VOL. 54 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 7, 2017 P81
Street Cup is a styling exer-
cise. At the front is a neat little
yellow fly screen; the tank has
been beautifully decorated with
hand painted striping and the
back-end now sports the ubiq-
uitous café racer single seat
cowl. Smaller changes come
with the pin-stripe wheels,
matte black mufflers while fork
guards round off the aesthetic
differences.
Spanish Café Racing
Our test loop for the Street Cup
took us into the mountains sur-
rounding southern Spain's An-
dalusia region of Seville, nestled
100 miles or so from the Portu-
guese border to the west and
the Strait of Gibraltar and the
gateway to Africa to the south.
Here, the mountain roads snake
between orange plantations
and tapas bars born from a time
long ago, so riding a bike whose
genesis was spawned over 50
years' prior seems somehow
fitting.
For me, the star of the show is
not the café racer riding experi-
ence itself but that Bonneville-
derived motor. This is the first
time I've ridden the new power-
plant as I haven't yet sampled
the Street Twin, and having
ridden a heap of 865cc Triumph
(Top to bottom) If you owned one, you'd
probably make your passengers walk
so you don't have to take that seat cowl
off. It looks that good. A guy at Triumph
has to pin stripe each and every tank by
hand. After a stiff drink, we bet! Single-
disc front end looks great but we'd swap
it for more braking power.
