REDEFINING A LEGEND
The magical moment happened one morning as I approached a roundabout on a dual-carriageway somewhere in Suffolk. The sun burst out from behind a cloud just as I came up behind a white van in the outside lane, flicked the Speed Twin into the left lane, and left my braking late to send the Triumph effortlessly past on the inside while I trod down three gears to the accompaniment of a deliciously deep crackle and pop from its silencers.
Three light nudges of the bars send the Speed Twin cranking firstly left on to the roundabout; then right to carve halfway round it; then left again to flick back on to the main road and away. As I wound back the throttle the bike responded with spine-tingling enthusiasm: punching hard in third gear from below 4000rpm, shooting forward urgently with a gloriously characterful parallel-twin feel and exhaust bark.
A handful of seconds and a couple of smooth upshifts later - hunched forward slightly into the wind, sun now glinting off the tank, and that van already forgotten - I glanced
