He remembered vividly seeing the tailpipe of a Burgess silencer glowing cherry red when a P2 engine was running on static test, and how in early road testing the 750's power could wreak havoc on tyres. Apparently the test riders - notably Percy Tait and Tony Lomax - used to come back with tyres so hot that your hand would stick to the rubber. Dunlop developed its K81 TT100 road tyre specifically to cope with the Triples.

After the Trident's launch, Ron was assigned to preparing machines for press and publicity purposes. His meticulous and precise assembly skills were used to present fast and reliable machines that were ostensibly standard but more carefully put together than was possible with normal production procedures. He went to Germany with the Motorrad test Trident and looked after the Isle of Man TT Marshals' official machines for several years. He gave every cylinder head individual attention, checking for a frequent casting fault that made the central exhaust port too small.

When work started on the 750 racers, Ron had the task of fitting their shrunk-in austenitic valve seats. He used experience from his time at Velocette. He also reamed the racers' phosphor-bronze valve guides when warm to obtain a combination of minimal clearance and accuracy: 'The valves on a lot of standard bikes tended to be recessed in the head, but on racers we made sure the heads protruded slightly into the combustion chamber to get more flow at small openings'. He is quoted as saying.

After a stint at Norton Villiers International's development centre at Kitts Green, Ron joined Devimead to work on needle-roller bottom-end conversions and 750cc kits for BSA twins. But he continued to work on Triples…

Don & John           
Woodward