A Long Trip Home for An Old Trophy 1200

Now there is a new Trophy 1200, it seems reasonable to describe my bike as an 'old' Trophy 1200. Those venerable owners of a '60s Trophy would no doubt laugh at the idea but time, like a living river, never ceases to flow.

For my second Big Trip, I decided I'd ride number 544 home to Hinckley. First, a spruce up:

Can't have her looking shabby, can we? In the process I found some of the paint on the rear caliper has lifted. My fault - cack handed with the brake fluid last time I bled the brakes. It is interesting to see that the special metals primer is considerably more resistant to brake fluid than Smoothrite. On the plus side, I was gratified to see that the the rubber flap I added has been successsful at keeping road muck off of the swingarm linkages. The were coated in grime but not grit and muck. Fab.

All dressed up and actually ready to go

Comfort break in Bradford on Avon - some more comfortable than others?

A Jumbo at Kemble Airfield

 I stopped at a couple of Landmark Challenge waypoints on my journey. Zoom in on the plaque at the back of the bus shelter to find out why the pub is named after Joseph Arch.

Outside Triumph Factory Number Two

 It isn't too hard to find Triumph at Hinckley after getting to Dodwell Bridge Industrial Estate - there is a sign for 'The Motorcycle Factory'. It leads to the opposite side of the estate from the A5. I have visited a couple of times before, most recently for a factory tour at the Triumph Live 2010 event. I had heard that tours don't run any more so did not expect to be able to do anything other than photograph the bike outside and so it turned out. Friday afternoon may not be the best time to visit because I think the factory is in maintenance mode then.


Those of you who have followed Triumph from the early '90s may recognise the name Jacknell Road. It is the site of the original Triumph Hinckley factory that burnt down in 2002. I was unsure if the site was at all active, or even if it was still owned by Triumph. But this is where my bike - and all 1990s Triumphs - were made. This is as near to 'home' as it is possible to imagine for number 544. So I decided to drive up and down it, just because I'm soft in the head in precisely this sort of way.

My reward was to see that the site is definitely owned by Triumph, very active and called Triumph Motorcycles Factory 1.  A very friendly and professional security guard took the trouble to phone into the factory to ask for permission for me to photograph my bike in front of the building (thanks Kumar!). That was what I had hoped to do. Better yet, a superb gent called Mark came out to see my bike and talk to me about it. Thanks very much Mark. You made my day.

Mark is in the warrantees and service arm of the business. His top tips for keeping T300s in good shape is to always use a torque wrench when tighting up the chain adjusters and to change your coolant no less frequently than every three years. Especially the coolant! You have been warned.

Any nothing much else troubles him in the servicing line for T300s. They are built like tanks, as we know.

 Last Landmark of the day: Moira blast furnace near Burton-on-Trent

Hand prints were cast into the uprights at the heart of the Moira furnace

OK, so it is clear that Triumph Motorcycles Limited has a loose connection to the firm that Mr Edward Turner made famous but I wanted to visit Meriden, where the second Triumph factory used to stand. The connection between Meriden and Hinckley Triumphs is deeper than corporate historians can see. A number of the former employees of the Meriden factory went to work at the Hinckley plant. One of them featured in an early Hinckley brochure coach lining Thunderbird tanks. Even if that was not the case, the care and enthusiasm lavished over these machines, whether made in Meriden or hewn in Hinckley, has infused them with something of a shared spirit. Their common heritage, not just the name on the tank, sees a number of them in common ownership today. So I don't think it entirely silly that I chose to stop by Meriden, to ride the roads that factory testers would have belted along on T20s, T90s, T100s, T110s and of course the unapproachable T120. Hearing the totally different sound of a T300 echoing off of the town walls, filling the centre around the monument to fallen cyclists, I was sure the ghost of Mr Turner would have smiled in appreciation.

Late in the day, so it was all closed up, but the National Motorcycle Museum is only a few miles away from Meriden so I pulled in for a couple of pictures. 

A legend outside ...

... where Legends Live On