Forum

[apparently lucky eddie]

It's so nice to know I'm not the only "old git" with a crook back and knackered knees that doesn't see the point of these machines! They might be ok as experiment or exercise but you wouldn't want to ride them. A bit like modern architecture and strange jaggy angled buildings that you really wouldn't want to live in (or live near).

[Adrian]

Just as lots of classics fell victim to the chopper craze in the 70's the Indian Bullets are firmly in the sights of the "Artisan" custom bike crowd. While there is some genuine quality work involved, the trouble is so many of them look a bit twee and insubstantial, with all the false retro /"steampunk"/ grunge clichés thrown at them in the time it takes to say "pass the exhaust wrap". In a similar vein the current café racer craze seems to be about ruining the looks of harmless old BMWs and other bikes which might have hoped for a sympathetic restoration at this stage of their lives.



I know about the bike of which B.W. speaks, its owner posts here occasionally, and it features in some of B.W.'s Youtube videos. What I cannot understand is why someone would expend all that time, money and effort turning something rideable into something which, from B.W.'s experience, sounds like a total faff to ride in normal conditions on British roads. I can understand the desire to put something together that doesn't look like its owner has simply raided our hosts' or (eg) the Unity Equipe catalogue, but why these, I wonder?



Old Empire Motorcycles are in Norfolk, not Hoxton, though I get the trendy urban reference!



A.

[Mark M]

Well said Adrian! The reference to Hoxton was a bit obscure I admit, but it seems to me to characterise all the trendy "artisan" products that are so "now" among a certain demographic - "craft" beer, gin, tattoos, fixed wheel bicycles etc, etc. I think we all know the charms of Enfields, that's why we're on this site after all, and all the posters so far have correctly identified (in my opinion) that what has been done to this donor machine adds nothing to it and more importantly, actually spoils a perfectly good bike. I have nothing against Customs at all (I think there is actually a really good Steampunk Enfield waiting to be built...) but surely the end product should be usable?

REgards, Mark

[Caboose]

Hi all,

Another good motorcycle wasted!>br>
I am surely not alone in thinking that generally, but not all, builders of these machines, are out to prove to us that WE cannot ride them but THEY CAN.
Therefore making themselves, in their eyes, superior to us!


REgards Dick.

[Adrian]

Dick,



would WE want to ride something like that?



Mark,



easy on the "inverted commas", please! ) craft beer is usually real ale brewed in another country, I'll happily drink American and Flemish brews or Czech lager as well as any decent ale we can get from our own breweries, but like you say these things have to some extent been hi-jacked and co-opted into the tribal ID, much as with the yuppies and their filofaxes back in the 80's. As someone who is quite into steam as well as old bike power, I think there is scope for the odd flourish, but rusty unpainted steel looks awful, and too much brass will have the poor bike looking like some of the less restrained Indian customised Bullets. This is about as steampunk as I get:







A.

[Bullet Whisperer]

Well, I guess we are all grown up here - or some of us are, at least! I am not quite in 'Old Git' territory just yet , but I sometimes wonder about the intended purpose of some of the machines I encounter. Each to their own, though, it would be pretty boring if we all wanted the same sort of thing, after all.

[simon]

There a bit like Hot Rods though aren't they. Form over function. Even the American style cruisers seem a bit daft to me. I had a ride on an 1800cc Suzuki Boulevarde that I was told had to be powered into corners in order to stop the foot pegs grinding on the ground. Still as BW says it would be a dull world if we all wanted the same thing.

[Steve T]

Adrian can we see a full photo of your bike that red frame looks real nice.
. Stev

[Mark M]

I love Adrian's Mayonnaise catch can!

REgards, Mark

[Adrian]

Whatever I have been accused of in the past, acting like a grown-up is fortunately not an accusation that can be seriously levelled against me! Pictures of bike to follow (since you ask). A.