Royal Enfield inspirations-Modified Royal Enfield-Alambiccus Garage Motorcycles Jap Enfield

Not sure who has built this , was found on the Alambiccus Garage Motorcycles website.The bike has been done up in a minimalistic way . The rear has been converted to a hard tail ,most of the front head assembly has been done away with and replaced .

Look carefully what a piece of the art the handle bar assembly is , very creative.

Look at the handle bar.

Royal Enfield inspirations-Modified Royal Enfield-Totti Engine Cafe Racer

This time we are heading to the European Royal Enfield scene, this one looks like a cafe on the front and the rear seems to be inspired by a Flat tracker , the rear also is common on Street fighter bikes.There is no build report or WIP pics. I really like the design , the builder says no Magazine was interested in featuring his build.

Built by TottoMotori

Royal Enfield inspirations-Modified Royal Enfield-Wingfoot Enfield Cafe racer

Yet another classy custom from the Land of the Rising Sun , this one is made by Wingfoot , not much info is availabe on their site nor anything about the build ,the pics are from Bikebros Japan website. 

The Wingfoot Royal Enfield cafe racer.

The mask is piece of art , has the essence of the original mask but with a racier look.

 The exhaust looks like a BSA exhaust.

Love the mask.

Proper clubman handebars

The Shogun Shaolin Bug

Me and my friends during engineering spent ogling at bikes and cars , unlike the other kids our age. The most popular bikes then were the RX 100 and Shogun to a much lower extent , but me I was a Shogun Guy, I just loved the way it looked and sounded, I believe it is one of the best sounding bikes in India, Though I am yet to buy a Shogun , may be wanting is more fun than having or maybe I am just a miser. Anyways , I was getting a lot of hits for modified Shoguns and Shaolin's so here goes , flicked more pics form facebook!!

This is a superb looking Shaolin, with Wide rally handle and Yezdi Headlight , the head is painted same as the body which gives it a nice look and to add to that the chromed expansion chamber.

Not much in terms of mods ,the headlight and the over the mudguard brake line and scrambler mudguard gives it quite a badboy look, the bike is obviously used for racing. 
 

Knuckle Duster Template

So we share common interest. I too have been looking for a good Knuckle duster template. I found this through a DIY video on YouTube. The images are life size , just click on the image and save the same. Just take  a print out, paste it on the selected metal and drill and then file away!!!head to youtube plenty of instructions available. 


The Left hand side is a classic Knuckle duster design.

The Right is a bottle opener type duster , I am not sure if you can use it to open bottles , but the groves for the fingers can be used to leverage the top of the cap.


The bottom one is the latest fad in Knuckle duster , the skull type , the top or the business end of the duster varies in design from flowing to flames to just a curve , these types tend to be much larger and bulky, the fingers may need to stretched due to the thickness of the split of the eyes or the holes for fingers. 

It is easy to design your own template , just use the classic as a base for size and design the external layout to your own taste.

This post is only for entertainment and I do NOT encourage Violence.

Royal Enfield inspirations-Modified Royal Enfield-PUP

Presenting the Royal Enfield Pup built by Old Empire Motorcycles . This is a hard tail bobber with what looks like the RE AVL engine. Find more WIP images on their Facebook page.

Fins Sanded.

Beautifully crafted hard tail  

The Fox from Old Empire Motorcycles on Vimeo.

Sharif Shishunala-The chicken which swallowed the monkey

A very famous song in Kannada "Kodagana Koli Nungitta", been hearing for a very long time , up until now I did not know that it was composed by Sharif Shishunal. Google for more info on Sharif Shishunal.

In 2010 when I was working in Hubli I was invited by our office gardener to visit his village on the occasion of a village fair being held in honour of "Sharif Shishunal" . A friend who worked in the same office as mine had been to the place and soon we had a plan to visit the Jaatre.All plans made out me and Sikandar( my friend from office) rode out to the place which is about 70 KMS from Hubli. I do not remember the  route, will update the blog once I confirm. I am not sure what the name of the village is where  Sharif Shishunal Jatre (fair) is held, will update once I confirm.

Like all jaatre this one too was quite crowded, the govt had made extra tansport arrangements for the devotees , many of them had made taxis and a few die hard ones came by bullock carts. They  had camped on the ground adjacent to the road and near the shrine of Shishunal. They had decked out the bullock cart and had made arrangements to cook and sleep and fodder for the cattle , the shrine management also provides food for the devotees and and all the holy people who visit the place and for the devotees too.

