Is your standard bike not enough for you, are you bored with it? If you’ve answered YES to either of these questions these South African motorcycle shops might just have the answer you’re looking for.
Since the beginning of time man, and women, have never been satisfied with what they own. Unfortunately it’s in our human nature and will be with us until extinction. Let’s wind back the clock a million years or so to prove the theory.
Glug the caveman has a new rock and proudly rolls it into his cave. He and his wife Chok sit back and admire their rock for many years and they’re very happy with it until Chok gets bored and begins to decorate their favourite rock with flora and skulls found outside. This is all very nice but then a new couple arrives next door/cave and Arkk and Blatt kindly invite them over for a rib and they’re distraught to find they have a bigger and prettier rock. And not only that, the next day Arkk rolls his rock down a hill at high speed and Glug jealously does the same but his is slower, oh no! This sends both men into the frantic modifying of said rocks regarding both cosmetic and performance enhancement issues, which has basically continued until our present day. Jealousy and showing off will never leave us.
Now if you happen to own a motorbike and you have similar disillusions with your ‘rock’, or your new ‘rock’ needs to be superior from the day of purchase, we at SuperBike are here to help with our good friends at Traditional Triumph from Edenvale and Mean Machine in Pretoria. Both of these experts in the motorcycle world will improve your life if you have similar issues to the cave men.
Traditional Triumph (011 609 4590)
These friendly chaps are more passionate about the Triumph brand than just about anyone we’ve ever come across. Traditional Triumph only retail Triumph and being the top dealer in SA for many years has to have its advantages regarding looks and styling. They can certainly make your particular Triumph go faster if you desire but they seem to become more excited if you choose to go the cosmetic route and the couple of bikes we were shown were to show-winning standards to prove their passion. They will assist you with any ideas of your own but after what we saw and heard we’d thoroughly recommend their invaluable advice if you want to look and feel as cool as Steve McQueen.
When we were shown the Steve McQueen Bonneville we wondered what all the fuss was about because we’d already seen this Limited Edition Triumph before. That is until we were told it was a stock Bonne’ modified to look like the ‘genuine’ one, due to supply issues. That’s how good this bike is, it looks exactly the same, what a superb replica! The only difference being it doesn’t have black rims. So they cut the fender, fitted a new exhaust, gaiters, rack, and of course that fantastic paint job and powder-coating of other parts. The best thing of all is a stock Bonne’ will cost you R92,000 but this one is also for sale at R92,000. Bet you’re going to get on the phone right now?
The next bike on show was this beautiful pale blue converted Speedmaster, which was never a particularly pretty bike to start with, hence this Traditional conversion. They took a Scrambler Arrow full system and ‘made it fit’, then added Speed Triple ‘bars and switchgear. The rear fender was chopped down to suit and then all the painting and powder-coating finished it off, including a painted frame. Traditional Triumph proudly states that everything they do is ‘in-house’ showing their dedication to the brand they live and die for. Finally a fancy air filter was attached and the fuelling changed accordingly. And WOW, what a stunning machine they’ve made! To be honest these pictures don’t do these bikes justice and we highly recommend a visit to see these bikes in the flesh, whether you have a Triumph or not doesn’t really matter. They can also change the look of any Thruxton, Bonneville or Scrambler so it might well be worth a visit if you own any of the fantastic parallel twin range? They might even tattoo your head with a Union Jack, you never know?
Mean Machine (012 348 7799)
Mean Machine has just been taken over by new and more importantly passionate motorcycle enthusiast, which is surely a good thing if you’re lucky enough to be one of their satisfied clientele. They are proud to say that they are a premier dealership in Pretoria for both Kawasaki and Triumph, which is certainly a good couple of brands to link together. Competent staff will provide obviously great service and information if you desire to purchase from either make and most people will be happy with that. But Mean Machine would like to enforce that they can go much further with the standard bike, especially in the realms of obtaining vastly improved performance. You might well ask now what’s wrong with a standard bike? Well nothing really but they are strangled to a certain extent by emission regulations, which always saps power and we in South Africa hate that, right?
Firstly we were shown Mean Machine’s modified Kawasaki Z1000SX a brilliant bike to start with in its own right. But Christo the head mechanic isn’t happy with that at all. So Mean Machine made some new headers using Stealth Systems and finished the end off with an Arata slip-on. They then ‘flashed’ the ECU, which means altering the stock ECU using some fancy software of their own to get into the ZX’s ‘brain’ This gets the most from the stock engine without adding additional electronics on and is the cheapest route to go before adding a Power Commander, which they also did with auto-tune facilitation. And to finish it all off a MRA screen was fitted for better wind deflection at the high speeds this bike will now achieve. The results are astounding to say the least. The stock bike made 115bhp using a Dynojet dyno and 97Nm of torque. The ‘flash’ took it to 119hp and 100Nm, then the Power Commander and a lot of dyno hours pushed the ZX to 133hp and 106Nm, very impressive indeed and well worth a call it you want the same.
Next up was their evil looking Triumph Speed Triple R, again superb in its own zone, but obviously that’s not enough for these fanatical guys. They again ‘flashed’ the ECU first and fitted a full Arrow race system. Then once they were happy with all that a Power Commander and Dynojet quick-shifter were added a few days later. A couple of Genuine Triumph accessories were also tacked on in the form of a screen and seat cowl. Again these engine mods are impressive to say the least.
From a stock 117hp and 101Nm, to the ‘flash’ 125hp and 103Nm, to the final 131hp and 109Nm, good stuff indeed. You can imagine how much better that will feel?
They can also ‘flash’ just about any bike you’d care to think of so give them a call to make your life just that little bit more exciting?
