FRANK WESTWORTH
I hope that I’ve never shied away from my gently decreasing interest in owning a Triumph Bonneville. It’s not that I don’t like them, or even that I don’t occasionally enjoy riding them, but the bitter truth is that I prefer riding later Meriden twins which belong to someone else. It’s a good job that I have this particular good job, then; a job that allows me to ride other folks’ bikes!
The first Bonnie I owned was a 1975 T140V, one of the Meriden ‘lock-in’ machines with a right foot gearchange and a disc front brake balanced by a drum on the back. It was by far and away the most expensive machine in my life at that time, and was certainly the newest, being under a year old when I bought it in the summer of ’76. We did not get along, with continuous minor calamities which profoundly undermined my initial delight at being the proud custodian of such a glorious machine. In the end it became so difficult that I bought a 1959 G9 Matchless and a 1961 Wolseley 1500 so that I could keep my job.
Since those unhappy days, lots of Triumph twins have passed through The (various) Sheds. Some were really nice bikes, with a TR65 and a Royal Bonneville standing out proudly, but none of them was a keeper. I failed to buy a truly worn-out TSX of fond memory, mainly because I shorted out its battery by sitting on the seat. Remember that there should be an insulating rubber pad resting atop the sparky accumulator, which prevents the steel seat base from applying
