Feast your eyes on a Triumph Scrambler 900, and I dare you not to fall in love.
The very first time we saw one, Pat and I fell for her.
And we fell hard.
But she was way beyond our grasp.
We’d recently moved from Australia to New Zealand, and there were a lot of financial loose ends to deal with.
It’s horrifically expensive to move countries, believe me.
Even so, we started Discussions.
How could we make this Triumph Scrambler 900 ours?
A Triumph Scrambler 900 is very easy to love. She roars along a highway but will also handle rough roads. And she looks beautiful, whatever she’s doing. This is what motorcycle love feels like!
We had no idea how to make her ours.
But in between scheming, we’d go visit her regularly in the shop.
Oh hey guys, she’d say coolly, knowing we were already in love with her.
Back again?
I swear she half expected us to show up with flowers.
She smiled and preened as we admired her.
She knew that her stunning two-tone paint job of deep blue and cream was a head-turning delight.
The bike shop salesman knew it too.
Dave was shameless, charming, and could already smell the sale.
He’d stand next to us during our Scrambler visits, grinning like a well-meaning wolf.
He even called a couple times between visits, just checking in and wondering if we were still thinking about that bike.
Yes.
Yes, we were.
Then one day our friend Dennis dropped by.
Naturally, Pat took him down to the bike shop to introduce him to the beautiful Triumph Scrambler we kept talking about.
And when they came back, there were definite Warning Signs.
My antennae went up right away.
Isn’t that Triumph Scrambler just gorgeous? I said to Dennis.
Mm hmm, he said, carefully not meeting my eye.
Pat can’t stop talking about her – maybe we should just make a decision, and buy her, I said.
Mm hmm, said Dennis again, sitting down at the kitchen table, and ever-so-casually flicking through a bike magazine.
Uh oh, I thought.
Something was very clearly up.
And sure enough, Pat burst through the back door, grinning like a maniac.
He has the worst poker face ever.
I BOUGHT THE SCRAMBLER! He shouted in total, utter jubilation.
Ah…that’s what’s going on!
Wow! Great! We’ll find a way to make it work! I said.
Dennis sighed loudly with relief.
I thought you might divorce him, he confessed.
I’ve seen this kinda thing go south with wives before…
And so began our wild love affair with the Triumph Scrambler.
Our Triumph Scrambler quickly became a member of the family.
Everyone loved her.
Even our little tribe of biker cats approved, including Hector, who’s Head of Motorcycle Security around here.
For a while, she was our only touring motorcycle.
And tour on her we did.
We did dozens of long and shorter trips around New Zealand – around 36,000 km.
We took her all the way to the bottom of New Zealand, where the wind rips in straight from Antarctica.
We toured all around the South Island, sometimes for weeks at a time, sometimes just staying a night or two in a motel and sampling the local seafood.
A couple of times, we left the South Island and headed north on our beloved Triumph Scrambler.
We rode her onto the ferry, and strapped her in safely for the 3 hour ride across the Cook Strait to the North Island.
There we explored bigger cities and little townships, ending up right at the top of the North Island.
We stayed in a little motel in the remote town of Kaitaia, and from there launched one of our favorite ever adventures on the Triumph Scrambler: a unique opportunity to ride down 90 Mile Beach, a long stretch of white sand that doubles as an official public highway.
But this is New Zealand, so of course there’s no other traffic on this highway beach.
We opened up the Scrambler’s throttle.
She roared with happiness (and so did we) as we tore down the beach, in and out of the warm sea spray on a perfect sunny day.
Another adventure over, we were home and adjusting to life in our newly adopted country.
We worked a lot, smashed some debt and bought a house.
Slowly the garage started to fill up with more motorcycles.
We stopped being quite so obsessed with our Triumph Scrambler.
And then of course, Pat fell in love again.
This time, the Triumph in his sights was a Thruxton.
Oh, this bike was stunning, too.
With sleek lines and a gas tank of glittering green, she was gorgeous, and had more bells and whistles than we knew what to do with.
But this motorcycle was expensive.
To get our hands on it, one of the bikes in our existing stable would have to go.
We thought about it.
We talked about it.
I tried to be practical.
Well, which motorcycle are you not riding much anymore?
Look back through your journals and see what the numbers say.
Pat’s always kept meticulous records of what he’s riding: where, when and how far.
And so there was the proof in black and white: in the last 4 years, we’d only done a couple of thousand kilometres on the Triumph Scrambler.
Maybe the love affair was finally over.
Reluctantly, we put her up for sale.
A lovely guy (who since became a friend) saw our Scrambler, and he fell in love too.
He called, and transferred the money to our bank before he even knew where we lived.
We watched sadly as he rode her away, but at least we were pleased she’d found a great new home.
So we bought that glittering green Thruxton and we still love her; she’s a great beast.
When we’re not riding her, we keep this motorcycle in the living room.
Naturally.
Three years passed.
And over that time, we often thought about our Triumph Scrambler.
We re-lived our adventures.
We put up photos of her roaring along those white sands of 90 Mile Beach with the sunshine bouncing off her chrome.
We wondered what had become of her.
We heard she’d been sold again, but didn’t know anything more than that.
She became The One That Got Away.
And then, late one night I’d gone to bed.
Pat was online, checking the motorcycle marketplace.
It’s a dangerous habit, but one he’s not keen to break.
He came running into the bedroom, really excited.
YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT I’VE FOUND! he actually shouted.
I opened one eye.
This better be good, I warned him.
He knows better than to poke the sleeping bear.
And it was good.
It was better than good.
Our Scrambler 900 was up for sale.
She’d only done about another 8,000 km.
She wasn’t even expensive.
I stood with him in front of his computer, wild-haired, half dressed, and hooted with joy.
LET’S GET HER BACK! we shrieked together.
And so we did.
Our Triumph Scrambler is home.
She’s even made some other Triumph Scrambler friends who come to visit.
We learned our lesson, and won’t let her go again.
It’s now 16 years since we first saw her on that showroom floor.
The garage is more crowded now, but she knows she’ll always have a place there.
She’s still gorgeous.
She’s still special.
And now she smirks at us knowingly.
I know you love me, she’s saying.
You always did.
You always will.
And you know what?
Our Triumph Scrambler is right.
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