an old friend of mine bought a brand new T160 trident . . . getting blown away by many japanese bikes . . . weeping oil from everywhere . . . bought a 750 honda 4. hence why i bought another a few years ago. i often wonder where VGT 9R is nowadays, my mate said it stood for very good triumph ![lol *lol*](https://www.a7a10.net/forum/Smileys/default/icon_lol.gif)
One of my brothers-in-law had a (new) Rocket 3 like that bergs.
Tolerated it for about 9 months and umpteen warranty problems - and then went for japanese 4s for ever after. Couldn't be persuaded to try a Commando even - the visceral distaste for what we were churning out at that period ran too deep.
Luckily for me maybe, I could only afford old and cheap, like an A10, various Ariel and BSA pre-unit singles etc - but at least they worked. The bro-in-law, though, he expected his expensive new Brit beast to keep up with his younger bro's Suzy Hustler and other mates on smaller capacity rice burners and was indignant that - up through the gears - he couldn't. And that they didn't break down either.
'Twas a tricky old time . . . . and while a few mates were getting on OK with T140s and Notruns in the later 70s, I went for a CB900F. Which, er, didn't break down either, although it was under-tyred and the infamous primary chain was a bit noisy at 50K miles when I passed it on.
Not sure I wanted to be reminded of all that actually - it was before the rose-tints I wear these days became a thing . . . which I suppose kicked in when
Classic Bike started up in '78. Omigawd, that's almost half a century of this madness . . . Will it end well ? ? ? ?