Triumph Bonneville At 12,000 Miles

I have almost 12,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) on the Bonneville since I bought it new last October, and as one might surmise I have developed a few opinions about my Bonneville. It's pretty simple actually; its a nice bike. The truth is just about any motorcycle built by the major manufacturer nowadays is reliable and offers longevity almost as a matter of course. Even the marginal machines, Royal Enfields and Urals say, are getting better and seem reliable enough if you have the time skill and patience to keep them running.

I offer three criteria: 1) Have a good dealer nearby. Good doesn't mean cheapest prices necessarily but does require a clean well organized workshop and a parts department that knows how to get you parts. 2) The motorcycle has to look good. This is subjective but when you walk away you want a machine that drags your eyes back to its lines and curves. 3) Accessories. You need a bunch of add-ons to make it conform to your specs. Modern motorcycles are all things to their riders. My Bonneville is my commuter, to my neighbor its a cafe racer. To the guy across town its his touring bike.The Bonneville appeals to me because it has an old fashioned air. when looking at it, or when riding it, it reminds me of the machines of my youth. I like the big round headlight, the curved tank, the old fashioned suspension and the general symmetry of the motorcycle. I like the way I sit on it, straight back and feet under my knees which are under my hips, with none of the feet forward stuff while sitting on the tailbone required of cruisers. Modern bikes tend to go for weird styling, pairs of mismatched headlights, pieces of pointed plastic sticking out at odd angles and exaggerated single sided suspension and angular seating. I like the old fashioned look.Next year Bonnevilles sold in the US will join their European counterparts and get electronic fuel injected engines, but for now we get the last of the engines sold with carburettors. I am a bit skittish about EFI as the injection systems require electricity, frequently don't provide the same smooth overall performance of a carburettor and I had lots of problems with the system on the Vespa GTS. However carburettors offer worse gas mileage and are somewhat higher polluting than EFI, even though modern motorcycle exhausts use catalytic converters like cars. My Bonneville also has a choke knob, very old fashioned and a manual fuel tap, just like the bikes of my youth. It shouldn't leak ever but I like to turn the fuel off like I used to 30 years ago...

Then there are the fork gaiters, plastic bellows that cover the front suspension. This was the Bonneville when I bought the bike last year. The shiny chrome fork legs are clearly visible here when the bike was 10 miles old:I soon put paid to that with a pair of Triumph gaiters: Some people like the gaiters because they look "old fashioned" but for me they are good way to protect the seals in the legs and keep the damping fluid where it does the most good- inside the fork legs. Plus they look cool, especially when they have settled in and smoothed out. Then there is the question of a center stand. Some modern riders don't want a center stand in addition to the side stand because they add weight and aren't necessary. I like to have both choices to make parking easier in certain conditions, and to aid in simple maintenance chores, like adding air to the tires, checking the oil level and cleaning and oiling the final drive chain:I have for decades abhorred final drive chains as maintenance intensive and a nuisance. After years of shaft and belt drive I have been forced back to chain drive and really its not so bad. The chain looks pretty much brand new and should be good for at least 20,000 miles- some people claim 40,000 off a modern o-ring chain like this one on the Triumph. I clean it as the factory recommends about every thousand miles with a stiff brush and lashings of kerosene (paraffin in England). To oil it I use a little English gadget called a Loobman which is a tremendous invention for $35.I use fresh engine oil for its light weight and lubricant qualities and I lashed the little bottle to a frame member above the chain. The other end of the system grips the final sprocket between two electrical ties (!) that drip oil onto the sprocket that spreads the lubricant to both sides of the chain. A squeeze of the bottle every time I fill the tank and the chain stays lubricated and supple. I give an extra squeeze from time to time (in the rain, or if I'm feeling generous) and the the little bottle of oil lasts forever. The oil does spread some muck over the rear end but it makes the rear wheel rustproof and it washes off easily enough.

To ride a bike often and in all weathers I am a firm believer in windshields. When I was younger I wanted a sporting look but nowadays I like a simple windshield. Parabellum does a nice 20 inch number for $250.I like the slight curvature as opposed to the straight vertical type offered by Triumph and Parabellum comes with the rubber mounting around the headlight, along with cutouts for the turn signals. Also it is completely quiet in operation, no creaking or squeaking. It was a bit of a bugger to install:And I had to bleed the front brake (boo hoo!) after the handlebars were upside down for the thirty minutes it took to get all the bits organized.I took advantage of the screen to move my two add on instruments. The clock and the barometer from New Bonneville at $70 apiece are helpful to me partly because I'm rotten at estimating temperature and partly because I hate being late. Also they are self contained and don't rely on the bike's battery to operate:

I have always deemed a tachometer necessary to proper motorcycle operation to measure engine rpm, but on the Bonneville I'd have to spend about $500 to get my extra instrument that comes standard on the more heavily chromed and more expensive T100:The Bonneville has gobs of torque and pulls easily and smoothly from 40 mph in fifth gear so the tachometer has been missed less than I would have expected. I have no plans to install one at this point, much to my own surprise.

