Mark Drews "Solitary Confinement" Pre-unit Showbike

Although I loved it at first sight, I have to admit that I didn't fully understand this bike at first. From the first pictures I saw I thought the gas tank was just the tiny scallops at the back and did not see that it is actually see-thru with the front portion being made of lucite, matching the hand made primary cover and motor mounts. The more images of the bike I've seen the more I get it and after looking at these latest pics from Kaz I realize how totally out of site this Triumph showbike really is. I think this custom is one of those builds that has to be seen first hand to be fully appreciated and I hope I get to see it up close someday. Stretch has been covering this sweet machine with links to more pics and it's connections to other custom cycles of the past. Absolutely traditional, yet a ground breaker that takes the California show bike style one step beyond...

2010 Mooneyes Yokohama HRCS

A big thanks to Kaz for sending me the link to all the photos he took at the show!

Bates Seat Restoration

Bought this 1960's vintage Bates seat on ebay a few months ago. Pretty worn, stained and scratched, some small holes around the back edge and the original blue color sucks. That was the bad. The good points I liked about it is that the shape of the pan fits a Triumph swingarm frame perfectly, the seat strap is kinda neat, the leather is still soft and not dried out at all and the overall shape & design is exactly what I was looking for to use on my 1970 T100C Trail Bike project. I've never seen this exact type of Bates seat before and probably will never see another one again. RARE.

So I did some net searching and found some outfits doing leather restoration. Some of the before and after pictures were quite impressive. I contacted Advanced Leather Solutions that sells DIY kits as well as doing restoration work. After sending some pictures I was quoted a price for restoration and dying the seat black and I got the seat on a UPS truck. A couple weeks later I had my seat back looking almost new. I couldn't be happier with the results. The original cost of the seat from ebay was a little over $100, the restoration cost was $300. Maybe a little pricey, but $400 is what a guy has to pay for a decent seat for a late model Harley and this is a vintage piece of history that has been given a second life. There is no substitution for genuine Bates leather.

CT Steve's "TRUTH" Kustom Chopper

Steve sent me a email earlier this year. He was asking for some advice on building a show & go style kustom out of his 1966 TR6 Cafe Racer that someone had built years ago. I've never been able to buy a complete Triumph in any kind of good running condition and having always been stuck working with bent, broken, rusted parts and basket cases I have a natural aversion to breaking down good working motorcycles. My advice to him was don't F-with it!



Well, if he had listened to me this wouldn't be much of a story would it? The story is that he didn't take my advice and tore into the Cafe Racer big time. The result speaks for itself. Anyone out there that is about to molest yet another surviving swingarm frame and use one of those peice of crap bolt on hardtails please DO take this advise. DON'T DO IT! Swingarm customs rule.








the details:

frame mildly molded and peaked in the front by the head tube and the down tube
rear section of the frame has cut off and capped off molded to finish (cap) off the rails
custom seat mounts
custom made battery box, lid and mounts ( gotta keep what i used for the box a trade secret, so please do not disclose)
late 60's NOS Wassell style tank (made in Japan) made mounts
original NOS Wassell rear fender decked the peak so the tail light sits flush on the fender.
Custom mounted fender with no visible rear fender brackets
NOS Sparto tail light
2 1/2 lowered rear shocks re-chromed (donated)
new leather solo seat
NOS Selle Giuliari pillion pad
chrome rear triumph hub laced to a 16" Harley rim built by me
tire is a goodyear double e copy
Shortened forks 2 1/2" sanction tubes from by Forking By Frank
Front wheel is a 1968 Honda sl350 hub high polished laced to a chrome steal 21" DID wheel laced built by me
front tire is a Avon Speedmaster 21x3.00
chrome triple clamp pull back style risers with Gibson Les Paul volume knob to block off lock hole
custom retro fitted triumph brake cable to work with metric hub
chrome levers
Smith gauges (painted)
Chromed external oil filter custom mounted
NOS gran turismo grips
Stock BSA style bars
white rubbers from Barons speed
bates style headlight
custom mounted and polished coils
gas tank, oil tank, gauges and rear fender are purple base with 8 coats of purple metalflake and 18 coats of clear i think? I lost track after 16
frame is painted PPG Carrara white with purple pearl (paint by me) obviously..
chrome plating by Bar Plating Meriden CT
lettering by kenji
hole drilled in Wassell fender by nigger rigger
155 hours from start to finish not including dis-assembly

The majority of the work was done by Steves bud Harley Carrara while Steve was doing some touring with his punker band. Harley provided the details above and has a blog going with some neat stuff to check out HERE.

1957 Triumph T100RR Oil Tank Pics

This oil tank is original as supplied on the T100RR. One of the rarest and most desirable parts for a rigid frame Triumph. Pictures courtesy of Dave Quinn.

Big question. Did the Webco sticker on the right side come on all these tanks, or does Dave own the actual tank used on this T100RR rode by Johnny Allen???

Dave Quinn Motorcycles

A huge thanks to Dave for hooking me up with these spiffy Hagon long travel trail shocks for my 1970 T100C project. Newly acquired trick parts always a good motivator. If you need shocks he is definitely the man to CONTACT.

Triumph going's on's in Florida

Scott Thompson sends in this encouraging report from the Florida cross country crew.

As usual I continue to enjoy the hell outta the blog. Great stuff as always. A year or so ago I sent some pics of us beating a couple Triumphs to death off road, and I'm happy to report we continued to do so this year. In fact, its been a pretty good year for our woods tanks in AHRMA Cross Country. Max (Tr5t #M50 in the following pics) won classic expert and I (T100 #S50) won classic intermediate, while our other teammate (George Tr5t #G50) finished 3rd in classic int. I've included some pics from the last race, the ISDT Reunion Ride in Combs, AR, where we collectively got beat to death by a swarm of Hodakas.

First pic, the three of us on the line waiting for our start minute. Me in front, Max next, George on end.



On the grass track at the end of day one

You can beat the ever living snot outta these 500 motors. Even after a couple seasons of hard racing I'm still amazed at the amount of abuse they can take and keep going. Earlier this season I had an oil pump failure while screwing around the friday before a two day race. I got it cleared on saturday, missing that day's racing, but it sounded horrid (I would describe it as sounding like sticking a dozen hammers in the dryer). I knew it was gonna need a teardown when I got it home so decided to get whatever points I could on sunday. I managed enough laps to win my class before it stopped, and I mean it just STOPPED operating. When I took it apart there was nothing left of the big ends (shells were extruded out between the rods and flywheels), timing side bush, and crankpins but it had just kept on going. I had torn down, parts tracked down and reassembled in a week an a half. It was together in the shop and started but not ridden by 5pm on thursday, loaded in the van at 6pm, we drove to West Virginia and raced the next day around noon and it won its class. Incredible engines, simply incredible.

Also, a while back you posted this pic on your site:



Along with a couple others I found around the same time:

Which was perfect timing because I had just picked up this thing in a parts auction:

Which was a bit of a horror (in this pic I've already removed the Schwinn handlebars), but pretty interesting below the surface. There were to distinct layers to it, the last involving some honda parts, but the first was much much earlier, involving swapping out some of the Red Hunter parts for a good bit of work, and it was generally stripped pretty well down. Not sure who did all the work or for what purpose, but it was pretty neat stuff. So, thanks to the pic you posted and a couple other shots of what people had done to the weird batch of twin port Red Hunters that were sent to California immediately post war, I built mine like this:

Which is a pretty fun pile. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it runs great and I'm just enjoying it for the mongrel it is.