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The highlight of this fair is pulling of the tair (rath /chariot) where the devotees pull the chariot across a field.As I am uploading the pics , I realize that I missed taking the pics of pulling the tair, well another reason to revisit the fair!! There is a lot of dancing and singing and a even lot of smoking pot/weed/marijuana . There is a whole ground dedicated to this, people sit in circle and smoke pot,all of them use chillums to smoke , locally grown weed is openly sold here . And there is police too , but they turn a blind eye to this on this particular day.

 

A chariot decked out on a tractor with the image of Sharif Shishunal is driven around.

A saw many people selling chillums of varied shaped and sizes at very cheap prices , I got 3 of them for 30 bucks , before you get any ideas , I don't do pot , I have kept them as a souvenir in our house show case. I was wandering around as came across this group, who had this custom chillum adorned with rings and another group with a wooden chillum. It was all festive many of them actually smoking and asking for pics to be taken , me only too happy to oblige.

 

 

 

I found this very beautifully adroned chillum with finger rings , total bling!!!!

 

 

And another one made out of wood. I was gifted a chillum exactly like this by my riding buddy, who had had got them from Bombay ,again before the reader gets any ideas on what I do with a chillum , it is kept in my house as a decorative item. 

As I had mentioned the food is provided free of cost by the shrine, it is a simple fare of jolad rotti and the round balls you see is called a "muddee" . 

After spending some more time wondering around and getting lost in the crowd and finally finding my host , I was invited to our office gardeners house for dinner , me and my friend refused but they would not budge and we happily agreed , In India we never let a guest leave without offering something to eat or drink, in the city we no longer follow this strictly but in villages it is strictly followed. Again in India one must wash their hands and legs and wash their face before having dinner or lunch , so out we went to wash up , returning to find a scrumptous meal awaiting us. Food cooked on wood fire has a taste one can;t describe, to put it mildly it is amazing. The food simple and very very tasty with "Jolada Rotti " and badnikayi pallaye (brinjal side dish) and rice and curry and a sweet dish . Man was I one happy puppy!! They asked us to stay the night there and visit the fair again tomorow but we refused as we had office work to attend to. More than anything the hospitality of our office gardener humbled me. The jatre is definitely worth a visit if you stay near Hubli or surrounding areas.

Sikandar my friend, he runs a water rain water harvesting company who desgns and implement rain water harvesting units and infrastructure for small homes to big factories.

 

My hosts for the day, Mallayya, our office gardener and his dad .

 

Handibadangnath-A "Higher" Plain!

A friend of mine had 1st mentioned of this place nestled deep in the jungles of Dandeli and had spoken highly of the place and the view from here. I had forgotten what the name was, but for some reason this place was in the back of my mind. Almost an year later me and my friend had decided on a trip to Om Beach , but we turned back as the weather was turning bad and about to rain. So we returned back to Dharwad from Khalghatagi. We had time to kill and not much to do I decided we visit Handibadangnath Mutt( Monastery) . We called up a friend who had been to the place and got the direction. The route we took was Dharwad to Alnavar to Kumbard. I am not sure how this place is spelled as , On google map it's "Kumbarwad" on the board at the mutt it's "Kumbard". Again on Handibadangnath I tried to research the place but not much was available online, what later popped up though was a misspelled name "Handibadagnath" .

The road from Dharwad to Goa is being re-laid and broadened and the 50Kms from Dharwad took 2 hours to reach Kumbard. But unfortunatley we had to return just a little distance from the mutt as we were running low on Fuel.

I do not like to leave things unfinished.. er most of the times.And specially this place it was like, to quote Pirsig "it's like discovering a tooth with a missing filling. You can never leave it alone. You have to probe it, work around it, push on it, think about it, not because it's enjoyable but because it's on your mind and it won't get off your mind". Two days later convinced my friends to make the trip after filling their heads with all the view and scenery and they finally put a leave on Monday and we headed out. Taking the same route as before. The road is quite bad and has been completed in patches.

There is not much to write about the trip nor the place, let me be a little lazy and let the pics do the talking or writing or whatever.


The road from Kumbard to the Mutt

The view from the top, the picture does not do any justice to the beauty




The entrance to the Mutt

The view from the top


We met a couple of Sadhus inside the Mutt who narrated to story of how the mutt came into being. In Indian culture when feeding religious heads or priests the cook or anyone else must not taste the food before it is served to the priest. Apprently Saint Gorashak nath when cooking tasted the food when the priest or Sadhu in this case came to know about this , he tied a cooking pot called a "Handi" in Kannada to Gorashak naths head and told him to build a Mutt where the pot falls and thus "Handi-Badangnath" came into being.


