Sunset Road Bike Show
Gazza and a few friends travelled to Bali for this back-to-basics bike show.
BALI HELD its annual two-day bike show recently with an estimated 3500 visitors attending. Approximately 60 percent were locals who had travelled from all over Indonesia; the balance foreigners of which at least half were expats living in Bali. Many international bike clubs had members attending including HOG, Veterans, Easy Riders and more.
There were about 750 bikes at the Sunset Road Bike Show, the majority being chopped or classic. There were many Harleys in their original state or customised from mild to extreme. We saw Harleys, BSAs of all years, AJSs, Ariels, Triumph Bonnies, BMWs from R25 up to ’70s, Matchless, WLAs, VLs, and many old Hondas, Kwakas and Nortons. Most were customised; some were in amazing original condition and ridden daily.
With the income of your average Indonesian about $100 AUS a week, it’s amazing how they are able to customise classic bikes into old school choppers and well designed bikes on their budgets. Yours truly had to admire their workmanship.
Brotherhood MC Indonesia is the largest MC club in Bali; a very friendly bunch of guys who invite any bike rider to join no matter what their ride is. My mates from Kickass Choppers and Chopper Heaven rode in a few of their own bikes for the show. You must admire these guys — the bikes look awesome and a bit impractical but they all get ridden.
There were many tattooed girls walking around showing off the work from the many local tattoo artists.
I even had a chance to enjoy (well, get wasted) on Cowan Mas Whiskey, a local whiskey which is 47 percent rocket fuel worthy for any thirsty biker like myself. These guys even used pics of us wearing our Ozbike shirts drinking their whiskey for local promotional posters. Next time I travel to Bali I’m wearing my ‘Fuck me I’m famous’ shirt!
Many retro classic bikes travelled from the other islands to show their fine examples of the local bike building trends. These guys copy styles from all over the world — Swedish, Bagger, Jesse James, Orange County and so on — and are somewhere up there with the best of them.
The classic-bike drag-race drew many onlookers to the barricades to see how these old bikes performed. Some fellas took their racing very seriously and their bikes made plenty of noise and great speeds. It was an awesome sight to see the bikes racing on the roads; the streets fully barricaded off. I especially liked the good old starting procedure — a girl would stand in-between the two bikes racing, pull a bra out of her top and throw it into the air instead of dropping a flag. Great stuff — should be more of it.
I can’t go past a good bike show without doing my ritual burn-out. I managed to borrow a bike — a Honda 2 stroke 125 cc — off my mate Nick, and on the Saturday night with a belly full of bourbon, I let rip a couple of donuts to show the locals how us Aussies burn our rubber.
This is a great old fashioned bike show with no pressure or bullshit that any bike enthusiast would enjoy. We just loved it. These guys really put their heart and souls into building and riding their bikes, not just throwing heaps of money at them. We found a lot of rare and collectable bikes, many parts and models I have never heard of in Australia. If you’re into restoring old bikes and having some real old school fun, get your arse over to Bali for this year’s show in August.
I would like to thank Mouse, Camel Lady and Emma for travelling to Bali and spending a memorable week riding Bali on mopeds with me. And many thanks to Henky for inviting us back for next year’s bike show. He has even challenged myself in a burn-out comp; has promised me a Harley for the burn-out so I can’t wait.
words & pics by Gazza.
