Give Me a Brake

One of the things about the Triumph Scrambler which makes it seem more of a styling exercise and less of a dual-purpose machine is the location of the rear brake caliper.  It hangs below the axle, where mud and road crud and anything else kicked up by the front tire can hit it, to say nothing of the potential for dragging it off the bike, entirely, if you snag a rock with it on a Jeep trail...

You can see the rear caliper location in the picture, above.

I decided to fix that problem, on my bike.  I ordered a replacement mounting plate from Triumph Twin Power, over in Merry Olde England.  I received it a couple of weeks ago, but just got around to installing it, yesterday.  I had to get a motorcycle lift, first, and I found a nice one on craigslist, this past week.  It is the aluminum Craftsman 1500 lb. hydraulic unit, and it was in like-new condition.  I got it for half of the retail price, so I was happy with that.

So,  I jacked the bike up off of the ground, and removed the rear wheel.  The new mounting plate fit right into place and, after attaching the new, longer, brake line, I put it all back together and bled the air out of the system.

 The mounting plate is nicely machined, with a laser-engraved TTP logo.  It looks nicer than the stock casting, for sure.

So, there she sits...a little closer to being off-road worthy.  The Scrambler will never be a true off-road dirt bike, in the modern sense.  If nothing else, it simply weighs too much (and the suspension is rather rudimentary, compared to a real dirt bike). 

But, as I said to Tom, as we rode up the trail, a couple of weeks ago, "Just because other bikes are better at trail-riding doesn't mean this one just can't do it.  People rode similar bikes in the dirt for years, so there's no reason I can't do it on this one."

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