Not (quite) A Classic Triumph
NOT (QUITE) A ClASSIC TRIUMPH
How to make an old/new Pikes Peak special
EDDIE MULDER IS always on, never at a loss for a quip or an insight, so it’s not always easy to tell when he’s joking or when the wool is headed for one’s eyes.
On this occasion Mulder is astride a Triumph 750, the machine on which partner Scott Dunleavy was top qualifier last year at the Pikes Peak hillclimb in Colorado.
“If I entered this in a vintage event,” Mulder says, “and I went through tech (inspection) astride it, they’d let me through, and then I’d have to ask ’em why they let me race a non-vintage bike.” He shifts one leg and... Wow! The engine is a ’70s Triumph Twin, the front of the frame and the fuel tank are vintage Champion, but the rear suspension is monoshock, a brand-new Works Performance damper and linkage mounted in a rear frame devised and revised by C&J’s Jeff Cole, the guy who does the Grand National winners.
The reason and the driver behind this unusual project is that Mulder, a retired Pro turned promoter, and Dunleavy, two-time Baja 1000 winner and former Grand National dirt-track Expert, respect and admire the current Triumph Bonneville Twin, but somehow it’s not like the original Twins, while the frames in which the classic 650s and 750s rode around in aren’t merely vintage, they’re outmoded and overweight. Thus, Mulder and Dunleavy commissioned two updated frames from C&J, with oil carried in the frame tubes but re-done to accept modem rear suspension.
All the bits excepting the front frame section and the fuel tank are new, as in A&A Racing wheels laced with only 32 spokes so they’ll flex on demand, AMA-legal Maxxis tires, K&N filters, Barnett clutch and controls...need it be said that Mulder was happy to furnish a list of his sponsors?
The seat/fender is carbonfiber and the exhaust is Mulder’s own product, in stainless-steel, no less.
The engine was built by Karl Krohn, using ’70s-era heads, cylinders and cases. The camshafts are Johnson, the ignition is ARD, carburetors are twin 36mm Dell’Ortos and the output is 75.7 bhp at the rear wheel on a certified dynamometer.
Racing weight, as in topped with gas and oil, is 285 pounds, which Mulder says is about 30 pounds less than a similar engine with oldtime twin-shock Champion frame from front to back.
The record to date shows the updated Triumph has potential, at Pikes and club events at least. A Grand National Harley or Suzuki has lots more power and not much more weight, so Pro miles are out.
Closer to the point,
Mulder promotes a vintage series, where the mies are upheld every time; no way would he try to put one over on the other clubs.
Instead, Mulder and Dunleavy would like to commission more of the machines, either for amateur racing, as really big and fast playbikes or even as streettrackers with the addition of road-legal lights and so forth.
However or wherever, Mulder says this is the besthandling flat-track Triumph he’s even ridden, and that’s no joke. —Allan Girdler
