Featured What you been doing with your TRIUMPH today??

I booked a day’s leave today to generally get excited about my (now cancelled) little mini tour I had planned for myself this weekend. There was a small window of sunny / light showery weather this morning so I went on the bike to drop some new gloves I got free with my Roadskin jeans to their new owner (nice to pay things forward) and then just went for coffee. Only 30 or so miles but a nice little outing all the same. I took the Triumph because it was still at the front of the garage mainly .

Poor little Striple was lonely in the car park on it's own for a few minutes until a few more bikes turned up.

 

A few hours in the garage yesterday led to a new tail tidy being produced for the Street Twin .

2nd pic is a quick mock-up with the bits hand nipped into place.





This will be satin black powdercoated to fit in with the rest of the bike.

 

That looks a nice tidy piece of garage work, well done

 

Thank you @FellZebra
Here's a rear view.
After these pics I added a stiffener to brace the fold where it disappears under the seat. My mate "lost" his bought tail tidy on a 675r after it failed through metal fatigue and it snapped off. The company did replace it, but it does make you wonder what the testing regimes are for these products.

 

How disappointing for your mate or anyone who has a failure of a bought part. And yeah, who approves those items as fit for purpose!!
Your bracing up looks fully functional though

 

Dude, is your number plate A little crooked?

 

The failed item in question was an R&G tail tidy and it's failure took the rear hugger out.
He was very lucky as it could have had him off or worse.
He sensed something at the back end not right but it was only when he arrived home did the extent of damage become apparent. The numberplate etc had gone and the hugger had a chunk out of it.
He complained and was apparently told " it must be an old one if metal" oh well being old makes it alright then????
They had changed to a plastic design, so the question has to be why?

 

No, its just mocked up together with bolts finger tight as stated in my previous post.
It's now stripped back out and ready for powdercoating

 

That looks like a nice piece of work and quite sturdy, @Eldon. But I just can't ever quite get over how huge your license / number plates are!

 

Mr. Sandi and I awoke this morning to another beautiful day--sunny and in the mid-60sºF. After we had our coffee and walked Ellie, the Boxer, it was in the low 70sº when we rode to meet our Sunday ride group. Today's group was very small at four riders. Actually, that was sort of nice for a change, and made it easy to chose a route and breakfast destination. We opted to ride north to Oracle and the Oracle Patio Cafe. They only have outdoor seating and today was a perfect day for brekkie on the patio.

I chose my Speed Triple RS as my ride for the day and Mr. Sandi and our buddies were all on Harleys. Speedy is a good choice for this route, particularly the dog leg part of the ride that we add on after we're done eating. It's fairly short but has great twisties.

We were sad to see that the motorcycle repair shop (the orange building) has closed. We'd heard that the gentleman who owned it decided to retire but couldn't find a buyer for his business.



This was parked outside the restaurant. There's more than one kind of Bonnie out there. But this one is definitely not a Triumph!





The restaurant added some shade structures over the patio a year or so ago. So even though it wasn't hot today, the shade is always welcome since the sun is so darned bright. And once the temperatures go up--which will be very soon--sitting in the sun without shade to have breakfast would be a deal-breaker.





I had the quiche special which was delicious--green chili, corn, and cheddar plus a raspberry lemon scone and a side of fruit.



I forgot to check the temperature in Oracle while we were there. But it was probably five or six degrees cooler than this. This was Oracle's temp when I pulled into our garage.



And this was the Tucson temperature when I arrived home. Interestingly, the reading on my Triumph's screen in Tucson on the way home never got over 80ºF and read between 76-78. Does anyone reading this know anything about the accuracy of Triumph's ambient air temperature readings??



And when I pulled into the garage my bike read 79ºF. Go figure... A nice little 89-mile ride today!

 

Nor can we; the police were out and about measuring them yesterday in a few places where bikers congregate too as they sometimes do.

 

Can't like that.

 

@Sandi T sshhh don't tell anyone, but that's not the full regulation size as it's just for photograph use only

The digits are the correct size (all thicknesses and gaps are as specified) but there is a grey area over the plates external dimensions.

 

Nearly right..... all in the name of financial gain!!!!

Rob the road users any way possible: As the registered owner you have to disclose who was operating the vehicle at the time of the offence otherwise the ticket is yours.

Dress it up how they like, the fact still remains.
I was on the M1 (motorway) today and went passed my old stomping ground. I nearly got caught out on cruise control at 67 mph in a 70 limit all because of ......?

Yep, a 60 mph limit for "Air Quality" trials.
Was there any real reason to slow down;
like traffic- nope
accident - nope
other road SAFETY issue - nope

Air quality in Sheffield of all places!
The M1 passes on the East side of Sheffield, so I once asked a friend who lives there, why are the houses more expensive on the western side?
Apparently its historical and down to UK prevailing winds taking steelworks smog over to the East.

God help us.

 

Where's the don't like emogie.

 

Indeed.

Treasure Island at it's finest.

 

Been packing and getting fuel ready to set off and meet @andypandy, then heading south to Poole. Tomorrow catch the ferry to France for 10 days.

 

There's a little bit of urban myth - and complacency - around motorcycle number plate sizes here in the UK.

The normal standard size is 9" X 7" (or 230 X 178 mms) and there are statutory regulations around the dimensions for character size; stroke and spacing BUT ...... those regulations would permit a LEGAL plate size of, for example, 6.8 X 6.4 inches if you could afford to buy and assign a personalised VRN of, say, ABC 1 to your chosen machine - regardless of its age and year of registration. The plate would still need to conform to the required dimensions for character size and spacing and it would also still need to display the manufacturer's name and post code and the appropriate British Standard mark, but it wouldn't have to be the "normal" air brake size that new vehicles are likely to have fitted when new.

There are also regulations about things like borders, character 'colouring' & etc., but that's beside the point I think.

Oh, and if the vehicle was manufactured after 1/1/1980 the plate MUST be reflective yellow.

 

Nice ride in the beautiful but crisp weather Roads were slippery in the shady/green areas and some surface water. , but great to get out after storms and floods

 

Had an evening run out on the SS and discovered the tank range, 157 miles on a full tank before running dry. Since the last panic buying fuel "shortage" I now carry a litre bottle of fuel along with the padlock, chain and disclok. When the fuel light came on I wasn't that bothered and ignored it knowing a had extra fuel on board so that's 157 miles of "normal" riding with no range anxiety induced limp wristedness when the light comes on.