Category: Motorcycle

Single frame… Triumph T120 Bonneville

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Triumph T120 BonnevilleTriumph T120 Bonneville
Fujifilm X-T1, Fujinon XF 18-135mm f3.5~5.6 R LM OIS WR at 34mm, 1/80s, f8, ISO 1600

I paid a visit to the Erewash Museum‘s Motorcycle Open Day today…

There was a fantastic variety of bikes on display: custom Harley-Davidsons, modern tourers, a couple of ‘Rat‘ bikes and more classic Brits than you could shake a stick at!

The above image shows one of the many Triumphs on display and I’m reasonably certain that it’s a 1960 T120 Bonneville (but I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong).

Single frame… Shop window Triton

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Shop window TritonShop window Triton
Nikon FE2, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI-S – 1/125s, f4, – O.O.D. Kodak 200 rated at ISO 100

Now here’s something you don’t see everyday… a Triton motorcycle in a shop window… and a clothes shop window at that!

Built in the 1960s and 70s, Tritons were the marrying of a Triumph parallel twin engine to a Norton ‘Featherbed’ frame, creating a hybrid superior to anything either manufacturer could offer ‘off the shelf’.

The Triumph engine was widely regarded as being more reliable and easier to tune that the Norton but the Norton frame was easily the best handling example of its time, the Isle of Man TT racer Harold Daniel tested the new frame in 1950 and declared it like “riding on a featherbed” as opposed to a “garden gate” and the name stuck.

This example currently sits in a window display surrounded by products from Barbour, a British brand known for their ‘International’ jacket as worn by motorcyclists for decades.

One thing I’ve always been curious about with the Triton concept… what happened to all the Triumph frames and Norton engines? Are garden sheds countrywide hiding ‘Norumphs’ banished there for misfiring and wobbling around bends? Maybe we’ll never know…

Scan by AgLab with minimal cropping and tweaking in Lightroom Classic CC.