine speed, while fours seem equally happy at any speed. Triples though, in my experience, are just mad things. Even on a moderate throttle they seem to make a lunge for the redline, then up a gear and the whole thing happens again until you run out of gears, road or bravado. You may not want to ride one every day of the week but, on the occasions that you want maximum grin factor, nothing else will do.
1975 TRIUMPH T150V
So much has already been written about the history and the foibles of the air-cooled triples by folk with a lot more knowledge than me that it would be pointless to try and cover it again. I do wonder if part of the attraction of the T150 is the sense of riding a piece of history. It’s an emotional connection rather than a rational judgement; an awareness of the model’s protracted birth, the numerous race wins, the troubled industrial backdrop of the bikes locked away inside Meriden, and so on.
Having said that, it surprises me how often people mistake my Trident for the much more common T140. I suppose the silencers and many of the cycle parts look
