On the Road: 1976 Triumph Bonneville

Only owner of 750cc British bike calls it ‘a diary of my entire adult life’

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Motorcycle enthusiasts in the west were dismayed to learn the Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver motorcycle shows were canceled for 2022. Given these shows all take place in the cold and dreary month of January, here’s a motorcycle tale for some winter reading about a one-owner 1976 Triumph Bonneville.

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Don Hewson’s parents were Canadians, but he was raised on the east coast of the U.S., in Wilmington, Delaware. When he was about 10 years old, he became aware of a World War Two-era Harley-Davidson parked about a block away.

“Nobody could ever get it running,” Hewson recalls. “We’d all ride our bicycles over to watch the progress, and I do remember (when those) teenagers finally got it going. The sound and the speed of the Harley-Davidson was just captivating.”

When Hewson worked his first full-time job as a lifeguard at 16, a co-worker arrived aboard a brand new 1966 Triumph Bonneville: “That Triumph was the epitome of form and function, speed and styling. It was overwhelmingly compelling.”

Over that summer, Hewson earned $775. He went to school that fall and winter, and in the spring of 1967, with his savings in hand, he was at the Triumph dealership. For that money, he bought a ’67 TR6R, the single-carburetor version of Triumph’s 650cc parallel-twin machine. After riding it for two years, he had to sell if, for $775, to help pay for his university education in Sackville, New Brunswick. There were motorcycles on campus, he says, but funds were tight and buying a machine was not a possibility. From New Brunswick, he went to Edmonton to do grad work at the University of Alberta, where he received a scholarship from the government. He was next at U. Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Hewson says he lived frugally there for a few months, but he used his scholarship funds to buy a new 1976 Triumph Bonneville T140V before his wife came down to join him.

“There were two identical Bonnevilles on the showroom floor,” Hewson says. “The owner watched me looking them over, and he said, ‘See that one with the defect in the paint? I’ll take $50 off for that.’ That took the price down to $1,600, and I said let’s write it up.”

From that point on, he was riding the Bonneville at every opportunity. “I rode it all over the Midwest,” Hewson says, and continues, “My brother lived in New Hampshire, and I’d ride 700 miles east to visit and ride with him all throughout the New England states. I was in Illinois for two years, and I was probably adding 15,000 miles a year to that bike,” he says.

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Riding the Bonneville that much meant he was gaining confidence in his mechanical abilities and was performing all routine maintenance. The Bonneville followed Hewson to Sarnia, Ontario, in the late 1970s when Imperial Oil offered him a job.
He rode the Bonneville for a few more years, but for the first time in his life, he says he had a pay cheque ‘that meant something,’ and several other motorcycles joined the stable. These included BMW, BSA, Ducati, Moto Guzzi and Norton models. Meanwhile, the Bonneville, now with 66,000 miles on the odometer, was parked in a shed. When Hewson retired a few years ago, however, he brought the Bonneville into his Sarnia shop for some attention.

“It had been maintained, but never apart,” Hewson says. “So, late in 2018, I took it completely apart, everything except the spokes out of the wheels. I did a blueprint rebuild of the engine, chassis and wheels, but I left all of the original finishes as they were.”

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I can look at that motorcycle and relive so many memories.

The 750cc Triumph engine was dismantled down to the crankshaft. Hewson cleaned the sludge trap, and then worked on the cylinder head. All valves and valve seats were in good condition, but he did replace two valve guides. He was surprised at the condition of the cylinders, as they both appeared to be virtually unworn. While the right piston measured correctly, the left was a little undersize and it had obviously left the factory in that condition. Hewson sourced two new pistons and rings from Walridge Motors Ltd. in Lucan, Ontario, and used them in the rebuild.

Everything else was cleaned and inspected, and many of the engine’s original components were returned to service. He installed Norton Commando peashooter mufflers and Showa shocks, and he fired the Bonneville up during the first COVID lockdown in the spring of 2020. Over the next two riding seasos, he took the odometer from 66,000 to 81,000 miles.

He says of his Bonneville, “It’s a diary of my entire adult life. I gave my late father a ride on that bike, and I rode all over on that bike with my late brother. I can look at that motorcycle and relive so many memories.”

Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or gregwilliams@shaw.ca