Entry for November 25, 2006

I had an interesting motorcycling experience this afternoon. An acquaintance of mine owns a 1973 Triumph 750 (One carb, what does that make it?). I see the Steve at church and we had talked about it several times but I had never seen it. He told me last week that he was putting it on Ebay because it is too difficult for him to start since his knee replacement. I volunteered to start it for him once he got his newly painted tank back on. Today was the day so I rode the REB over to his house.

Nice looking bike, just 15k on the clock, nothing dinged or anything. Just a good looking original bike. Now I have never started a 750 Triumph but how hard could it be? Turned on the petcocks (why do you need two petcocks for one carb?) tickled the Amal until gas ran out, kicked it over three times with the key off then key on and bingo. Well not quite, I kicked it about four time and got no joy so I had him pull a plug out to see if there was spark and there was. Steve suggested dropping a little gas into the cylinder to prime a bit. It fired up first kick after priming, died once, started back up and ran fine. Sounded sweet. I rode it around the block just for the experience. Only tried to stop with the gear shift once.

We decided to take a little ride so off we went on a circuit around Salina and the old girl never missed a beat. We stopped by home so I could show him Dubya and he was rightly impressed. As he rode away it occurred to me that I should have taken a picture. Sure hope he gets a good price on Ebay, it will make someone a nice ride or would be a great restoration.