The Street Triple 675 is a damn good bike. Over the years, we’ve yet to meet an owner who doesn’t rave about their ride, and road tests are universally appreciative.
But like virtually all factory bikes of a sporting bent, the Street Triple has decidedly ‘contemporary’ styling. And there are folks who think it deserves more of a classic vibe.
One of those folks is American Bob Ranew. He runs Redeemed Cycles as a sideline, based in his home workshop in the small town of Garner—an old stop on the North Carolina Railroad.
“I’m just a guy with a shed on the side of his house who builds at night and on weekends,” he says with a note of self-deprecation.
Bob works as a creative director by day, but his primary passion has always been bikes. He’s also got a good eye for a trend, because he was the first paying custom of John Ryland at Classified Moto.
“Working through the bike-building process with John was so much fun,” Bob recalls. “I made multiple three-hour trips up to his shop in Richmond, VA to see progress.”
Each time, Bob fell more in love with the thought of custom building. Soon after John finished his XV920, a friend of Bob’s passed away and left him a 1979 Kawasaki KZ650.
“So I thought, let me see what I can do with this,” says Bob. “I love the hands-on aspect, versus what I typically create on a computer screen. I had to build another bike. And another, and another.”
This 2008-spec Street Triple is different to the usual commissions, though, and shows what can be done with more imagination than cash.
“I built it for my son-in-law,” Bob reveals. “We built a 1979 CB750 together when he was still dating my daughter, but he’s always been more of a sportbike, wheelie-popping rider.”
“So when I found the Triumph, I bought it with him in mind. Now he just needs to sell his CB750, and I’ll hand over the keys!”
This bike is one of the very earliest Street Triples, and Bob has wisely left its core alone. With 106 hp on tap, well-sorted Kayaba suspension and a weight of just 182 kg (401 lb), the Hinckley engineers got this one just right.
“The first thing I did was remove all the plastic bits,” says Bob. “The tail section was my main focus: underneath the plastic was a sleek triangular frame, which I felt needed to be shown off.”
After a thorough de-tabbing, Bob created a new seat pan and custom tail section. But he’s kept the original seat release mechanism, for easy functionality.
The seat was covered by a friend, with white stitching to help carry the lines of the tail section onto the seat and down to the tank. Bob added a compact taillight originally earmarked for another build, and fabbed up a tidy turn signal cluster.
The radiator reservoir had to be ditched from under the seat, so Bob located a universal-fit reservoir and mounted it down by the left side of the 675cc motor. (“Not a lot of places to put that thing!”)
Bob’s not a fan of the iconic double lamps on the Triple. “The praying mantis-style headlights had to go!” So he did a conversion using the Motodemic single headlight kit, which includes a relocation bracket for the instrument.
He’s also relocated the mini front turn signals to the headlight ears, and got rid of all the chrome using Scotch-Brite to give it a ‘brushed’ look.
With the plastic belly pan gone, the exhaust headers are now in full view—and all the better for it. They connect to a GP-style Competition Werkes shorty exhaust, which is much smaller (and sits lower) than the stock exhaust. According to Bob, it sounds “wicked cool.”
If there’s proof that Bob has a keen eye for aesthetics, it’s the paint on the tank. “I went with a two-tone design for a sleeker look,” he says. “By using silver on the top and black on the bottom, it helped hide the size of the tank.”
It’s a stunning new look that brings the first-gen Street Triple bang up to date, with a stealthy custom vibe added into the mix. And it’s the kind of conversion that won’t break the bank either.
Of course, having an ‘eye’ as good as Bob’s is another matter entirely.
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