Triumph’s on a Roll

The lobby of Triumph's headquarters in Hinckley, England.

No one needs to be reminded of how tough the Great Recession has been on the motorcycle industry. Those once-humorous cartoon images of a chart showing a line of plummeting sales figures extending off the board, onto extra sheets of paper and down onto the floor became a harrowing reality. Surviving companies have emerged leaner and meaner. Not only is Triumph Motorcycles stronger as a result of the economic challenges it has faced, the British manufacturer actually flourished during the toughest of times. [Read more]

In the Beginning….

Witness here a relic of my childhood, all that remains of the Handy Andy toolkit I opened one Christmas day long before I even dreamed of riding motorcycles. Inside the metal box from Santa Claus were this blade screwdriver, a hammer, a saw and a few other tools that are lost to time. Intended for small hands and small construction projects, I can assure you that in my little paws the tools did more destructing than constructing. Still, the set helped me build boats to float in the creek, wooden airplanes to zoom around my brother’s head and anything else my imagination could conjure up. Limits were few – Dad had a nice scrap pile and what I couldn’t find there I could scrounge from nearby construction sites. My biggest challenge was keeping a nail straight long enough to join two pieces of wood.

The Handy Andy hammer was large enough to blacken a finger nail, small enough to require 100 well-aimed whacks to sink a 16-penny nail. The saw was sharp enough leave a bloody zig-zag trail on a small arm and dull enough to skip along the surface of wood, almost ensuring injury. The screwdriver was special. The powers imbued in its once-shiny shaft were magical for a tiny technician: pry bar, jabber, stabber, reamer, chiseler, splitter. In a pinch you could even turn a screw with it – if you had one.

The blue plastic handle bears the scars of early onset ham-fistedness – chips where pliers have grasped it, a chunk missing from the end where the hammer rung out one too many times, probably some teeth marks if you look close enough. And that once-square blade has long since met its match: me. A smooth, rounded shadow of its former self, the business end of the screwdriver is certain death to any screw it touches.

I could retire this worn-out warrior to my box of mementos, but it remains in my tool tray because it’s still useful for jobs that I won’t touch with a better tool, like popping chunks of mud off my DR-Z or prizing rocks from a tire tread. And recent testing in my garage has shown that the time-worn shape of the blade will open a bottle of suds if there’s no church key close by. Not necessarily what the good folks at Handy Andy had in mind when they sold it, but if my leg up on tool use taught me anything, it’s that most of them can be multi-purpose. And multi-purpose is just what the roadside mechanic needs when stranded in the boonies. I’ve used many tools in ways that would make real mechanics strip their ratchets, but thanks to early tutelage by Handy Andy, I’ve never had to walk.

Pixel Addiction

I have a message for some of my colleagues (none on the Rider staff, thank goodness). I noticed something very disturbing on my last overseas press junket, and I need to get it off my chest.

Quite often (and especially in these times of tight budgets), overseas press junkets have itineraries that are more like marathons. Fly in Day 1, arrive Day 2, ride and shoot Day 3 and fly home Day 4. Just about the time you get your appetite back from the plane “food” and learn how to use the weird fixtures in your bathroom, it’s time to go home. Not much time to see stuff except what you can gander from the saddle–and that’s if the weather cooperates during the 8 hours you’re let outside. [Read more]

TCX Competizione RS Boots

Tango Charlie X-ray. Totally Cool Xylophone. I don’t know what TCX stands for, but I have come to love their boots. Formerly known as Oxtar—a name that was probably abandoned because it invoked images of livestock drenched in black goo, or because it sounded too much like “Oxcart,” something that is decidedly slower than a motorcycle—TCX is an Italian manufacturer of racing, off-road and touring boots. (See our review of TCX Airtech Gore-Tex Boots.) [Read more]

Clear Shot Cleaning Kit

After April showers bring May flowers, June is bug season. Lately I’ve noticed a thicker than usual crust of splattered bug guts on my bike, my gear and—above all—my faceshield. (Quick: What’s the last thing that goes through a bug’s mind when it hits your windscreen?) On the 900-mile press launch ride for the Triumph Sprint GT, we were plagued by bugs throughout Scotland and England, which turned my Arai into an entomological graveyard. At gas and coffee stops, another editor and I were belles of the ball whenever we whipped out the Clear Shot Cleaning Kit. Everyone wanted a squirt of fluid and a rubdown with the cloths, and they were impressed by the cool all-in-one kit. [Read more]

How to Make a Triumph: A Tour of Hinckley Factory 2

After riding the 2011 Triumph Sprint GT nearly 1,000 miles through Scotland and England (see Scotland by Scoot), we finally put our kickstands down in front of Triumph’s headquarters in Hinckley, a small town in southwest Leicestershire, England. We wrapped up the Sprint GT’s press launch with a tour of the factory and a sit-down with CEO Tue Mantoni and Product Manager Simon Warburton. [Read more]

Scotland by Scoot: Days 2-3

A581 on the Isle of Skye

Groggy and foggy on an Isle of Skye morning, after Day 1 of Scotland by Scoot. I failed to take notes during our post-survival-beer, post-wine-with-dinner Scotch tasting, but then again I wasn’t there to do a review for Whisky magazine. No better way to clear out the cobwebs than a hearty breakfast, and the Brits have it covered. My complete breakfast had something from every food group. After strong coffee and toast (served in a very sensible “filing” caddy that looked as though it should hold the day’s mail), my glass of juice was accompanied by a plate burgeoning with patties of haggis and black pudding (blood sausage), a slice of fatty bacon, a link of sausage, an egg and a grilled tomato…burp. [Read more]

Scotland by Scoot: Day 1

Highland cows gettin' their graze on.

Scotland is one of those places I was only vaguely familiar with. My mixed-bag pedigree includes some Scottish, but no one in my family wears kilts or plays the bagpipes (at least not in public). Like other places I haven’t visited, my before-I-go experience boiled down to imported cultural artifacts. In the case of Scotland, this includes Walker’s pure butter shortbread cookies, single-malt whisky (especially the smoky stuff, like Lagavulin and Laphroaig) and the movie Trainspotting, where bike nut Ewan McGregor had his break-out role as a junkie. [Read more]