Yeah, I'd wear a Triumph t-shirt

I usually hate sporting brand names. It makes me feel like a tool for someone else's profit. At least, that's how I usually feel. But after our Saturday motorcycling adventure, I think I've made an exception.

Megan tracked down a Triumph demo event happening at Clinton Cycles, a dealership just over the Woodrow Wilson bridge in Maryland. The idea of getting to test drive a Street Triple had us more than interested in heading out there, so I hit Google Maps in an attempt to plan a back roads route. We even managed to gather Will onto our bandwagon - the more the merrier!

And so we set out Saturday morning, the 3 of us riding staggered. While we kept off the highway as much as possible, we had to hit 495 to get across the Potomac. We hopped onto some local roads asap, and got lost as fast as we got off the interstate. Our impeccable sense of direction and Megan's map got us, finally, to the Triumph dealership much later than we had planned.

Ah, but this is where the fun began! Parked in the lot was a gigantic 18-wheeler sporting the Triumph logo, and a fleet of machines straight out of their 2008 catalog. After cooling off in the dealership's accessories department, we headed for the Triumph demo truck to see what they had to offer.

It was great - after a waiver, they had a sign-up sheet with a matrix - each row represented a bike they had, and each column was a 1/2 hour time slot. Every 1/2 hour you could sign up for whatever bike you wanted to take out! If the bike you wanted was taken, you could just sign up to ride whatever other model was available. Between the 3 of us we got to try 4 different models - it was a blast.

The Triumph team led us out in a staggered group on the local roads. They had one lead rider, one rider in the middle, and one rider taking up the rear of the pack. Mixed in-between were people like us getting a kick out the whole event.

The Triumph reps were really friendly and they basically let us have a little field day with their bikes. It was a low-stress, low-intensity motorcycling event, but for some reason it was still way fun. I'll leave the bike reviews for future posts, but bottomline? I like Triumph.

To modify, or not to modify...

I remember after my first track day with a Triumph Thunderbird about a year ago. Sure, it exemplified, for me anyway, that you learn more after your 1st track day than you learn in a year of street riding. But I also thought I learned my TBird's ground clearance wasn't good enough, so I began chasing down foot peg and exhaust modifications to keep them from touching the track. After a lot of money and time, I learned that my problems were really due to my riding skills and the fact that I was using a motorcycle that would never really be meant for the track.

So my modifications were fruitless.

Then I swapped the TBird for a 1st gen SV650. The supposed niceties of the SV I bought included an already-installed GSXR rear shock, and clip-on risers. Guess what? I recently installed a stock rear shock from Ebay and I'm currently installing stock clip-ons. Why? The GSXR shock was way too stiff to get any rear wheel feedback, and the front brake lever would compress fully against the front fairing before the handlebars lock when turned to the left.

So I'm spending my time undoing modifications instead of riding.

Mine for yours.

After a 2nd track day with the 2002 Triumph Thunderbird, I was completely convinced that this triple was not the bike for me. I mean, in the past year I've had alot of fun with it. It's torquey as hell, it has top-end pull, it never leaves you wanting more power...

...but it's heavy, it has just a tad too much rake (for the track, anyway), and it's tough to practice proper body positioning on it with the low seat and stock footpeg locations. It seemed that, if I wanted to progress and get the most out of my track day experiences, I needed something sportier. At least this was where I stood after our Team ProMotion track day early September, 2007.

Fast-forward to early October, and I'm now the proud owner of a 2001 Suzuki SV650S. A Triumph-lusting resident of State College, PA offered to trade his SV650S for my TBird. After some Blue-booking and decision making, we agreed to a trade: his Suzuki plus $300 for my Triumph.

We lived over 300 miles apart, so we met at a Sheetz in McConnelsburg, PA - halfway between us. M came with me on her Ninjette, and we made our way through some back-country roads to our Sunday bike trade.

Lack of cell phone reception on-site made the meet-up a little rough, but within an hour of our appointment, we were all at Sheetz looking the bikes over. Between cups of coffee to warm up (it was a brisk morning), we test drove each other's bikes and made the trade.

M and I took our last look at the Triumph, and we high-tailed it back home - this time I was on a blue Suzuki with handlebar risers and a fairing. Crazy.

It was an interesting experience - to trade. Especially when the round trip was about 260 miles. The differences between 2 bikes really jump right up at you when you spend so much time on each one back-to-back.