TIGER TIME!
Serendipity is an undervalued phenomenon. Frank Westworth has been riding The Shed’s own 500 Tiger and then stumbled across its more sporty sibling, the Daytona
It’s always amusing when a coincidence trips a chap up, don’t you agree? I’d been planning a ride up to my favourite Welsh March stomping grounds, meeting up with a few chums, like you do, one of whom had been entertained by my rediscovered enthusiasm for a 500 Triumph. To be honest, he was mostly amused. Amusement at my expense is common. I try to take advantage of it by pretending distress so that the amused pal pays for lunch. Or maybe beer. Sometimes this works. And sometimes…
So while Martin and Roy reluctantly dug into pockets to ease my trembling lower lip, Chris simply chuckled some more and remarked that he thought I rather dwarfed the most excellent T100C which he’d seen me talking about on my Facebook page. This is scary. Mostly because I am convinced that nothing on Facebook is real … including me. But he was correct; I had indeed been singing the praises of the tatty Triumph you can read about further on in the magazine. Probably. But I did wonder why Chris had mentioned it. Because…
…because he had another, entirely similar but completely different, 500 Triumph conveniently to hand. I stared ruefully at the clear blue skies, at the dry roads, and understood that once again grim misfortune was about to compel me to rasp and rattle around some of my favourite roads aboard someone else’s bike. Sounds great, yes? And of course it is great, apart from the amateur road tester’s terrifying scenario involving the ‘You bend it you’ve bought it’ notion. Which is always the deal when I borrow a bike from a trader. It’s never (quite) happened yet, but there is always that traditional first time, and if I’m going to end up owning a bike I’ve just broken then I’d prefer it to be something I’d actually enjoy owning. I stared around the showroom. Not a 500 Triumph in sight, oddly, but several other machines I’d be delighted to find dripping oil into The Shed’s weary concrete. I wondered where it was?
Turns out that Chris had not even tried to start it, having just acquired the machine as part of a small collection. Bluff-calling time, obviously. Off to the shed where the unprepared bikes live, and there it was. And yes, it was a T100R, a Daytona. Very late registration, too. I did my best to appear knowledgeable (which is never easy). Doesn’t run – well, it hadn’t recently. Maybe … pump up the tyres? Charge the battery? Rebuild the engine, maybe twice? Anything to avoid actual ‘work’, you understand. Nothing to do with the bike being a Triumph. No. Hardly at all. I may have mentioned more than a few times how The Shed T100C had just … well … started. I may have failed to mention the prekick prep work.
Pour in fuel, check that it reaches the carbs. Switch on. Press horn button. Feeble squeak. Press headlight flasher. Dim glow. Wheel outside, full choke and one kick. There may be a reason why so many clever people really rate the smaller Triumph twins.
And there must be a little history around this particular machine. Have you seen the registration number? It’s ‘R’ reg. That makes it a 1976 machine, which makes it a Meriden Co-op machine and at least a slightly more interesting machine than, say, an earlier Daytona. And this is indeed interesting, at least to history wonks like me, not least because the last 500 Daytona twins were built in 1974, which suggests that the bike – which is a UK original – sat unsold for quite a while. The next thing to do, to satisfy my curiosity and to avoid actually writing about actually riding it, is to check out the build date. Remember that the middle-70s were a time of considerable confusion for Brit bike fans, with all manner of stories circulating, both in the weekly press and at local level. Remember also that it was a time of great industrial unrest.
A little background, then. Following the collapse of BSA Group, the shotgun formation of Norton Villiers Triumph and that subsequent industrial unrest, it seems remarkable that any bikes at all were produced at Meriden. But they were, and this is one of them. Until I rode this machine and researched it, I’d thought that production of the 500 twins had by 1974 contracted to just the oily-framed TR5T, basically a Tiger 500 engine in a BSA B50 bicycle. I was aware of the T100D, mainly because I’ve ridden two of the supposedly dozen built, but … memory can fail, and I’d forgotten a lot of it.
