Imaginary Garage - 2010 Triumph "Bonnehille"

"No.69 - who knows when she'll flip over?" Readers, meet Miss BonnehilleI've been sitting here for about 15 minutes try to come up with something to say about this bike. Unfortunately I just keep on coming back to the same thought. Wow. What more can I say? I can't stop looking at it. This is a bike that could easily take the top spot at a major bike show and it's been brought to life by two guys who live on different continents and have never even met each other. All praise to the interwebs!

Shout-outs: massive thanks to Max for the genius original idea and Charles for the beautiful finishing touches; and thanks again for putting up with me. Please enjoy the tees. Also, thanks to all the readers who took the time to make a submission - there were some amazing ideas in there and I'm genuinely sorry we couldn't try out some more.

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Imaginary Garage - 2010 Triumph Bonneville

Aww yeah biatches - it's time for the third round of Imaginary Garage, and this time it's your turn. As you can see, our starting point is a new 2010 Triumph Bonneville. Sweet, huh? So what's the hold-up? Let's light up the blow torches and get medieval on it's ass!

So how is this going to work? OK, there's going to be two rounds of suggestions as to how we will modify the Bonnie and all submissions will be done via comments below. Round 1 will be the big stuff; tires, wheels, tank, seat, and exhaust etc. What we're after is something like "I think we should make it into an X style of bike with Y style tires, Z type and colour of wheels etc." In a way we're your local shop and you're briefing us to build this bike for you, so obviously "make a cafe racer with a cool tank" won't do it. We're looking for creative, original, clear ideas. No essays, please. We choose the winner, make the mods, and post the results. The winner gets a brand new Pipeburn King Kong tee worth $30.

Round 2 will be all about the tweaks; paint colours, adding or removing chrome, ride height, decals, handle bars and generally perfecting the look of the thing. Same deal as the first round; submissions via the comments section and be detailed. Again, we choose the best entry, make the mods, post the results and announce the winner. Prize for this round is your choice of any other tee in the Pipeburn shop.

You have 48 hours to get your ideas posted before we close round 1 so get them in ASAP. Leave a valid email address so we can contact the winners. I'll update the article to let you all know where we are in the scheme of things.

And lastly, please remember that this is a bit of an experiment so please be patient. Now get to it!

Update on Saturday, November 27, 2010 by Andrew

Round 1 is closed!

Seriously impressive stuff guys. Nice work and thanks to everyone for taking the time to enter the comp. There's so many good ideas in there that it's damn tempting to do more than one, but in the end there has to be a winner - and we've decided that the first round (and the Pipeburn Tee) goes to Emaychee's hillclimber. Honestly dude, you had us at "Bonnehille"; such a cool idea and really not what we were expecting at all, but so original and interesting. Can't wait to see what it looks like!

We'll try and have the bike modded within the next day or so, so now is the time to start nutting out the best way to finish off Emaychee's brainchild. How's it look in your head? Take five minutes and let us know - there's still one more tee up for grabs. Emaychee - feel free to help out on round two as well.

We'll be right back...

Update on Monday, November 29, 2010 by Andrew

Guys - meet our new Triumph "Bonnehille":

As previously mentioned Round 2 will be all about the tweaks; paint colours, adding or removing chrome, ride height, decals, handle bars and generally perfecting the look of the thing. Prize for this round is your choice of any other tee in the Pipeburn shop.

So hop to it. It looks pretty sweet, but it's not finished yet. Should it have decals? Maybe some race numbers? Does it really need a light? Do they do hillclimbing at night? Did I just invent a new sport? Whatever - you've got 36 hours.

Update on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 by Andrew

Round 2 is closed!

Again - thanks for all the entries guys. Another stellar effort. Congratulations to Charles for taking out this round - you've got yourself your choice of any non-Pipeburn tee from our shop. Love the two-tone, love the emblem, love the tach - nice work.

We should have the changes done shortly - be sure you check it out; I think we should have one seriously cool looking bike once we're done.

Don't y'all go nowhere...

Crampton Classic

Not many people have heard of the Crampton Classic, but that could have been a different story if things had gone another way. You see, this working prototype – which is based on the Triumph Speed Triple – initially had the full support of Triumph, but just as it was going into production Triumph changed their mind and decided not to supply the engines. Sadly without the Triumph engines this put a halt on production forever.

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1959 Twin-engined “Tri2ton”

Chins off the floor, guysPeter Andrews isn't a guy to do things by halves. For us mortals, just owning an authentic Triton would be more than enough of our prayers answered, but Pete decided to go just that little bit extra. Well, 100% extra to be precise. He's not only got himself one of the world's sweetest cafe racers, but he's gone an added an extra damn engine.

