A Veteran Triumph motorcycle

A 1911 Triumph 3 ½ HP. This page is all about a 1911 Veteran Triumph motorcycle.

What is a Veteran Motorcycle? A veteran Triumph motorcycle is one made before the 1st January 1915 - so even the youngest veteran motorcycles are now almost 100 years old. The veteran Triumph was one of the most popular motorcycles when it was new and today it remains one of the most numerous of the veteran motorcycles that exist - many in running order.

We now think of veteran motorcycles as unreliable and not able to travel more than a few tens of miles before they would splutter to a halt and require extensive tinkering before they would continue. This view is very wrong.

By 1911 you could buy a motorcycle that would keep going for much longer than any man could endure and be a practical and reliable form of transport.

Rubbish you say .... well did you know that in 1911 the Auto Cycle Union stopped all further attempts on the endurance riding from the furthest northern point of Britain (John o’Groats) to the most southern (Lands End). They did so after Ivan B Hart-Davies set the final official ACU record in 1911 on a 1911 Triumph, covering the 886 miles in 29 hours and 12 minutes and averaging just over 30mph. At the time the national speed limit was 20 mph. Now you may scoff at 30mph as you think of blasting down a modern motorway, but in 1911 the roads were small, rutted and unsurfaced and you were effectively riding offroad in modern terms. Many of the towns would have roads covered in cobbles which when covered in the droppings from the millions of horses that were still the primary means of transport for most people, made them very slippery. Now think again of averaging 30mph over 886 miles over dirt tracks in 29 hours! Factor in the huge number of horses and other hazards you would need to slow for and the numerous punctures from the huge volume of nails scattered by the millions of horses. Other notable performances of Triumph riders in 1911 included:

Mr Harry Long took the world distance record doing 40,037 mile in just 44 weeks! And he started in January!
JR Haswell covered 124 miles in 2 hours in November 1911 – averaging over 60! Let me say that again AVERAGING OVER 60mph !
J Guzwell doing an average of 467 miles a day for six days – 2,801 miles in total in just 6 days.
Clearly we are all wimps and the modern 1,000 mile Iron Butt boys are mere small children compared to Mr Guzwell and Mr Hart-Davies.

The 1911 Triumph is widely regarded as the first useable relaible motorcycle produced.

My Grandfather thought so for he kept his 1911 Triumph until 1945 and it still exists today. Below is the earliest known picture of it in the early 1920's. Kids have arrived and a sidecar has been attached and if you look carefully you can see their little faces in the sidecar.

Veteran Triumph 1911

My Grandfather had his own motorcycle and cycle shop at mostly at 34a Church Street, Old Town, Eastbourne in East Sussex. He was in business from around 1909 (or may be bit earlier) until WW2. The picture below was taken in 1926 and shows a small part of his shop on the right of the butchers and what very much looks like a Triumph logo painted on the window. In 1911 the bike shop was run my a Mr BJ Smith and my Grandfather is listed in a 1910 business driectory as being at 8 Arundel Terrace as a Cycle and Motor Agents. By 1918 Thomas Gander had moved to 34a is listed in business at 34a as a cycle engineer.

34 church street eastbourne

The Triumph will have come with a lovely little booklet about the bike and how to ride it. The current owner has probably the worlds most extensive library of period Triumph Literature and below are copies of some of the pages and booklets relevant to the 1911 Triumph.

veteran triumph handbook

Inside this booklet ...

veteran triumph handbook

and below is another page showing how reliable these bikes can be...

Albert Catt Triumph motorcycle

veteran triumph motorcycle handbook

The 1911 Triumph Sales Brochure below.

veteran triumph literature

Below are a couple of pages from this brochure

veteran triumph literature

Triumph also published a Repairs and Sundries Catalogue and below are a few pages from the 1911 edition.

veteran triumph repair catalogue

On the 8th November 1910 The MOTOR CYCLING magazine had an initial review of the 1911 Triumph, below

1911 Triumph Motorcycle review

Probably the main literature aside from the weekly publications to guide motor cycle rider at this time was a useful little book called Hints and Tips for MotorCyclists. If tell you all you need to know to choose, own and ride a bike of the time.

hints and tips for motor cyclists 3rd edition

It is full of little period gems such as the text below.

In 1945 my grandfather sold the Triumph to a local man and in 1954 he sold it for £30 to Gordon Little. Gordon used the bike extensively and even rode it into Europe.

The picture below was taken in 1958 and shows Gordon Little standing on the right. Veteran motorcycles were just starting to get a following with people buying them to enjoy and use. Gordon was a great enthusiast of veteran motorcycles and especially veteran Triumphs and used AP1740 extensively often travelling over 100 miles in a day - just to prove that a veteran motorcycle can still be used.