A commuter needs decent lights, the sort of thing people in cars take for granted. Did you ever hear of someone worrying about the lumens of their car light bulbs? I have only heard it from riders. Me, I'm content with what came from the factory:And finally there is the question of luggage for the dapper commuter roadster. On the aesthetic front people groan at the thought of burdening their spiffy machines with bags and boxes but to me a motorcycle with no luggage is a motorcycle not ridden as a real alternative to a cage:To me the Bonneville as presented above is just right for my daily rides, and with a waterproof bag strapped to the seat I can travel at my ease. (I am no fan of tank bags, even the modern ones). To reach this point I started by adding a rear rack, the only one I know of that fits the Bonneville.It's made by Renntec and is sold by New Bonneville for about $130:I found it a pain strapping my man purse to the rack each time I rode, so I added a top case (top box in England). This one is preferred by off road riders on bikes like the Kawasaki KLR 650. I like it because its cheap, $85, and is square so there is no wasted space inside with swoops and compound curves. Plus it was available at the Yamaha shop on North Roosevelt:The top case will hold my full face helmet or my carefully folded mesh/Kevlar jacket, or my man purse with my open face helmet, so I can leave my stuff with the bike locked, weatherproof and out of sight:In one saddlebag I always keep my waterproofs. The bag itself comes with a waterproof cover but I spray them with silicon and so far their contents have remained nice and dry. I store my waterproof clothing in cotton bedding bags, the sort of bags sheets are sold in, and I label them to make them easier to figure out by the side of the road in a downpour- "liner" for my jacket liner, "pants" and "over boots" for my waterproof mittens and boot covers. I also carry zinc sunscreen and insect repellent, which is always useful around here:In the other bag I have odds and ends, a socket wrench, bungee cords, rags, fix-a-flat (some hope!) a pressure gauge and my Chico shopping bags of course along with a tin of Nevr Dull to shine up the chrome when I'm bored and waiting for an appointment. I have taken to carrying a blanket for those occasions when one has nowhere to sit but has time to take a break. The plastic bag I use as emergency waterproofing if I have to carry my man purse on the back of the seat with my ingenious permanently in place bungee tied to the front of the rack to make an easily used and very secure loop thusly:Storage is not as elegant as my late lamented Vespa but it's just as roomy in the end.

Flat tires are a damned nuisance with spoked wheels and inner tubes, much harder to cope with roadside than modern tubeless tires so I may have to do something about the wheels before too long. Flats suck, even when you have a trailer at home to load the bike onto:I have to say there is pleasure in having the details figured out. There is a peculiar satisfaction in having a place for everything and everything of course, in its place. My inspiration lately came from this BSA single loaded for travel to Panama in the 1950s, a story I reviewed here months ago:When I took off for Tampa last week almost 500miles away all I had to do was add a waterproof dive bag to the seat with a few days worth of "proper clothes" and I was ready to roll. The horizon beckons, just as it did 30 years ago when i was taking off on my unsuitable motorcycles all the time. Ah impetuous youth.

Recycling

It turns out I live in one of the most backward communities in North America when it comes to recycling. I have mentioned it before that one of the things I like about living in the Keys is the way people like to live and let live. On the other hand a little community education would be no bad thing. Mainland Floridians recycle about 30 percent of the waste stream according to the paper. We recycle around seven and a half percent up from six percent a while ago. I'm doing my bit and so are many of my neighbors:There was a front page article in Monday's Citizen about recycling in "Frisco," which is the commonly accepted abbreviation for the city of San Francisco (commonly accepted by everyone except residents of The City who hate the overly intimate abbreviation). It seems San Francisco recycles fully 70 percent of their waste and the mayor wants to increase it to 75 percent. However that doesn't seem possible to Mayor Gavin Newsom unless he requires all residents to compost. Which seems draconian even to them by their own eco standards.

