I am the happy beholder of a '02 Bonneville, a bike scarcely equiped as stock. It does however carry the essentials, unless you count a tacho as essential. Most importantly it rides well, pulls nicely through the rev-band, brakes adequately (for this kind of ride anyway), looks the part and feels the part. Ownership is to my experience a walk in the sunshine; no worries regarding durability, no big expences in either maintainence, depreciation or insurance, and servicing is fairly cheap. If you are a bit handy you can do most of the servicing yourself.
However, I found my stock Bonneville a bit too stock for my liking, so I have had a few tweaks done, all of which in my opinion makes the bike even better. Although I do not consider the Tachometer an essential on a bike of this kind, it does not mean I do not find it useful. Of course I do. So I fitted the tacho you find on the plusher T100, for both practicality and appearance. I tend to think it looks better with twin clocks rather than a single clock. I also fitted chromed engine, clutch, crankcase and cam covers (again as you find it on the T100). All of these tweaks weren't required if I only took the trouble of getting a T100 to begin with. Which I didn't. Hence the upgrades.
The one upgrade I would have had to perform whichever guise my bonnie came in, is the exhaust system. This is by far the most successfull upgrade I made. I felt the stock mufflers made the engine sound feeble and knew right away it would need fixing. It just gave away too much of the lovely parallel twin, and thus sounded disappointingly. I fancy the looks of the original mufflers though, and would not go for anything radically different, like an arrow-system for instance, or Predators, although they all sound nicely as well as enhancing power output. Some, I've learned has opted for the Norman Hyde Peashooters. However, these aren't that differnt looking from the Predators. Rather then I would consider the Togo mufflers from Norman Hyde. They look more like the stock pipes. And sound good too. Which is more than half the point. Finally it all came down to Triumphs own aftermarked (off-road) mufflers. Boy do they sound good! And there is nothing setting them visually apart from the stock pipes, which to me is a good thing. I also had changes made to the airflow filter to allow the engine better breathing. These two tweaks changed the feel of the bike entirely. Now it sounds as it should have sounded in the first place, and as a healthy bonus it performs notably better in the mid-range. Upgrade well done!
Not fitting your Bonnie with better breathing pipes is close to crime given the potential of that beautiful parallel twin engine.
