After paying nearly double the insurance premium for the 125, I collected the bike. Riding home I soon found out that the clutch was on the way out, it dragged so badly that the front brake had to be held full on to stop the bike pull away from the lights. Neutral was virtually impossible to find and having no idiot light did not help. As far as I was concerned, having learnt to ride on a Jap bike, the brake and the brake and the gears were on the wrong side of the bike - I kept hitting the gear lever when I wanted the brake. The drum brakes were barely adequate so I eventually arrived home shaken but not stirred, for my parents to decide I'd bought a lemon.
The first job was to replace the clutch. This was merely the first of a catalogue of mechanical failures. On my way from the pub one Saturday night, the rear light and number plate fell off which I did not realise until I arrived home. I managed to find the light and plate on the grass verge, completely undamaged - it was bodged back on with Meccano. On another occasion the bike was behaving strangely well until I noticed fluid streaming across the top of the tank - this was petrol leaking from a welded seam that had rusted through. Nobody wanted to attempt a re-weld on a rusty old tank so I bought a replacement from a breaker.
Looking back, I reckon that a lot of the problems I encountered with the Trophy were due to the wiring harness which was a bodged on Bonnie item. This mess of spaghetti had wires hanging loose all over the place with the water repellent qualities of a sponge. Rain was guaranteed to short out some part of the electrical system. If I was lucky, it would just be the lights but usually total failure resulted. On many occasions the dead bike had to be collected in a friend's horsebox due to the inclement nature of British weather. The battery developed a couple of dead cells, when replacing it I found oil dripping over the engine - coolant fluid from the coil! I lost count of the number of new plugs I bought, for some reason they only lasted for about 50 miles and I never did discover exactly why this happened.
There is a film called The Money Pit, about a couple who buy a house which turns out to be a wreck and voraciously swallows large amounts of cash in a useless attempt to set things right. My Triumph Trophy turned out to be the biking equivalent. Rebuilt, rewired, new tank, new seat (the old one was ripped up and rusted through the base), new bars and various other bits that added up to loadsa money - I rode off hoping for the best but fearing for the worst and I was not about to be disillusioned.
Suddenly, the clutch action became extremely hard to operate, thanks to a snapped pushrod. A replacement was found in the local breakers, where I was becoming very well known. Heading for my local town on a nice Saturday morning the bike was running perfectly when, at a roundabout, the front end became uncontrollable due to rapid deflation of the front tyre. This was because some brainless moron had thrown tacks all over the road. I bought a puncture repair kit from a shop up the road and borrowed some tools from a handy garage.
I was rapidly losing patience with the Triumph and cursed the day I'd decided to buy British. The damn thing continued to destroy plugs with monotonous regularity and problems developed with the rotor. The head also came off for a look inside and when it went back on the valve timing was out, bending the pushrods. That was the last straw, I decided to sell. To add insult to injury, when someone came to look at the bike it refused to start, yet another knackered plug. I eventually managed to sell the the obstinate heap to a vicar’s son for nearly as much as I'd paid for it, but considering how much I'd paid for repairs, it was a financial disaster.
I do not want to be totally negative about the bike as this OHV single did have some good points. Although it was off road more than on, when it ran well it was a nice bike with an excellent power to weight ratio, better than the restricted 125s the law limits learners to these days. The Triumph was very stable at 60mph, unlike my Honda 125 that always felt like it was about to go into orbit if it hit a raised manhole cover. Would I buy another today? No, not unless I could buy one really cheap and sell it to a Classic Berk for a ridiculous sum.
Simon Morris