Motorcycle Mojo Exists in Sanlo Heights

One of the positive effects of the Covid-induced lockdown-phase is the shift in the way you manage your time, or more freedom to spend it as you wish. In a way, activities that were otherwise just on your bucket list is now your top priority — like working on that dream custom bike you’ve been using as motivation to keep your pace during the 9 to 12 hour shifts inside the rat race.

Suffice to say, this post is related to that custom motorcycle dream – if ever you have one.

For someone who lives at the outskirts of Daet – around 600 feet above sea level at that- it is quite an effort to drive all the way to the capital to have a motorcycle fixed or customized. This was the problem that Francis De La Rosa identified and have set out to solve. Thus, Franco’s Garage was born – whose objectives range from providing simple motorcycle fixes and parts, up to the process of full customization.

So what exactly is motorcycle customization?

Simply put, customization “is your vision made real,” as stated by the guys from DirtyUnicorn. “Individuality” is a key motivating factor for anyone to want to customize a ride. It is making a privately owned motorbike personalized and unique. This gets done by providing your mechanic the modification inputs based on your own wants and needs.

In our province where motorcycle is the apparently the widely-used mode of transportation, yearning to have a unique ride has somehow seeped through our veins.

Who and when did this mojo start?

It could be arguably stated that the first custom motorcycle (or bike) – built by engineer Harold “Oily” Karslake – was the Dreadnought in 1902, created for endurance races. Dirt track racing became popular soon afterwards (1920s), which forced many riders to adapt road bikes so they can “go faster on rough grounds”.

More than a decade after, the American Motorcyclist Association introduced a new class of racing, which only allowed catalogued motorcycles to be used in official events. Those who wanted to join had to “squeeze extra speed out of their bikes” by “removing as much excess weight as possible,” and “cutting back unnecessary details like fenders.” This gave birth to the customization style known as “Bobbing.” So if you want that kind of customization, then it might be a good thing to ask your mechanic to do your bike a bob-job.

One of the most prominent historical crew that became a driving force in the history of this niche is Harley-Davidson, who, in 1942 (World War II), supplied the U.S. Armed Forces and its Allies (such as Great Britain, Canada, and Russia) with motorcycles. Harley-DavidsonOfManila stated that “the custom movement we experience today was born out of the Second World War.”

Matt Ware, on a BikeSure-UK article, mentioned how returning soldiers became motor customization afficionados “after living through the horrors of war.” And the rest was history.

What types of customizations could I have?

According to Mardistas, customizations could be differentiated into the following general terms: Bobbers, Choppers, Café Racers, Cutdowns, Rat Bikes, Streetfighters, Tribsa (or Tri-B.S.A.) and Tritons.

Even so, things have turned out a bit differently in the local scene – as Francis stated while he shows me the different custom bikes that he and his team have finished creating. In this side of the world, terms like Scrambler, Brat Scramble, Tracker, and Street Bike BMX were used to coin the different designs based on certain modifications. For example, Trackers could be identified by the installed Mono-shock, a Brat Scrambler could be differentiated from a Scrambler by the height of the motorcycle’s rear area.