TIGER TIME!

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