"I Hope My Judgements Have Been Vindicated..." Part 1

My letter to Hinckley was carefully addressed to: The Someone That Cares Department. My intention was to jot off a quick note to Triumph Motorcycles, about their new to be released Thunderbird. Keeping it brief, I scribbled a rambling discourse of three single spaced pages in which the T-bird, Bonneville, Sprint ST, Speed Triple, Rocket III, Honda, Ducati, and Harley were all mentioned. I dropped it in the post. Then, I chewed my lip for awhile thinking they really should be warned about getting blindsided by Ural. Ah, what the heck. No one reads those letters anyway.

One day about a week and a half later, I received an email from a Simon Warburton. I know that name. Where do I know it from? Now, Simon is probably the most quoted person at Triumph. Simon is the Product Manager for Triumph Motorcyles, in Hinckley, UK. Read anything about Triumph in the media and most likely Simon will be mentioned at some point. I suddenly realized, that in Hinckley, someone does indeed read those letters! I should have mentioned Ural. Thus started a running conversation over the next few months in which I bored him silly, and he enlightened me as to the way of Triumph. I thought you might enjoy eavesdropping on a little of our on-going conversation.

Willie Mac: You have been involved with motorcycles all your life.

Warburton: Yes, but not professionally until I came to Triumph. It kicked off for me at age eleven, when my father bought myself and my brother a little 50cc. Too small at the time, but we didn’t know that and progressed to a Honda 125SL back in the 70s. I started racing motocross when I was about sixteen, for a few years. I went off to university and I couldn’t afford motocross anymore. I studied engineering. After university I traveled around for awhile. I rode around South America for a few months: Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and Equator. About four months. I planned on six but ran out of money.

Willie Mac: A regular Che.

Warburton: Yeah, I didn’t know much about him at the time, but the route did cover some of his same route. But, to be honest with you, when you are traveling around South America there isn’t much of a choice.

Willie Mac: How about your first job?

Warburton: Teaching, in fact. Several small jobs while I was at university then went traveling around. I decided I wanted to live in Spain. The easiest way to do that was to teach. I was in Spain for three and a half years. I loved Spain. I loved living there. I had great fun.

Willie Mac: Have you spent much time on this side of the pond?

Warburton: Not much at all, some dealer seminars and Daytona a couple of times. Many years ago I spent three weeks riding bikes around. Hot weather testing and high altitude testing, because we are a bit short of both here in the UK. I’ve been over on holiday with the kids a few times. I would absolutely love to spend some time there. The scenery and variety you have over there, during that three week period of test I told you about, mostly in Colorado and Arizona, just riding the bikes around was a wonderful experience.

Willie Mac: Do you have any good adventures about that?

Warburton: Mostly you get an adventure when something goes wrong. Nothing went wrong. It was a fascinating experience.