Wreckless Abandonment

Wreckless Abandonment

Sometimes a man’s just had enough

Mark Hoyer

IT WAS SOMETHING LIKE 13 years and countless thousands of hours labor that one day was left at the side of a northern California dirt trail with a sign on it that that said “Free to good home.”

The time and effort was lavished upon this highly modified Triumph street-tracker, winner of our Street Special class. For the man who left it there, the bike had become a nightmare, an all-consuming passion that turned to disdain. For the man who finally ended up with the bike, Paul Zell, the bike was like a dream, a never-ending discovery of subtle and not-so-subtle mods he thought “had to be saved.”

As Zell tells it, the bike passed through the hands of two people before it landed in his collection. The original builder-finally tracked down by the man who sold Zell the bike-wasn’t specific about why he left it there, just that the bike had consumed too much of his life and let him down one too many times. So he just walked away.

If that sounds like a somewhat eccentric thing to do, well, it is. But it takes a certain obsessive eccentricity to build or modify virtually every part on a motorcycle.

The engine started life as a ’68 650cc Twin, but now sports 800cc Routt barrels, Mikuni flatslides and a later five-speed gearbox. The primary chaincase was machined away and the stock chain/clutch setup tossed in favor of belt drive. Things get groovy when you see the V-belt drive outboard of the front primary pulley-the bike is fitted with a car alternator! Things get even groovier when you look at the rear brake setup-a cut-down disc is mounted behind the clutch basket. It is beautiful, slightly insane-looking work. Virtually every other part-from the singlesided front fender/brake line

bracket to the kickstart lever-was custom-made.

And no matter how trick the Redline dirt-track frame, aluminum swingarm with Carrera monoshock and WP inverted forks are, they almost seem mundane next to the engine.

Zell’s hand in the bike’s resurrection was essentially to get it painted, polished and running. I mean, what else would, could you do? A head-gasket leak encouraged a topend rebuild, and the 21/18-inch wheel combo wasn’t to his liking, so he swapped them for a tasty set of 18/19-inch Borranis. And that’s about it.

“Sometimes, I can see why he walked away,” says Zell. “It had some very bad vibration, but a head-steady I made has helped that. Still, things have vibrated off. It hasn’t let me down yet, but things like the taillight have fallen off and broken.” Hey, at least it wasn’t a one-off piece. But how many of you out there are hoping the Triumph lets him down enough times he leaves it at the side of the road with a sign on it? -Mark Hoyer