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Triley Café Racer

Found this exquisite machine on The Motart blog, which is run by Frank Sider – a man with great taste in motorcycles and other objects of desire. The bike was built by Frenchman Vincent Michel and is called a Triley. If you are wondering what a Triley is, it's a combination of a Triumph 6T engine mounted in a Seeley frame. The Seeley frame is a legendary frame created by well known British builder and side car racer Colin Seeley.

Here's what it says about the build on Motart: "The cylinder engine was increased to 750CM3 the Vilo has been lightened pistons high compression, reinforced connecting rods, gear box 6 speed Quaiffe magnesium front brake and fork from Seeley, hub and rear brake Norton Manx". The beautiful British and chequered flag paintwork was done by Ralph at Aero Color Design in France.

Those French really know how to build a café racer, don't you agree? Oui, oui?

[Photography by Vincent Michel]

P.S If you want to find out more about Colin Seeley, there's a great book about his ambitious and action packed life]

2001 Triumph Bonneville

It always amazes me what people can create in their home garages. People like Lee from New Zealand who has been modifying bikes for many years and fabricates all the alloy parts on his little lathe. "I have butchered most makes and models to the horror of the purists" jokes Lee. He bought this Bonnie new back in 2001 and started modifying it straight away. "The first thing I made were the Ace bars" Lee says. "Then I spun up the grips, pegs, mirror and side cover screws on my Myford lathe. Next I made up the tail light bracket and cut down and chromed the front guard. I removed the front forks and cut the mudguard mounts off them and polished them by hand. I cut frame infills out of alloy plate and drilled holes in everything I could, then got it all chromed." The rear shocks are Koni's that are made to fit a Harley Dynaglide with the eyes drilled out. Lee made the pipes out of a box of bends, gas welded them together and then hand filed off the welds. The muffler end caps were also spun up out of billet alloy and then the tank had some cosmetic surgery. "The original gas tank always annoyed the hell out of me with that ugly lip all the way around, so I cut the lip off and gas welded the thing back together" says Lee. He is right, the tank looks so much cleaner with that 'ugly lip' removed.

As you can tell by looking at this beautiful Bonnie, Lee loves drilling more than BP does. "My wife has concerns about my hole drilling fetish" he says. Lee has almost finished another project, a Suzuki Bandit 1200 Streetfighter which shows his latest fetish... alloy spikes.

Deus New Zealand

The city of Auckland is commonly known as the 'City of Sails' because there are more yachts in the harbour per capita than any other city in the world. After our recent visit to the impressive Deus store and workshop, I think they should rename Auckland the 'City of Classic Motorcycles'. We were blown away by the number of beautiful bikes housed in this huge warehouse, from vintage Vincents and Husqvarnas, right through to brand new Triumphs and Harley Custom Bobbers. Incredibly this huge warehouse is only footsteps from the heart of the city – and dangerously close to the Sky City Casino. To find out where they are, hit the jump.

 

G-Spot Customs Triumph

When I first spotted this green, lean and mean Triumph I thought it must have been built by one of the many custom shops in Japan. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was built by G-Spot Customs. G-Spot are based in Denver, Colorado and describe themselves as "not your typical run of the mill motorcycle shop. We’re RACERS at heart and will always be racers. As our logo says “not old school, not new school, just pissed off handcrafted motorcycles”. Whatever they are, they know how to build a bike. Having been conceived in 1972 they have been pleasuring people with their G-Spots customs ever since. This outstanding green machine has a 1963 Triumph Bonneville motor, 1970 Chassis with a bolt on rigid frame. It has also been fitted with early 70's D&D springer, beautiful G-Spot tanks and fenders. They have built the oil tank into the left side gas tank, complete motor rebuild with a 750cc kit and some understated TT pipes. If this bike gets you excited then you will probably enjoy the G-Spot Gallery. [Found on Bikebolt]

Triumph Café Racer

C-51 Customs are located in Novato in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jason Steed from C-51 has just finished building this beautiful 1977 Triumph 750 T140. The stunning 5 gallon tank was made by The Tank Shop out of Scotland and took 8 months to receive but "was well worth the wait". Jason told us "The bike was a total tear down and rebuild. The motor is a 750 with a 5 speed, .40 over pistons and everything else on the motor was upgraded. Stock amal carbs with velocity stacks. I switched the heads over to the slip over 650 style pipes with pressed in adapters on the exhaust ports. The frame, hubs and misc brackets were all powder coated gloss black. The wheels are Excel high shouldered aluminium rim with Buchanan stainless spokes. I used a brembo rear slave master cylinder instead of the stock bulky one. Clubman handlebars with magura controls. The electrical system was switched out to Boyer Brandson. The seat was done locally by the Franzini Bros and is actually stock that I shortened to accommodate the fuel tank". These great shots of this classic styled Café Racer were taken by the photographers at Vidola Productions. There's also a video in production which I will post in the next week or so.