Soon after my Honda 305 Dream experience (see the story on the Honda Dream below), I found myself on Coventry Street, which was the Haight-Ashbury of Cleveland, Ohio. It was a beautiful fall day just after the “Summer of Love" and some friends and I were walking down the street when I heard the unmistakable sound of a 650 cc British twin spitting out its pulses through twin pea shooters. I turned and saw a young couple, resplendent in their almost matching outfits of fringed suede jackets and blue jeans and practically equally long hair. They were on an Olympic Flame Orange brand-new 1969 Bonneville. At that point I realized that I needed to upgrade from a Honda 305 Dream.
In the fall of 1968, just prior to the explosion of the first Superbikes to hit the market, there weren't a lot of high-performance motorcycles – that could do almost everything – on the market. You could buy big touring bikes like a Harley Davidson or a Moto Guzzi, but they were large lumbering machines designed for long stretches of straight roads. Or you could go out and buy any of the small displacement Japanese motorcycles coming on to the market, but they usually lacked power for touring capability. The Harley-Davidson Sportster could be a hot rod on straightaways but certainly was no cornering machine for the twisties. This is where the British motorcycles really shined. The Triumphs, the BSAs, and the Nortons were wonderful all around machines that accelerated and stopped well on the straightaways, could do some touring, but really came into their own in the curves. These mostly vertical twins, of 650 cc displacement, generated a lot of torque but could also really produce significant horsepower in the upper end despite their archaic lack of overhead cam technology. They benefited from their light weight and an evolution of frame design that made them fine handling machines.
Thirty years later I obtained this 1969 Triumph Bonneville (of course painted Olympic Flame Orange ) along with my BSA Rocket Three in a single purchase. I had originally met the owner at a classic motorcycle show. He was a Hollywood producer who had a hangar full of wonderful classic motorcycles along with his airplane at Santa Monica Airport. I asked him repeatedly to let me know when he wanted to sell any of his motorcycles. One day I got a call from him saying that he needed immediate cash for a movie project and he would sell me the Triumph and the BSA. The bikes were now mine!
My first ride after a service and tune once again demonstrated to me all of the characteristics that I loved in the British 650 cc vertical twin motorcycles: 1. Beautiful and elegant integrated designs that used organic shapes that flowed together from front to back – with bullet shaped headlamps flowing into a teardrop shaped tank and beautifully sculpted peashooter mufflers. The polished oval engine cases sprouted vertical twin iron cylinders topped by nicely casted aluminum heads and rocker covers. These bikes are gorgeous from every angle! 2. Nothing sounds like a big British vertical twin – the raw throaty roar elevating to a sonorous scream at high-end can be heard and identified immediately from any distance. 3. These were the sporting machines for the motorcycling sophisticates of the day, designed for the best overall performance profile. They could accelerate hard and then tipped easily into a turn giving one a great sense of confidence and sheer delight. Weighing only 380 pounds, they could be slipped from side to side without muss or fuss and come to a rapid stop if the front double leading shoe brake was well sorted out.
Yes, these bikes had their issues. Their vertically seamed cases would leak oil when new on the showroom floor. The Lucas electronics were notoriously unreliable. The loss of lights or even ignition on a nighttime ride made many Triumph owners dub Lucas and their electronics as the "Prince of Darkness". Despite the negatives, these models were universally loved and appreciated. After more than a 10 year absence in the marketplace during the 1980s, Triumph was reborn in the 1990s. Its current success is based on sales of the modern version of the old 650 cc vertical twins that continue to be sold in great numbers.
On almost every ride on my Olympic flame 1969 Triumph Bonneville I harken back to memories of that young couple on Coventry Street with the fringe of their suede jackets flowing in the airstream behind them as they smiled and enjoyed the crisp autumn air and warm sunshine. As I ride I listen to the sound of the engine as it goes from roar to scream. Sometimes as I listen, I get a bizarre sensation that I'm not sure I'm listening to the engine running below me in the present or to the one in my memory so many decades ago.