A Blast from the Past

We have been sorting through some of the old files which have followed us from one house to another but never been properly looked through ... In among tax coding notices from 1982 and the safety info for a toaster we found a few old prints.

This one must be around 42 years old ... me with my Triumph 5TA Speed Twin.  500cc and 28bhp!  I restored it with my father. At the time he was working with a customer who was involved with ennameling sheet steel so we had the painted parts of the bike enamelled white. 

When I rode the bike back to college it was christened the Triumph Electrolux :-)

Note the single leading shoe front brake ... this may not have been the best idea for stopping the bike, but it did give me a very healthy regard for stopping distances!   After this I had a Norton Commando 750, a huge improvement in the social status stakes and much faster. It had a twin leading shoe front brake which suffered with brake fade ... once experienced, never forgotten :-)