Quick Ride

QUICK RIDE

HYDE HURRICANE A tongue-in-cheek Triumph

BACK IN THE GOOD OLDE Days, former Triumph engineer and drag-racer Norman Hyde used a Triumph Trident as the basis for a hotrod he called the Hyde Harrier. And now that Triumph’s Trident has been reborn as a modern motorcycle, so has the Hyde hot-rod. It's called the Hurricane, and it comes to us through use of a Hyde-designed-and-built kit aimed at giving the 1990s Trident some of the style of a traditional British café racer.

The Hurricane features a twin-headlamp fairing, clip-on bars and rearset pegs, an alloy fuel tank, a solo seat, custom front fender, Lockheed brakes and, get this, distinctive “raygun” silencers that echo, at least in style, the controversial silencers fitted to the first Tridents in 1969.

“The pipes are very tonguein-cheek,” explains Hyde. “The whole kit is basically a bit of fun to give riders of the new Triumphs the feel of an oldstyle street-racer.”

And fun is exactly what the 900cc Hurricane is. Its bars and pegs offer a forward-leaning riding position, and the half-fairing provides a fair amount of upper-body wind and weather protection.

This makes it really easy to use the impressive performance of Triumph’s torquey 885cc Triple, the sound of which is enhanced by those distinctive pipes. The standard 100-horsepower Trident becomes uncomfortable as it nears its 135-mph top speed and begins to display the slight instability typical of unfaired machines. The more streamlined Hurricane allows rocksolid, and much more relaxed, three-figure cruising speeds.

Despite its shingle-thin seat, the Hurricane is a tall bike, and that tallness adds to its 1970s feel. Steering geometry is conservative, and delivers neutral steering that is, by modern sportbike standards, relatively high in effort.

Hyde’s kit contains no suspension parts, and the Hurricane’s sporty nature encourages the sort of riding that occasionally reveals the limitations of the stock Trident’s non-adjustable Kay aba fork and shock. Fitting the appropri; ate suspension parts from Triumph’s sport-oriented Daytona would be a wise, if expensive, move for any Hurricane owner intent on aggressive street riding.

At least the kit’s four-piston Lockheed calipers combine to apply plenty of stopping power j to the bike’s stock 11.6-inch front rotors.

The fact that Triumph doesn’t build anything quite like the Hurricane—at least not yet-is exactly the reason it exists. Tongue-in-cheek it may be, but the Hurricane’s blend of 1970s style and usable performance makes it a seriously enjoyable motorcycle.

But the blend doesn’t come cheap. The Hurricane’s pre-tax price in England is about £6000, or about $11,000. Riders who already own a new Trident can order a Hurricane kit for about $3000. Hyde says he’s investigating the possibility of selling complete bikes for American use, so if those prices don’t scare you off, stay tuned. There may be a British Hurricane about to hit American shores.

Roland Brown