Some moments are more memorable than others. Trust me on this. I ride lots of bikes (hurrah for me, so forth) and some of them really do stand out, unforgettable for some reason; some for good reasons, others less so. But last year's outstanding moment involved sitting aboard the one and only Triumph Quadrent, outside a restorative Shropshire Starbucks, with a four-cylinder Trident engine idling beneath me. I kept on looking down, confirming again and again that the wide machine beneath me was indeed a Triumph. A unique Triumph. A very special indeed Triumph.
I pulled in the clutch, felt its diaphragm spring rise and fall overcentre and clicked it into gear. It felt familiar, and so long as I didn't look down and wore singularly effective earplugs I could have been aboard a Trident - aT160 Trident. But I was not. This was entirely something different. Time to raise the revs and ease out the clutch…
More of that in a minute. This is a story about two men; John Young, who you've met before in these pages, and George Pooley, who you've probably not. John is one of those slightly terrifying two-wheeled fiends who rides impossible distances on improbable motorcycles, and you can read all about possibly his most improbable motorcycle - a Triumph T150 Trident - in RC209. George is someone I've never met - but have heard a lot about - who has built some seriously improbable motorcycles, one of them a 10OOcc four-pot take on Triumph's excellent T160 Trident. This tale is about George's Triumph, christened the Quadrent, and John's ride aboard it from John O'Groats to Land's End (eventually).
And I got a spin on the machine as well. As I said earlier, a memorable experience indeed.
If you have somehow never heard of Mr Pooley's machine, I shall attempt a little explanation. I say'attempt'because I have no idea at all how folk can be so skilled that they can take a 3-cylinder engine, convert it into a 4-cylinder engine, and then build it into a bicycle for riding purposes. And - dare I say it - his Quadrent is a rather more impressive machine than Triumph's own attempt at the same thing the Quadrant. Keep up now. Spelling is important.
John's question was rather different. He wanted to