Absolutely none of this passed through my mind as I set off heading south down a really great riding road, a road I know very well indeed, having ridden it frequently over a couple of decades. I was very conscious that I was riding a bike which hadn’t been ridden for a while, although the oil looked nice and clean, the tyres’ rubber was soft enough and the engine was … well … typically Triumph, in that it rattled merrily. But no more than is usual. So my ride was in two parts. Firstly, I set off and rode as gently as respect for an unfamiliar 1974 engine demands. Then I pulled up to take a few photos, and was mildly surprised when Chris pulled in behind me – riding my own bike. Well, fair’s fair, as we say. He was curious about my … ah … relaxed pace. I explained my concerns. ‘Nonsense,’ he replied. ‘It’s a 500 Triumph. They’re bombproof. You can thrash it. It’ll easily do a ton. I expect I’ll be able to keep up on your old lorry.’ Stung, I was. But… Starting from warm is a thing I’ve come to worry about in these days of old engines and mysterious mixtures of strange organics masquerading as fuels, but I needn’t have worried. One kick. This has to be one reason why Triumphs are so popular. I think I’ve already said that once…
The riding position is remarkably roomy. Why remarkably? Because this is not a big bike. Unlike, say, a 500 Norton, or Matchless, or BSA, Triumph’s 500 twins are a stretch of a 350 twin, not a smaller engine in a bicycle built for a 650, and that defines a lot of the riding and owning experience. But… the Daytona is not a short bike, it boasts a seat height of some 30 inches, which is only an inch lower than a T140 or indeed a T160, although the latter actually feels lower in the saddle, which is a little odd.
Where the bike wins over its bigger siblings is in its mass: 356lb dry, a lot less than a T140’s typical 413lb. And it really does feel like a light bike. Very easy to position on the road – a large amount of the riding delight – and also to wheel about when the need arises. It’s also around 3 inches shorter in the wheelbase than a T140, which will tend to sharpen up the steering and add to the considerably responsive handling. And this is immediately obvious when you’re out on the road. So, you ride tall, in a seating position remarkably similar to the bigger Triumphs, but on a machine around 15% lighter than the others.
There’s plenty of poke, too. As ever, the figures quoted for the model vary quite a bit depending on the source, but 39-40bhp, delivered at around 7000rpm, seems to be the consensus. That doesn’t sound a lot in these days of 3-figure engine outputs, but in practice the machine flies off the mark, breathing cleanly and rattling merrily like only a good Triumph does. And it does – rattle, that is. It takes a little getting used to at first, but I’d already been spending saddle time with our own T100C, so was expecting it.
Speaking of the T100C, does the T100R’s extra carb make a difference? Yes, it does, a noticeable difference. I’m no fan of twin carbs, preferring the easier low-speed running over an ability to rev higher, but in this case the extra pep was plain throughout the entire ride. Now then, here comes a caveat: our T100C has never been rebuilt, so is probably decently worn inside, whereas this Daytona feels very new, very crisp; the engine has no real ‘sog’ to it. This may explain the extra zap of the T100R, because apart from the extra carb I can find no difference between the engines. They both run the same compression (9.0 : 1), the same ignition and cam timing, and the same gearing and
sprockets, so the performance difference is all down to the top ends. Or, as I said, to the different level of wear in the two engines.
Back to the bike. The clutch is seriously light, as it should be (and if you ride any middleweight Triumph with a heavy clutch, there’s something wrong with it), and it neither slips nor drags. The gearshift is delicious – exactly the same on both the T100R and T100C. But it heralds a concern, at least for this rider. More on that in a moment.
The first time you sail into a bend will bring a wide smile to your face. Guaranteed. Although early unit Triumphs had pretty poor frames and could handle truly badly when pushed hard, well over a decade of development transformed them into some of the best-handling machines on the road at the time. And yes, this is a genuine instance of racing improving the breed. The rear shocks are unremarkable Girlings, firm but accurate, but the forks are excellent. They really are; compliant, well damped and responsive.
More delight comes the first time you apply the brakes. There’s no mealy-mouthed ‘the brakes were adequate / up to the performance / fine for the time’ stuff. They’re excellent. Both drums are 7-inch, the front is one of the best 2ls devices ever fitted to a British motorcycle. It’s a scaled-down variant of the 8-inchers fitted to the 650 BSA and Triumph twins, and is truly fine. I found the first couple of slow stops to be a little grabby (only on the Daytona), but after that everything was most reassuring. It’s difficult to describe to anyone who’s familiar only with modern disc brakes how good a 2ls drum can be, how progressive and controllable. Entirely unremarkable when compared with modern systems, as you would hope, but for the time they were outstanding, and in practical terms they still are. Front and rear work together very well, and combine with the compliant front fork to produce those excellent all-of-a-piece moments, when a bike handles well enough to inspire complete confidence. It’s a great package.
