Tuesday 24 November 2009

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Yeah, I know that those red, flake grips are a little bit over the top, but I couldn't resist when I found them on ebay and thought that they would be a nice match for my soon to be red bike. They're proper vintage "balloon" grips, made by an Italian firm called "Granturismo" and according to the fact sheet they are "make [yes: make] to absorb the roughest of vibrations". A good thing, since my Huskvarna engine vibrates like a pneumatic drill on nitro. If they turn out looking too garish on the bike, I'll order these from the Wrench Monkees. Check out the cool little glass vial of rubber cement that has survived perfectly ever since the grips were manufactured, which may have been in the seventies(?). They may also have been made last week in China and are sold as "vintage" to suckers like me...

The lovely little billet tank cap is made by the same guy that made my XR-style tank, many moons ago. As per usual when it comes to people in the flat track business, he was more difficult to locate than Saddam Hussein. Impossible to find on the interweb, and of course: he didn't accept credit cards. Once found (thank you Richard of Mule Motorcycles), he turned out to be a very friendly chap (also typical of the flat track scene) and promptly sent me the tank cap and a few other bits and bobs that I needed. His name is Fred BTW, and his company is called RaceTec and he's the one who actually makes the tanks that are subsequently sold by Storz. I don't know if it shows up on the image, but the quality of the milling of the cap is quite superb.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there,

    I definitely wouldn't call you a sucker. However, the grips that you've linked to aren't exactly vintage. I have a pair. They're made by POSH (japan), Deus use a lot of their parts. I ordered directly from posh - just emailed them my request and paid via paypal.

    Cheers,

    Dael

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  2. But...they came with a very authentic, sepia coloured and horribly spelled, "Italian" fact sheet... I was a little suspicious of the fact that the rubber grips had survived totally intact for all those years!

    Clever bods those Japanese...:-)

    /David

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