T140.com - My Bike

"Please allow me to introduce myself , I'm a man of wealth and taste..........."

Well please allow me to introduce myself. (I'm owned by a man with no wealth but moderate taste). My name is Sooty - we'll get to why later - and I'm a 1979 Triumph Bonneville T140E motorcycle, owned and ridden since new by......................................... well, lets just say a short little skinny guy (who now seems to be ........ let's say .....filling out somewhat).

I was ~~born~~ made in England and came to Melbourne, Australia early in '79 and then sat around waiting for someone to sweep me off my ~~feet~~ wheels, when lo and behold who walks in and says that they want a new Bonnie?, Mr. short-little-skinny-guy. He said he'd looked at everything else on the market - Duke, Harley, Laverda, blah blah blah, but none of them had that certain something that that made him go "ooh yeah". But the Bonneville did make him go "ooh yeah", and he was there to buy one. There was another Bonnie in there as well and when the salesman says "which one?", well naturally I'm goin' "pick me, pick me!!".
And bless his little cotton socks, he did too!! So naturally I poked out my dipstick at the other Bonnie and exhausted in its general direction. "Stick that in your rocker box" I said.
So anyway that was on the 5th of March '79 and my owner took delivery of me on the 7th and we've been together ever since. Except of course when he decided to go to Europe in '82. Left me in his brothers garage for 18 months while he's off gallivanting around the countryside. Why the imbecile never went to Meriden is beyond me - too busy pissing it up against the wall I'll bet. We've been on many road trips together, up this highway, down that one, along another, a few British Bike Rallies and as many Broadfords.

He's always treated me reasonably well though, even when I have had a shitty on. He gets cranky at the time but knows it's all part of growing up. I reckon I've had about 20 gazillion dollars spent on me in the form of polishes etc and that's not to mention any repair bills that have come along, but I've got to admit he's always been loyal and trustworthy. Never even looked at another bike since me and still doesn't. I know he's had a couple of offers for me and he's just said to them "Would you sell your wife or your mother or your children? Go away stupid."

We've been through some bad times it's got to be said. Probably the worst for both of us was when I just wasn't feeling up to it one day and he wanted to go riding - (ride me and shag the girl he had with him no doubt) and so when he gave me a prime and kicked me over I backfired as a warning to him. But oh no, he's got his brain in his pants by now and thought is just not something he's capable of, so what does the dickhead do? Repeats the process and of course I've spontaneously combusted. "Ha, ha, that'll teach you, ya nong" I says to myself. You can just imagine him though can't you, his pride and joy on fire, flames everywhere and absolutely nothing to put it out with. PANIC CITY!!!!!! Ha! ha! ha! But the funniest thing about it all was that up the end of the street, there were about 2 or 3 guys enjoying the mid-morning sun on their verandah when they see me go up in flames and him trying to put out the fire with nothing except an old leather jacket and they're goin' "hey check-out the thrill seeker!". I'm sure I could hear "Ring of Fire" in the background.
It took him ages if not eons to get off his skinny little bum and fix me up again and since that fateful day both he and I have been known to be called Sooty by certain elements of the human fraternity. It was a few years later that we moved to Darwin - Gods country - and he decided that he wanted to win a trophy in the local bike show, so he spent a swingarm and a forkleg on me getting things "nicey nicey". He got rid of the plastic this, the Japanese looking that, the crappy looking something else and added that "just sensible amount of chrome". After all, we don't want to look too GLAM ROCK do we?

I do know that his ambition was to get me in one of the bike mags, but this was proving to be a tall order, so he decided to inflict me upon the WORLD by using the internet, and so it was that this website was born.

I leave you now with the immortal words of Arlo Guthrie

" I don't wanna pickle,
just wanna ride on my motorsickle
I don't wanna tickle,
just wanna ride on my motorsickle
And I don't wanna die,
just wanna ride on my motorcy.....
cle"

SOOTY