So then, we have a brisk engine, fine handling and excellent anchors. What’s not to like? Is this the perfect motorcycle? I’m aware that I’m making it sound that way. And there’s more: consider the riding position. This is a personal thing, but I’ve not always been comfortable on Triumphs, Triumphs of most generations, although rigids are the best of the rest for me – those and the TSX. Even earlier 350 and 500 unit twins aren’t particularly comfortable for me, and I’d not want to own one for that reason alone – ignoring the often desperate brakes and loose handling. No such reservations here!
My only real reservation concerns the gearbox. It has but four ratios in it. And if I have a single criticism of the Daytona, this is it. This dates it far more than the rest of the package, which stacks up very well against most of its competition – especially when you consider that very little development on Triumph’s 500 twin engine took place after 1972. The Daytona holds its own really well
with its 4-stroke competition from Europe and the Far East. It genuinely does – apart from the gearing.
When Chris offered the bike as a test victim, I’d expected that it would be faster, more accelerative than our own T100C, and it is. I’d expected that the bicycle package would be much the same, and it is. I’d expected the overall gearing to be a lot higher … and it’s not. Which is a flaw, from my own perspective, because it means that the engine needs to be revved hard to produce A-road performance. I’m uncomfortable with this. If you’re not, and lots of riders both then and now have no problems revving the engine to 6500rpm or so and cruising at 6000rpm, then hurrah! But I am not that chap.
However… it’s a (slightly) different matter when the bike’s owner is riding along behind and encouraging a somewhat brisker pace than sheer mechanical respect would usually suggest. So. Peak power is developed at around 7000rpm, so I decided to push on until the usually steady tacho indicated 6000 – not in top at first, but through the gears.
Which of course revealed the second side to the Daytona’s character. At the speeds I would ride the bike were it my own – in other words, at the speeds I ride our T100C – it’s fun. As I’ve already said, it steers and goes and stops really well, but my self-imposed limit found me in top by maybe 35mph. The engine sounds really sweet – jangling away, but they all do that, sir. And I usually find a cruising speed reveals itself pretty early on; it’s the point at which the vibes start to appear or the engine’s mechanical thrash becomes more of a mechanical clashing – maybe 55mph in this case. Chris insisted that he’d ride it far, far faster than that. So I did. And the engine revealed a side of its character which is usually lost to me, gentle potterer that I am. Push it to 6k in first – you get to that point on a wide throttle very rapidly indeed. Quick shift – just feather the clutch, half-close the throttle and click the lever. Perfect. It was plainly designed for this. As soon as the tacho waggled its lever around the 6k mark, repeat the process; big throttle and do it again. And again. This is 20mph into illegality, which is quite fast enough for me, thank you. And how does the bike work when thrashed? Perfectly. Back to base, pull into the drive to take some detail pics for your wonder and amusement, and discover two things. First, it ticked over like a watch and wasn’t even hot. Second, there was not a trace of a lube leak. Check out the photos, which were taken
after the rides. This is impressive stuff. This is a 500, not a 650. It would have been better had there been a fifth gear, but only if that gear were an overdrive.
OK. Personal stuff time. The bike is as quick, as rapid, as a 650 Matchless, for comparison. Probably around the same actual performance, the 650’s extra mass absorbing the engine’s extra power. But … I prefer a bigger, more lazy engine. Other views are certainly available and those views sold an awful lot of 500 Triumphs.
But this handsome example appears to have languished in that 1970s showroom for quite some time. A check of the engine and frame numbers reveals that the build code is ‘JJ’, which translates as August 1974, but it wasn’t registered until 1976. That’s quite a gap. The reason may well have been that the market had really lost confidence in Triumph, even though they did survive the hideous debacle of the BSA Group collapse and the formation of the Meriden blockade. History reveals that when the blockade was lifted, a couple of hundred bikes, built before the conniption, were sold off to raise money for the company. This is probably one of them, a theory borne out by its subtle departures from UK spec for 1974. Which of course is not to say that it’s not as it left the factory…
A conclusion? You’d like a conclusion? The T100R Daytona is a smashing bike. Easy to live with, easy to ride, easy on the eye and on the wallet. Would I buy one for myself? Only if it had high pipes and a single carb, and an engine number including ‘ T100C’. Just so happens…