I’ve gone for a short holiday this weekend down to Tampa, Florida to attend a friends funeral......wedding. I meant to say wedding, dammit. Today I visited Tampa Triumph, a Triumph North America flagship dealer, which means they only sell Triumph and carry a full line of parts, clothing, and accessories. I spoke with almost everyone there, Jonathan was most helpful with some answers my closest dealer could never supply.They welcomed me like I was a local customer they had known for years. One of the things the do are in house customs, and I took a few picks of the ones they had on the floor. This was one of my favorites
This next one is a 2017 Bonnie they appropriately named the Spirit of ‘59. The pic does not do justice to the gold leaf and metallic paintwork.
This last one is a beastie! A turbocharged Thruxton R with full custom paintwork and a lot of upgrades to try and keep it rubber side down!
$25,000 USD would bring this monster home, and the best part is that the singer Billy Joel is a bike nut and saw this one, liked it so much he autographed the tank. He has his own cafe racer style shop in New York, and is a big Triumph fan.
All in all a great visit, a great bunch of guys, and best of all Jonathan is willing to get me any parts I need and ship them very inexpensively in a couple days time. Something I can never get my local dealer to do. They can’t seem to even order a part when I need it. Check this shop out if you are ever in the area.
I got my wiring harness from a place called cycle reapers in Tampa bay Florida...unfortunately not in person though.. My peasant status don't allow for such things.. If I win the lottery I shall nip over and have a look at those bikes...
Great photos! I bet that Thruxton turbo is a beast to ride. It's just a shame that the bodger who added it decided to weld the pipework in so many pieces. Presumably whilst wearing a blindfold!
I think that’s a popular look right now. I personally like the skill it takes to make nice welds and smooth transitions on work like that. I’d still ride the guts out of it!
Thats a pretty tidy job DD, I think youre being a bit harsh. A lot of welds like this in terms of access etc is hard to complete let alone better whats been done here which is no doubt on thin wall tubing. Even mandrel bending of larger sections may not give the required radii to satisfy such a one off. Obviously this, even if the tooling allowed, would need numerous samples to be created to get the desired distances and more importantly the orientations correct. Its easy to make it look nice and fancy on thicker wall stuff less so on normal 1.2 mm or so exhaust tubing!
I couldn't do a better job. But I still think it's scruffy Eldon. If it's a deliberate aesthetic style/fashion that I'm unaware of, fair enough.
DD you could, if the welds had been purged (gas on the inside when welded to give full thickness clean welds) safely polish the outside welds off carefully like with a die grinder or dremel. This would give you a smoother although still angular look but would take quite a while to complete. Personal choice i suppose but maybe it came down to time/cost?
If it came down to time/cost? Then my comment about it being "bodged" is valid. However, if it's a popular style/fashion that I'm unaware of? I'll hush my mouth!
With you on this one DD - looks to me like something you would stumble over on the yellow brick road. However, I can’t weld and have no fashion sense so kudos to whoever made it and I probably missed the point completely!
I could do that, but what did the customer specify? Sometimes like on two stroke expansion chambers intact welds with the inherent heat affected zones, all lacquered up and with no postweld cleaning looks quite nice in my opinion but each to their own.
OsteKuste Thanks for sharing those. But like Dozers Dad those welds would put me of. Looks to me as a bodge job. But great machines. Regards Joe.
I’m sure it goes like stink, which in the end is the desired effect. I’d like a little more attention paid to detail there. In all still a nice build.
Terrific photos and write-up, OsteKuste! What a great dealership Tampa Triumph sounds like. I'll definitely make it a point to go there if I make it over to that part of the country. I rather like some of the welding like that on the Thruxton R. I've seen it around town here and my understanding is that it's called Tig welding and is often done on stainless pipes. Here are some pics I just pulled up from a quick search. Not this past year but last year (April 2018) I got the opportunity to go to a bike show in Austin called The Handbuilt Motorcycle Show. There were a handful of bikes that had similar welding styles. And it definitely seemed like a style that was as much for style than function. I chatted with one of the young builders who had a bike there and he shared with me how he learned to weld specifically to be able to do his own bike builds. His bike had Tig welded headers and was totally bad a*s. I'll look back at my photos from the Handbuilt Show in the next week or so and post some pics. I'm definitely planning to go back to Austin again in the next year or two for the show--it was that fun! Again, awesome photos and commentary, OsteKuste. Thanks!
