Growing up through the ‘sixties’ gave my generation an interesting view of the world. Hippies, free love, bra burning, rock music, Vietnam, the Cold War, it was both an exciting and terrifying time. Motorcycles too were fascinating in that the CB750K2 altered everything as it was and brought us into a new 2 wheeled age. But long after the K2 was being overtaken by the ‘Kwaka 900’, a strange breed of bike was still cruising Hunter Street, a thing called a ‘chopper’ and not just the U.S. models, I remember seeing a lot of ‘chopped’ Triumphs, quite a lot in fact. What’s interesting today, is that Triumph are now building a cruiser, based on the new Bonneville, not quite a ‘chopper’ but it is I believe, a descendant of those days past.

I was surprised when I first saw the Triumph Bonneville America, as it appears bigger in the ‘flesh’. What I liked about the bike was it’s good handling and the way you could lean it harder into a corner than most other cruisers. Triumph owner from way back, Bill Wilkinson, made the point that the America is unlike a true cruiser, in the fact that it has a free revving motorcycle engine as opposed to one that ‘lumps’ along using superior torque. For this reason, I found myself comparing the bike to the BMW R1200C with its similar wide bars, comfortable seating, good handling and fast engine.

There is mechanically little to distinguish the America from its standard Bonneville sibling, it has the same excellent brakes, 5 speed gearbox and although it has different ‘timing’, the engine performs similarly. The speedo is a very prominent feature with (black on light grey) wide graduations that appear to make it easy to hold a constant speed. In my own opinion, I found the note of the 270 degree parallel twin very nice but, I would prefer the standard 360 degree engine in the cruiser myself, but that’s simply a matter of personal likes. The slash cut exhaust pipes look good and sound great. Pillion comfort is slightly above average for this class of bike. The horn is ordinary (most are), however, you can’t fault the headlight which has excellent low and high beam. There’s lots of quality chrome and the guarded fork legs make them look somewhat like HD Fatboy units. I found it hard to see the ‘idiot’ lights against the tank nacelles chrome background, so I kept forgetting the blinkers, which you can actually see over the bars, perhaps they should put the tell tales on top of them instead. The front brake lever seemed a little soft, but it may have just needed a bleed. The rear suspension was set on the second bottom rung and this was still a little hard when some of the worst parts of Wollombi Road were contacted, but, along with the seat it was quite comfortable. At freeway speeds the design of the America gave me good protection from the air blast, bearing in mind that it had no screen, and the mirrors are rock steady. It took me a while to master the sidestand, which is easy once you work out that you need to toe it out, not heel. For a late lunch, I stopped at the Cessnock Road, Ridgy Didge Pie Shop, next to the Hotel Denman, the pie was excellent as was the look of the bike parked out side, what an awesome day out. Price on road is $15,664.

Test Bike courtesy of Brisan Motorcycles 49694500.

May your lid never skid….www.users.hunterlink.net.au/~mbbidp