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Groovy Ruby is a Legend
I met Ruby at Carl Rosners at Sanderstead on April 5 2008 when I was flirting with a Thunderbird Triple. Ruby winked at me from a shady corner of the showroom and we have been together ever since. Ruby was born in Hinkley in 1998 as a Legend TT and had six partners in her first 22,250 miles but has stayed loyal and faithful to me and is now approaching 70,000 miles. I bought her Bonny export bars last St Valentine’s Day and she took me to Stirling and back for the weekend to say thanks. Les at Tri-Moto does the valve clearances every 6000 miles and I change the oil and filters every 3000 miles. We plan to stay together for ever and ever and Erica is quite cute as well. Kevin Medway MAG TKFFTK Ride Free in GB Erica says, “Sorry I forgot to take my helmet off.”
Kevin and girlfriend Erica Johnʼs Bonnie
No one in their right mind would buy a bike on impulse, would they? I did just that and it turned out to be one of my better decisions. It had just arrived in the showroom of Irelands’ Motorcycles in Barnstaple who let us use their showroom for the Riders Are Voters forum. It was sitting there with its slightly custom paint job and a few after market additions.
It was just a year old with only
1000 miles on the clock and on enquiring I discovered it had already had two owners – so what was wrong with it? Someone had spent a lot of money on it and never used it. As a member of North Devon British Motorcycle owners Club, I was acquainted with several Hinckley Bonneville owners and they were all happy with their bikes so I decided that a test ride would not hurt. Having dealt
with this particular dealer for decades and been at school with its founder this was not a problem. All they asked was that I return it before they closed for the evening. So Cornwall it was then.
The rest of the day was spent riding it and getting used to moving it around and putting it on and off the stand etc. This was important as I had had my ankle rebuilt a year earlier due to a deformity which had become a problem as I got older. It was also the reason I had to sell my HD softail, it had just got too heavy.
Needless to say I liked it a lot and returned it, telling them I would think about it – yeah, not much to think about – first thing Monday morning I rang and told them I would have it. By the afternoon it was mine. Since then I’ve fitted a king and queen seat (by order of the management) and a top box.
The bike came fitted with a carrier and I had a top box which I had ordered many years before for the HD softail, fitted and then removed, it was just sitting in the garage probably awaiting e-bay? Placing it on the bike it just seemed right and in keeping with
54 The ROAD everything else.
So I made up some brackets and bolted it on. The next thing was getting it resprayed to match, not easy as none of the Triumph colours available seemed correct. However a local motor factors, Pat Williams Ltd had a colour match service and after much deliberation a satisfactory result was achieved. That just left the orange stripes which were dealt with by a local graphics company, Fablon Graphics, who matched the original, fitted them and gave me the rest as spare.
Over the last year or so we’ve covered many thousands of miles in all weathers and road conditions and I can’t fault it. It suits my riding style with good handling and enough grunt for my needs especially around the hilly terrain of Exmoor and Dartmoor. I can also vouch for its off road capabilities, although I must admit this was an inadvertent adventure caused by some mistaken map reading. It sits in the garage along with several other bikes ranging from a BSA Bantam to a CBF1000 and is still the one I use the most – not bad for an ‘impulse buy’. John Hunt
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