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The Rockers aka Ton-Up Boys would play a song on the juke box, jump on their bikes and ride a prescribed route at speeds exceeding 100mph or the “TON” and (hopefully) arrive back at the cafe before the song ended. Their bikes became known as cafe racers for obvious reasons. They had rear set foot controls, clip- on handlebars, and hopped-up engines and suspensions. They were the predecessors of the crotch rockets of today. In my opinion, the Triumph engine, was the best available and the Norton Featherbed frame with Roadholder forks was the best chassis. So they married a Triumph motor to a Norton frame, mixed up the names a bit, and the legendary Triton was the result.

This Triton has a story. Bill and Jeannette, Pete’s aunt and uncle took a trip to Europe in the Sixties and Uncle Bill brought back a bunch of parts in a suitcase (before terrorism would frown upon such) to assist in converting his Norton Dominator into a Triton. Pete was just a kid then, but he helped out on the build that took place in the basement of Bill and Jeanette’s restaurant on a corner on the old Barbary Coast in San Francisco. There were lots of café-based changes in store like the gas tank that was fabricated in San Francisco and the oil tank that’s in the rear section of the seat. The front brake was the state of the art at the time so that was left alone, but other changes like an open primary chain were unheard-of back then. It had a generator for lights and a magneto for spark (sometimes) produced by Joe Lucas, The Prince of Darkness.

We took this bike to the snooty upscale Sea Clift section of San Francisco where tear downs cost millions. There we went into the Golden Gate NP or something and joggers, dog walkers, and tourists walked by and gave their thumbs-up approval to this British-American hybrid.