Change is in the air, even in the Keys. A recycle bin appeared in the police communications center a few weeks ago, for non sensitive papers (perforce we shred a lot of our paperwork) and the Citizen reported one bar bought a $5,000 bottle crusher to try to reduce their part of the mountain of empty bottles that accumulate around this thirsty town. Apparently its not cost effective to recycle bottles as bottles, but crushed glass takes up less space and can be used in other ways, I'm guessing possibly as construction material and the like. I recycle without thinking about it at home, trash on the right, recycling on the left:And I know there are naysayers who argue that recycling is not particularly useful in the grand scheme of things. To some extent I agree, so I try to follow the rule of R's- reduce, reuse recycle and in the end the bromide is that something is better than nothing. I reuse the moisture from the air conditioner by pouring it into my rainwater collection system:When full it amounts to just over three gallons of purified moisture (the stick is a ramp for geckos that have fallen in). I put the water into the black collection tanks under the house. When its hot and humid I can get three gallons every time I leave the house, it seems like:The black tanks behind the Bonneville settle the rain water I pump out of the 12,000 gallon collection cistern that collects rainwater off the roof. There is a series of pumps that moves the water around:And a series of filters on the wall of the cistern, which purify the rainwater that gets pumped into the house in lieu of aqueduct water:Year round we use very little aqueduct water which is supposed to be a good eco thing, helping preserve the South Florida aquifer. We hang our laundry out to dry which is pretty effective in this climate especially when there is as is frequently the case, a breeze:If all these small steps aren't saving the planet they do no harm, actually save me some money and use very little extra time. I'm pretty slack on the composting front and we are getting psyched to move into creating a small composting area outside. I'm reluctant to compost because our waster stream is already pretty tiny- we get two pick ups each week and I'm pressed to put out garbage of any kind on two out of three visits by The Man:The composting thing fills me with anxiety because when we eventually develop a supply of fertile soil we will then have to find a way to use it and that means building a bed for planting. Which means gardening and that my friends is a pain. It always was and always will be. So I need an attitude adjustment. Gardening in my middle age will not become the chore it was in my youth and we will enjoy home grown flowers and vegetables. In the Keys no less. So composting is on my to-do list. In my defense I do keep the trees around the house trimmed but palm fronds are fibrous and abundant and they would take three lifetimes to compost down to soil so I put them into garbage cans for yard waste pick up on Fridays. My wife has noted I seem to enjoy the tree trimming routine and I guess it is true, being outside in the heat is much less of a chore for me than struggling with lawn mowers and out of control growth and cold wet dirt. There is hope for me yet.

We have an active and comprehensive hazardous waste program at the dump (transfer station really because they collect the waste and truck it to the mainland for disposal in the ground...at vast expense) on Cudjoe Key including household hazards and used engine oil.The City of Key West reports a modest savings of $30,000 in the trash bill annually thanks to a modest increase in the amount of stuff recycled. If nothing else one would think taxpayers would recycle to save the community some tax dollars but I have my doubts about the willingness of the stubborn down here to be led in that direction. One does what one can- to avoid the trash can!

Fleming Street

It was a man called John Simonton who bought Thompson's Island from a Spaniard called Juan Pablo Salas, a Cuban merchant with interests in St Augustine. Salas sold his island twice but Simonton had influence in Washington and his claim stuck over John Geddes's who swapped Salas a boat for Cayo Hueso. The island's first American name, for a secretary of the Navy didn't stick, but Simonton sold quarters of his strategic possession to John Whitehead, and two others who sold their quarter to Pardon Greene. The fourth quarter went to an Englishman settled in Mobile Alabama next door to Simonton's business interests. He was called John Fleeming, whose name in the passage of time was reduced to Fleming. Anyone with any knowledge of Key West knows that those four names represent major streets in Old Town. Yesterday I cruised Fleming Street with my camera.Fleming Street begins behind the county courthouse at Thomas Street, which is currently under construction as the county is building itself a new center next to the long standing buildings.The old courthouse and administrative buildings are in brick, in the Southern style, and the new ones we hope will not jar our sensibilities. So far so good. The old building from the front still manages to look dignified:And if you chose to work your way past the courthouse security those arches up high offer an private and unparalleled view across old town, with tables for a secluded picnic.

For some reason, which I cannot find out why precisely, Mile Marker Zero was placed at Fleming and Whitehead Streets. One would think that the Southernmost Point at Whitehead and South Streets would have worked better, or possibly (given the city's inclination to move monuments from time to time) somewhere near Mallory Square . Instead the zero is plonked down at this inauspicious corner. The request has gone out that the state move the marker to the lamp post to make photography easier. These two were coping:
This next photograph shows Fleming Street heading northeast towards Duval from Whitehead, with on the left the bulk of La Concha Hotel looming over Duval Street. La Concha close up spreads out on the 400 block of Duval with shops, a bar, a Starbucks (one of two in the Keys, the other is at Mile Marker 99.5 in the Upper Keys). Fleming Street is one way out of town and is thus a useful street to escape Duval direct to White Street:Across from La Concha lies the redoubtable Kress building long since given over to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Cafe and Tony Falcone's store:Tony Falcone, one of the founders of Fantasy Fest (an antidote to the low season blues he says), owns Fast Buck Freddies, an eclectic department store.I worked there a few months years ago in the shipping and receiving office as if to prove my lack of suitability for the world of retail. Fast Bucks deserves an essay of its own.

