Owning one classic Triton is great; owning two is twice as good - if not better, as Steven Myatt found out recently.

How many Tritons does a man need in his life - and indeed his garage? Well, one is a good start, and to be honest that would do me just fine.
Some folk aren't content with the singular though; Cliff Groom thinks that two is a better number. My first reaction is that he's just plain greedy, but once I'd looked a little more closely I could see the rationale. Triton number one is the absolute embodiment of the rocker ideal, with its traditional styling, swept-back pipes, Goldie silencers and chrome visor over the headlight.
If you'd seen this bike parked up outside a caff in 1962 you'd have been delighted to see it, but nothing about it would have hinted that it was a time traveller (except, perhaps, the front hub). So far so very good. Triton number two is very different in that it's a 21st Century take on the time-honoured formula. It's much more hi-tech, and is altogether a very different beast.

The two, taken together, make a fascinating pair of machines, and show how diverse the concept of the Triton can be. So who's this geezer with two lovely specials in his garage? Cliff was into British bikes when he was a teenager. When I asked him what he'd had he reeled off a list that kept me pinned down for 20 minutes.
Like many guys though marriage and family commitments then got in the way, and two-wheeled excitement became nothing but a memory; for years he was, he says, a Jag and Rover man. A couple of years ago, however, he took early retirement from his job at BT.
Whereas some blokes decide to take up marquetry or Bonsai growing once they stop work, Cliff decided that he was going to spend his time getting back to bikes. Good man. His first foray back onto two wheels was aboard a CBR 600, but that lacked soul, and as everyday transport it was followed by a 1200cc Evo Sportster Sport, which Cliff bought off a stand at a Kempton Park autojumble.

It runs adjustable rear suspension and a Vance & Hines exhaust pipe which makes a gorgeous noise - and it came with a big box full of spares, including three seats, three sets of 'bars, a spare carb - just what I was looking for six months ago! - and a touring flyscreen. He's absolutely delighted with it too: "It's really comfortable. I go out with mates who've got Ducatis or whatever, and after 20 or 30 miles they're shaking their arms and legs, trying to get the feeling back. On the Sportster I can cruise in comfort all day."

Back to the Brits though: He's owned the traditionally-styled Triton for about five years - it was a present from his wife - dearly beloveds everywhere please take note. It's a pre-unit motor running swept-back pipes and Goldie exhausts - as I've said - though the big Mikuni carbs are very definitely not period items. Cliff reckons that the bell mouths were one-off items and must have been specially turned. Those carbs work well but are going to be replaced simply because they don't really fit the feel off the machine.

Left: All the instrumentation needed to assist the café racer, no idiot lights, no buzzers, no beepers, just pure function. Right: Keeping the electrics out of the way is a difficult styling task and hiding them under the seat hump has a lot going for it…

The clip-ons came from Allens, there's an oil cooler up the front ('Which really does work'), and a Grimeca front hub. All that aside, it's very much what you expect to see in terms of a Triton - which isn't exactly what you can say of its stable-mate. Cliff bought the hi-tech Triton as a collection of bits; the engine, the replica Manx frame, the oil and petrol tanks, and a pair of standard Norton wheels. From that he's ended up using the frame and petrol tank, which was already painted in that distinctive yellow and chequered flag scheme.
The engine he had bought was a pre-unit mated to a Norton 'box, but he then saw a better-looking 750cc unit motor at Newark autojumble and decided it was a better bet. He took the engine apart to its every last nut and bolt and built it back up as stock, apart from a heftier clutch. He treated the Amals to twin choke operation, and also swapped the gear change from left to right.

The unit motor meant that the Norton one-gallon oil tank that came with the frame no longer fitted, so Cliff bought a new one from Unity Equipe and had that painted up to match the petrol tank. The front hub is off a Suzuki Kettle (listen, you can a thousand purists gnashing their teeth!), which he says are much sought after these days; they do the job very well and look for all the world in keeping with the style of British TLS brakes. That was pretty horrible when he bought it, but it has cleaned up well, and now really looks the part.
The rims are flangeless alloys, which Cliff was determined to use; "I don't know why it is," he says, "but whenever the bike is parked, dogs come along and wee on the wheels.
If you've got flanged rims you can never really get the mark off the alloy, so I went for these." Round the back the rim is laced to a traditional conical hub. Cliff added a flat plate to the rear loop on the frame, and that houses the battery, the digital electronic ignition, the independent fuses (which leave the ignition unaffected if anything else blows), and even a take-off for charging the battery en situ. And a very tidy set-up it is too.
TB