Bangkok Motorbike Festival 2018

This year saw the 10th edition of the BMF at Central World, and the first custom bike competition within this festival. Once again, my trusted SR400 "Sunmaster14" was deemed nice enough to be among the 4 finalists in the 'cafe racer' category.
From the 31/ January till the 4th of February, Central World, which is Thailand's biggest shopping mall, became a hub for motorcycle lovers from all around the world.


The competition in the cafe racer category was fierce this time. The other 3 bikes were really top notch. I had no hope of winning, but that was ok. I did very well last year at the Terminal 21 competition and felt that I had nothing more to prove, so for me it was just fun....more or less.

The first night a big storm came over Bangkok, strange for this time of the year, and messed up part of my booth. Fortunately, some good soul opened the big umbrella and made sure my SR was properly protected.

On Saturday, the judges came to our booth to inspect the bike. I kickstarted it without problems as I did for the past several months. Later in the evening we were supposed to ride in front of them again and for the photographers to get a chance to take some more pics. . .
My turn came, a large crowd was waiting just for me, cameras clicking, videos rolling, judges waiting...no pressure at all.
Well, guess what....carb flooded, a no-go for me! I was kicking desperately, praying to the patron saint of all SRs (Saint Onekick), but deep down I knew I was doomed.
Such is the SR life, as one friend put it. It truly is.
Nothing left to do than push it and admit defeat.
I'm sure I will have nightmares about this for the rest of my life, but other than that I'll be fine. grrrr

Sunday then was the final act of the competition. I was pretty sure I would be last, but as a little consolation, I came 3rd.

All in all, a nice experience, but not something I think I will do again, at least not with Sunmaster14. Maybe I'll build a new bike one day.

2nd place

1st place

4th place

Old friends supporting us

 

no comment :-)

 

Meeting new friends

Happy with the result

Tom and Jerry with Harley tshirts...hmmm. I hope they will see the light of reason one day

Once again, it's competition time!

After the big surprise of winning the Big Bike Custom Show in Bangkok last April, I was invited to enter Sunmaster14 in another competition. Still in Bangkok, but this time it will be held at Central World, the biggest shopping mall in Thailand.

This time I feel much less stressed out about the whole thing.

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Bangkok Bike Festival 2013

My wife has a small business with wedding decorations and I always help out, so I had my fair share of weddings in the past 2 years. You can imagine how happy I was last week, when she told me we were invited to the wedding of one of her friends in Bangkok. Ecstatic! Yeah, right.

Finally, after a few days of avoiding the issue, I agreed to go. Actually, I was quite excited!
I've got to be honest. This change of heart wasn't due to a raving desire to be part of yet another Thai wedding or to gain always needed points with my wife. It just so happened that there was the annual Bike Festival at Central World. Why not combine the dreadful with the pleasant?

So it happened that last Saturday I dropped off my sweetheart and her friend at the wedding, while I made my way to Central World.

I don't like big cities and crowded places. It makes me physically and mentally tired to be around hordes of people and being bombarded by street noise and shopping mall 'music'. In the end it was more like a touch and go experience rather than full immersion. I also have to apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, as my camera was being used at the wedding.

Here's a small photo collection:

I must admit I'm not a big Honda fan, and I certainly wasn't blown away by the new Honda CB500 when I first saw the pictures online. However, seeing it live and sitting on it, made me change my mind, somehow. It's got several good things going for it, not least the price tag. At 205.000 Baht for the CBF, one can't complain much.
I still think there's too much plastic, though.

These modern bikes...far too much plastic hiding the nice mechanical bits

 Not too shabby for ol' Honda, but let's get serious now

 A sea of crazy scooters

Another addition to the  lazy Honda engineers: the KSR copy...

What a little gem I found among scores of same-same Kawasakis ER6 and Harleys...

The key was there and I was really tempted. :-))

KTM has got to be the most fun loving brand out there...their bikes are hooligans on wheels, but at 200.000 Baht for the new 200cc available in Thailand, sad but true, I rather buy the CB500F. Oops, did I just say that out loud?

The new Freeride...I wished I could ride it away for free

One of my all time favourite bikes. I'm not much into sport bikes anymore, but the MV Agusta is SEX ON WHEELS!!!!!!!!!!!

The F4 is not bad either!

Ducati! Yeah baby!