Project Bike - Where to now

Now that I had the project bike, it was time to put my thoughts together on what I wanted to do with it. As mentioned in my first post, I have a bunch of ideas for the bike.  I like the ideas individually, but I'm not sure how (or if at all) they will work together.  Some part of me actually doesn't mind if they don't work together. I'm picturing the bike turning out as some sort of bob job creation.

I'm not the best at visualising creative ideas, which doesn't help me much.  So I figure I'll just put my ideas together on the bike, see how it looks and modify/undo as necessary. As you may have guessed already, I secretly have reservations about the project, but if I don't try it I will die wondering and that's a worse outcome than making something hideous, right?

What to do?  I would like a few of the changes to subtly (and possibly not so subtly) make reference to the bike's British heritage.  Starting with the most important real estate on a bike - the tank.  I would like to get an old British comic book and stick the pages to it. I had no idea how to get this done. I envisaged issues getting the right glue for the job, getting the pages to stick flat to the angled tank surface, getting clear coat to hold it all together and not discolour, etc, etc. To be honest, this part of the project is the one I expect there to be the greatest issues getting the outcome I picture in my head.  The alternative option I have is to get the comic made into decals and apply them.  I will get a much better result, but I would feel like I've cheated a bit.

Going back to my early childhood, one of my first memories of automotive beauty was the first time I lay eyes on the Martini racing Porsches from the 1970s. To this day, the Martini colours are firmly at the top of my list of my favourite racing livery. I would like my project bike to have some throw back to that childhood memory - at this stage I'm thinking the light blue from the Martini colour scheme.

For some reason, I picture that my bike will look good with random bits from other bikes on it.  I want to get some retro indicators and wire them into the bike.  Possibly do the same with the headlights.  I want to remove the front cowl above the headlights and replace it with a metal grill of some sort.

Some of the changes to the bike will be less bob job and more run of the mill.  I want to get rid of the stock cans and put something fruitier on the bike and I will probably change the rear sets, levers, grips.

That's not an exhaustive list of things I want to do to the bike, but I have enough to get started...

Shav

Project Bike - First post

For as long as I can remember, every time I would pass a motorbike that had obviously been modified, I would find the time to steal a moment to check it out.  Even if I was in a rush to get somewhere.  I wouldn't always love what I saw, but I loved to see what form someone else's brainchild took, appreciating the fact that someone managed to translate a bunch of crazy ideas from their head into a living, breathing machine.  Just like the next guy, I have crazy ideas too, but not having the skills or experience to bring them out on a bike always held me back.  As background, I’ve spend my life working a desk job, so I have soft hands and pale skin…ha ha

Old Bike

It didn't help that the bike I owned was a Ducati 848 evo in white with red rims.  Maybe not everyone's taste, but it was too new and too pretty to start the sort of project I had in mind.  I'm not entirely sure what the exact trigger was, but I reached the point where I wanted to give my project bike a crack.  Going into this I figured that I would start with modest plans and build up from there.  At this point in time, I don’t know exactly what the project bike will end up looking like, but I know I want to start it.  Time will tell how much I end up doing.  The point of this blog on this project bike is to demonstrate what someone with very limited skill can achieve (or how quickly he can completely ruin a perfectly good motorbike).

Step one was to sell the Ducati. There definitely wasn't room in the garage to keep it, the new bike and my trusty ktm dirt bike.  So with the Ducati gone, I needed my project bike.  I wanted my first project bike to be newish because I'm not mechanically minded enough to deal with an aging bike. I wanted a good bike as a base with which to start and eventually settled on a 2009 triumph street triple r (yes, the last of the round headlights).  After much searching, I eventually found the right bike for the job.  So after flying down to Melbourne and riding it back to Sydney, I was good to go.  Here she is…

Project Bike

Over the coming weeks and months (possibly years if things go really badly), I'll update the blog with what's new on the bike.  Stay tuned....

Shav