Between Duval Street (named for Florida's first American Governor) and Simonton Street, named for the island's first American owner, there are a few shops lining Fleming Street. I've always wanted to like Island Books as I prefer independent bookstores but unless you are on their insider list you will be treated abominably by their staff of grumps.Call me an arriviste but I patronize Voltaire Books a few blocks away on Simonton Street, newer, friendlier and less cramped. Fleming Street is just packed with notable local businesses including the delightful Fausto's Food Palace, and the current owner is the founder's son in law. Jimmy Weekly served as mayor for years and was always to be found, like today, working in the store, wearing an apron and frequently wielding a knife in the deli.My wife loves Fausto's deli where she loads up with picnic items with a decidedly non traditional flair- dolmas, seaweed and octopus ceviche to name but a few. Faustos is also advertised as a crossroads for one and all in town:But as we know Key West is home to all types of people, shirtless, in uniform or all buttoned up... I don't know which is tougher, hauling letters in the heat of summer...... wearing a suit on a blazing street corner......or dragging your offspring behind you on your bicycle (actually these last two looked pretty cheerful)...Tourists cruise Fleming Street in the gruesomely slow Conch Train:Or the slightly more sprightly Old Town Trolley, which is also owned by Historic Tours of America:I have to say the tours (around $22, I think, for 90 minutes) are quite worth while though the identically repeated narratives drive home owners quite mad, and the 5mph speed of these contraptions make drivers crazy. Ride the train and pretend to ignore the scowling locals (me included I'm sorry to say).

The other big landowners in this tiny town have a hefty presence in this area:This family name spells mad development with a capital D, though rumor has it Beachside isn't doing so well and the proposed massive Convention Center at the entrance to town across from Beachside has hit a few snags in the current uncertain financial climate.Which spells tough times for construction workers as well of course. No issue seems clear cut when one reaches the wisdom of middle age. Hate that development, love them jobs!The Spottswoods have a death grip on the tourist economy and they take their bows in the simpering Conch Color magazine every now and again- noblesse oblige. They own this building too and keep offices in it to promote their various multi million dollar enterprises, employing God knows how many locals:I know I was never born to be a businessman because I don't really understand the drive to build. Entropy seems so all encompassing to me, the idea that a new building will make a better city seems a little off kilter. I prefer making the old new, maintaining the look or the feel of the past with the modern conveniences of the new (Think Triumph Bonneville year 2007 model!). The tear it all down approach leaves me cold. I wonder when they will have enough of moulding Key West to their rather sterile vision though I doubt I shall be alive to see them say stop, enough. So one turns away and keeps looking northeast on Fleming to find examples of old preserved:

Take this church for instance, a few blocks up Fleming at William Street:Old refurbished to look new. And all those wires; its amazing power flows as reliably as it does in this windy city. Conch houses of course abound, with all their Conch details, like this breezy figurehead:And these lovely old/new homes, just two on a street filled with such examples:
And then there is the public library, Florida's oldest at Elizabeth and Fleming, with of course a passed out residentially challenged citizen sprawled uncomfortably on the planter:
And in the shade a young person sucking up knowledge:The Library comes with a delightful garden alongside, a place I used frequently to escape Fast Bucks on my downtown lunch breaks (the other favorite was the cemetery, though some considered me eccentric for preferring to share my midday meals with the dead):And this being Key West, there is a convenience store before you journey too far, and one should note the dog friendly white water bowl outside the doorway: Then we find Bubba's an outdoor restaurant that replaced an eclectic Asian place known as Monsoon Cafe, which was a place where I liked to buy curries and sit out watching the stars. Bubbas I don't yet know (that dog had been refreshing itself at the previous dog bowl a few minutes earlier, so even though it looks stressed it is just a maldajusted moment captured by the camera):Then there is the Eden House a hotel that took a starring role in a movie shot there, Criss Cross, from 1990. Nowadays Eden House, named for its owner Mike Eden, not the mythical garden, slumbers in the summer heat with its guest bicycles clogging the bike stand in a way that is spectacular to my mind, even by Key West urban cycling standards:There is also the Island House for Men in this area, and if you're gay you already know about it and if you're not you need know no more. I used to work with a colleague who enjoyed his lunch breaks there, though I draw a veil over what he said he ate for lunch on those occasions. He moved Up North, though I cannot imagine his life in Central Florida is nearly as stimulating.

The rest of Fleming Street to White is common or garden Key West, trees, houses and a dead end.
A metaphor for life perhaps? No, that's way too heavy a burden for this delightful urban artery.