Latchy's Ventura Adaptation

By Ren Withnell - From Stephen Latchford

Our chief restorer and adapter has been a busy boy. For a man whole perpetually claims abject poverty at the hands of his wife and children he's just been out and purchased an incredibly attractive brand new Triumph Street Triple. He has espoused to me how perfectly wonderful this bike is and I hope he'll do a write up for me at some point, then let me have a play so I can have my say too. 

Not only is our poor, penniless and downtrodden friend riding a new bike, he's taking it to Spain later this year. This will require him to carry a tent and associated equipment for the trip. Now the Triple is not a bike specifically designed for touring so Latchy has made some upgrades. His first and most logical was to fit the Ventura luggage system. This intelligent piece of kit comes with mounting bars that fit to existing points on the bike and a rack. This rack has a loop onto which a selection of bags can be securely fitted.

That was fine. But while the bag is large it's not quite large enough, he needed saddle bags. And saddle bags rub on shiny new tail units. And scratched tail units make Latchy very sad. Having exchanged his Aprilia Shiver for the Trumpet he was left with the mounting kit from the Shiver and a cunning and devious plan started to form.

OK...I think I can see what he's doing here...

I asked him if he'd tell me what he'd done...

Yes of course, Ren, I used the old Ventura brackets from the Shiver, chopped, bent and welded them with a mig welder. One end of the curved bars (the rear) already had a holding bracket attached and I was already half way there so to speak.

I had to keep offering up the brackets and guess which position to weld the curved bars to them. A small piece of 25mm bar was bashed around a sample section of waste tube to make two 'saddles'. I then drilled holes and welded nuts to these so as to form clamps. I welded these to the end of the curved bars and there you have it, bespoke accessories.

After cleaning the rather amateur (but strong enough) welds up with a grinder I hung the brackets from my garage roof  and gave them both a couple of coats of etch primer which dried in no time due to the heat wave. Just before bedtime I sprayed them with satin black acrylic paint to match the finish on my Ventura brackets fitted to the Triumph. 

I honestly thought these were original Ventura attachments.

So there you have it readers, as you can see they certainly look the part and should keep the bags off the paintwork. Unlinke my bodges which never fit quite right and certainly never see paint, Latchy's finishing skills are admirable. 

I hope he has a jolly good trip!

Impressive work and impressive finish too.

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