My uncle Dave (72 yrs old) traded in a 1966-67 Triumph 500 Tiger and bought a brand new 1971 H1 Mach III which he still owns. The bike has about 17-19,000 miles on it, it has never been dropped, crashed, wobbled through a fence or plowed into a lake and the engine has only had oil changes and new spark plugs (which are those weird centre-fire plugs) powered by the first electronic CDI on any production bike. Dave’s bike is totally original except for the tires. He rides it once or twice each summer and it always starts and goes well - every time.
I had a chance to ride it some years ago and it really was quite an experience. What follows is my brief review of that one ‘71 front drum brake model H1 on one 40 mile twisty road ride. Later H1s may be much better - but I just don’t know.
Off the line without a lot of throttle the ‘71 H1 is a bit of a dog, but if you get it on the boil, WOW - does that thing haul the mail. The volcano of noise and smoke from below and behind as the front wheel starts to skip off the ground is sensory assault of absolutely Olympic proportions. You certainly would not be wise to gas-it within a turn. The brakes...not so much - it WILL stop, but you have to use a lot of muscle and the brakes fade quite badly when they’re hot. Overall, it was a fun ride, but it did feel as though I was on the ragged edge a couple of times. It would have been very tiring to ride for more than 1-200 miles IMO.
I can certainly imagine the shock and awe of TriBSANorton riders - not to mention all of those “nice” people on Hondas - when they first encountered this underdeveloped, unpolished, uncivilized but very advanced technology and exciting machine.
As I recall it, at the time, the H1 was called:
- a 60 HP engine
- in an 18 HP frame
- equipped with 7.8 HP brakes.
Pete