There are two ways to reach the Handi , one is through a small cave else there is a separate entrance.






This cave leads to another cave entrance which leads up.






There was something painted or rather drawn with charcoal on the entrance of the Mutt , The care taker there said it was drawn by a old guy from Belgaum who was high on Pot!!



Another Sandhu there had these really cool ear rings made of Clay and the opening covered with wax.



As prasad we were given rice and Sambar which we hogged down.

A few more Pics of the place.








This place is also quite famous for another reason, which was the reason my friend had mentioned this place about. More about it next time.

Also another route which can be taken in Dharwad-Haliyal/Alnavar-Kumbard or Belgaum-Ramnagar-Kumbard.

Edit: The place is also spelled as handi bhadangnath , adding it to show in the search.

Google Map to the Mutt 

Royal Enfield inspirations-Modified Royal Enfield

Like all other enthusiasts, the modification bug has bitten the Indian enthusiast. Indians have been modding their rides for quite some time. Some of them really amazing to some very creative to some outrageous or outright dangerous to rider or other people on the road. With access to internet and English movies the Harley Davidson Bug bit the Indians. And opened up the possibilities on what can be customized and how it can be .
Many years ago when I 1st came across the Harley-Davidson modding scene on TV. I knew the Royal Enfield would be an ideal candidate. And it did finally hot up our shores, the tourists in Goa started the scene there, with some really breath taking paint jobs and good mods. But it's still long way to go as most of the mods here lack creativity , most are a rip off and an attempt to recreate the HD magic. Other than those by Rajputana Custom I find them lacking. There is another firm in Mumbai "Vardenci" to say the least I am not a big fan. And I do not blame Vardenci, they cater to a market which is a "Wannabe HD" market and they create their magic on them and they are pretty good at what they do.
From what I have observed , I remember the 1st mod was the handle bar, I once saw an Ape bar mounted on a Bullet and the butter fly handle , I am not sure if it's called the butter fly handle. Some removed the front steel faring covering the headlight and replacing it with a separate head unit with that of a rickshaw which had the water drop shape similar to the Harley,s. Some of them replaced the 18" tire with a extra wide tire 16" or 17". And also go for a alloy wheel. The alloy wheel was quite a craze some time back, but now with almost all bikes India having an alloy as a OEM. Alloys are not much used mod option.
On the exhaust front not much was changed as many of the Bullet owners loved the thump sound , though now many do change and go for the BSA Goldstar style silencer or the megaphone , the latter much newer to the market.
Some went in for the vintage look with single spring seat , some went for the scrambler look.
I have been following the international Royal Enfield Modification scene for a little while now and have come across some great works.

The 1st and 2nd were found on the "The local hero Japan" Page on facebook no info is available on the builders.

The 1st is a hard tail Bobber, and looks the part too.Reminds me of the chopper in Easy Rider. I like this as it is minimalistic and metric bobbers are coming on big. Bikermetric for more dope. I believe that these types will soon find it's way in India, but with the roads here or the lack of it. Hardtails may not be such a good idea.



This is a absolute gorgeous one, a cross between a bobber/tracker. The bike has been lowered and I just love how different the design is.The small simple rear fender really adds some character to the bike.



This was a mod which made me sit up and look a few times.The work gone into it is great. The work is by Stoop Motorcycles
Images I have flicked from bubble visor.









I have seen pics of a few RE cafe racer in India and they were very well executed with all the mods associated with a Cafe including the pain in the ass and neck and shoulder riding position. This one I found is built by T Factory bikes







This is as pure as it comes, open pipes and cafe racer looks and this a pure bred racer with Rat bike looks. It's quite famous as the RE Badger"








There a lot many such bikes out there, being built in home garages over weekends and being documented in blogs or small FB groups.Enfeilds are being modified with the cafe racer looks in India and some of them are quite good. But I'd like to see more bobbers and maybe a few trackers too.
I'll try to keep this blog updated with the latest builds to inspire other on what can be done with a Royal Enfield.


I will keep updating the blog with new pics and mods as and when I come across them. 


This one is a Japanese build found the pic on this blog

Flicked there images from the Sideburnmag blog , they have converted their RE 500 into a superb hard tail bobber. 

Finally found an RE tracker , find more info about it on the Motorcyclephotooftheday blog. Built by Doug Douglas Motorcycles of San Bernadino.