Old Bike Mart

Pull up a chair

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Every now and then we are pleased to bring you one of Richard Hyatt’s memories of a motorcycle he has owned – and Mr Hyatt has owned many machines in his time! This time, he starts married life with a Triumph T120R.

It was around 1973 and I had found a nice oil-in-frame T120R (it’s still on the DVLA database by the way) with a gold tank. It was a lovely bike and whoever the current owner of HDT 160J is, this is a tale of the bike you now own.

During 1973 my fiancée and I were travelling to the Dragon Rally on it – maybe the rally had been postponed or something, but I think that it must have been towards October that year as we were married in late October. Somebody will no doubt correct me.

The reason I mention this is because she and I were having a really good ride, gradually getting towards the rally although the weather conditions were wet and horrid. We were among a group of bikes all bowling along together steadily and eventually came upon a wiggly section. The others cleared off a bit but I was taking it steady. Then I began to smell the dreaded diesel and eased off even further – sadly not enough and the next moment she and I and the Triumph were skating across a rainbow of diesel, sliding into the five bikes ahead of us. We were number 6 and they were just about gathering their thoughts and picking themselves up when we slid into them! The upshot of this was that my girlfriend couldn’t get her wedding shoes on properly a couple of weeks later as her ankles were still swollen from the crash.

Soon I and my new wife were venturing further and further afield and made some really nice boxes/panniers for the T120 – these attached to the Craven rear luggage rack with their QD fittings which made life easier when not needed. I made these as long oblong boxes which, when fitted, the outer face was divided into 1/3rds and 2/3rds. In other words, the lower part of the box (two thirds) was part of the box structure and the top third was the opening by which you loaded the box. But it also served as a table when hinged out on strings for me to brew up on with my stove and pan, etc – all mod cons. Great care was taken to ensure they were fitted astride the rear wheel spindle to keep the weight distributi­on correct and the bike handled well when loaded. A few years later we had a lovely trip to Austria on it, camping over the passes.

We bought my wife her own little MZ TS150 Sport as well (SMG 77M) and together we were whizzing and camping and travelling everywhere. When in 1976 our son was born, what were we to do? Stick a sidecar on the Triumph, of course.

We found a Watsonian Palma child adult, collected that and got it home which was another learning curve, but thankfully we were still blessed with T C Munday’s in Brixton which had a chap there called Buster and we bought all the fittings to hang the chair on the Bonneville. We got it onto the bike and it went well; we changed the gearing as needed and I remember one trip when we were heading for a camping weekend in Ross-on-Wye. My son was just three months old and was in the arms of my wife in the sidecar and the tent on the rack (still those wooden boxes) – my son’s cot fitted into the bell end of the tent nicely – and we had a McLaren buggy strapped on as well for outings while there. You can imagine how I struggled to steer this thing with the bike accelerati­ng and pulling to one side and me steering to the other! Every now and then a sweet would be pushed out of the sidecar window for me to munch.

The following year (or the year after), we decided to exchange the outfit and I found a brand new 1977 Triumph T140V at ES Motors in Chiswick. But that’s for next time.

 ?? ?? We gained a son and the Bonneville gained a chair.
We gained a son and the Bonneville gained a chair.
 ?? ?? The T120R returning from a trip to Austria with our home made luggage.
The T120R returning from a trip to Austria with our home made luggage.

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