Triumph’s rare all-rounder
Relief may seem an odd emotion to experience when letting rip on a Triumph twin, but that was my first feeling after hitting the road on this TR5T Trophy Trail, owned by Tony Page.
Like Tony, back in the day I had always hungered after one of these trail-oriented Meriden 500cc unit twins, with the engine housed in an oil-bearing frame derived from BSA’s B50MX big single. But the two examples I’d been lucky enough to road-test previously had somewhat deflated the dream. The first had seemed peaky, over-stressed and vibratory, with a frightening front brake, and road/trail compromise gearing which appeared to strangle the motor.
The next one was better, with the six-inch front brake working almost acceptably, but I still felt that the gearing, the engine’s mild cams and single, one inch carb, had tamed it for the trail rather too effectively. Triumph trials and scrambles ace Johnny Giles had once said: “The unit twin motor off-road was always too sharp, yet if we softened it, it was then too soft.”
A fine adventure
Tony’s TR5T fired up first kick, the low-level matt black silencer and chromed three-piece exhaust giving a deep beefy roar. And from the moment we hit the Surrey lanes, it was evident that this example was a different kettle of fish, as in, potential
