Triumph twins times three: Keith Martin’s RPM cycle

By Phillip Tooth
Published on October 1, 2007
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Inside RPM Cycle: Oil-in-frame Triumphs getting prepped for the full Keith Martin treatment.
Inside RPM Cycle: Oil-in-frame Triumphs getting prepped for the full Keith Martin treatment.
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Original and unrestored, Old Glory is a classic reminder of how it was done back in the day.
Original and unrestored, Old Glory is a classic reminder of how it was done back in the day.
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The Salt Shaker was built to do one thing: break speed records.
The Salt Shaker was built to do one thing: break speed records.
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Light and powerful, the Dirt Tracker is Keith Martin’s modern interpretation of a classic theme.
Light and powerful, the Dirt Tracker is Keith Martin’s modern interpretation of a classic theme.

Meet Keith Martin, a Triumph specialist in Texas with three very different takes on Triumph’s classic parallel twin.

You’d think with his background at Big D Cycle — the famous Texas dealership that built the 1956 world record-holding Triumph that launched the iconic Bonneville — that Keith Martin would be a Triumph man through and through. But you’d be wrong.

Yes, he owns a Triumph franchise. And yes, there are Rocket IIIs, Scramblers and Daytona 675s on the shop floor, with classic Triumph twins tucked away in most corners of his Dallas store. But Keith is a man who gets passionate about anything on two wheels, whether it’s a Honda step-thru or a Bonneville racer.

“When I was a kid with a Honda 100, I used to skip school with a bunch of friends to ride over to Big D and look at the Triumph streamliner that hung from the ceiling above the mechanic’s workbench,” Keith recalls. “Jack Wilson was in charge then. We’d mess about in the workshop until he got bored with us and then we would ride off to get a beer — the town I grew up in was dry.” Wilson, of course, was the man who tuned the 650cc Triumph engine that powered the streamliner to a world record of 214.40mph in 1956. That bike was the genesis of the model that made Triumph a best seller in the U.S.

After Keith got out of school, he took a job in the satellite industry that involved a lot of traveling. “But that gave me three or four days off at a time when I got home, so I started hanging around Big D in my spare time, cleaning up stuff mostly. Then I went to Daytona in 1987 and saw the vintage races. I was hooked.”

Order the November/December 2007 issue of Motorcycle Classics to read this article in its entirety. Contact Customer Service at (800) 880-7567 or contact us by email.

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