I purchased a solo seat for the Triumph on Ebay during the fall of 2009. It did not however, come with a bracket for attaching it to the fender. I called Collin's Cycle and searched the internet with no results. I had asked a machinist friend to make me one and I gave him my prototype and I never heard back from him.
In December, I saw an ad on Craigslist for motorcycle parts fabrication in Slippery Rock. After emailing the fabricator, I finally set up a time to meet him afer Christmas.
Ray gave me his address so I could Mapquest it and I was still unsure of his directions, so I emailed him and he sent me the directions which included the statement: "it looks like you are pulling up into a cornfield."
I made my way through the snow covered roads up PA Route 19 North to Hunt Road. The sign in the photo below was at the intersection.
The driveway was located on a snow covered road between two cornfields. If I would have used the Mapquest directions, I would have thought I was going into the incorrect place.
Rays' Driveway
As I turned into the field, I saw that Ray's shop was a trailer located in a field and a box truck outside.
I hesitantly got out of my car and grabbed the seat out of the back. I turned and heard the door of the trailer opening and the half expected dog's angry bark. The man at the door of the trailer had a cigarette in one hand and he was restraining the black lab with the other. He welcomed me inside the trailer and told me the dog was all bark, which I found to be true. Buddy, the lab, responded to a few pats on the side and then went to the center of the main room of the trailer and found a spot in front of a space heater to lay down.
As I shook Ray's chapped right hand and put the seat down the edge of thread bare sofa, I scanned the interior of the room. The cigarette smoke hung in the air of the make-shift shop. To my right, there were three bikes in various states of repair behind the sofa: a older model Triumph, some offroad bike, and a red V twin Honda. A lone pair of motocross bike bars was on the floor not far from heater. I could hear the rustling of unseen occupants in another section of the trailer.
We stood in the doorway we discussed my vision of the seat bracket and its dimensions. He asked if I wanted flames on it.Initially I said that would be great, but after showing him my drawing, he asked again and I said just make it plain. He also asked if he could keep the seat while making the part.
Ray explained about his past as fabricator and that his former partner and he had bikes in magazines, but that the partner left and took all of the credit. We spent the next 10 minutes talking about my CB and rebuilding bikes.
He told me he have the bracket ready in a couple of days and that he would call me. I shook his hand and headed out through the half attached screen door, the smoke following me like a ghost.
I started the car backed away from the shop, the car's tires fighting for traction in the snowy field.
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