It's a Triumph

Regular subscribers will have noted references this week to a touch of MLC (mid life crisis) and it is time to own up.

When I was a student, circa 1975, I owned a Honda CD175 motorbike. I loved it. This was at a time when you could ride a bike up to 250cc on a provisional licence and you didn't even need to wear a helmet. I recall summer evening blasts around the country roads north of Dundee protected by nothing more than a pair of Levis, cowboy boots, a teeshirt and a cool pair of shades. Probably just as well that I had no accidents.

I do recall an episode, after a day servicing the bike with a friend and a sparkplug being inadvertently overtightened, stripping the thread on the alloy cylinder head. This was all unknown to me, until one of these summer evening rides. Stopping at a village crossroads somewhere, and casually revving the engine, I was rewarded by a bang and the ejected sparkplug hitting me on the leg. I think in shock more than pain, I fell over with the bike on top of me, feeling and looking a lot less cool than had been the intention. However, it was easily sorted at a Dundee engineering works who for a fiver tapped out the sparkplug socket for me. So somewhere there was a CD175 with one 12mm plug and one at 14mm. It ran fine.

The thought of once again cruising along country roads on a nice evening has been nagging at me for a while, so I had a one hour taster session earlier this week. It wasn't quite as easy as I had remembered from 35 years ago to co-ordinate both hands and both feet on pedals and levers, but it was great fun.

Domestic negotations are at what might be described as a preliminary stage....