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Mod ernism

CT110

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i f modernism is the struggle for perfect balance between form and function (think of Le Corbusier and

the Bauhaus), then postmodernism is the rejection of this in favour of the empowerment of the individual, where the struggle is to be unique, even if that means embracing imperfection. And if any bike deserves the postmodern tag, it has to be a uniquely customised version of Honda’s utilitarian device, the CT110.

Mind you, it’s also the sort of custom bike you would expect if you put a comedian and a designer in the same room for long enough, which is pretty much what has happened here. James Clark is one half of Post Modern Motor Cycles. By day, he is a production and set designer for film and television, and it was while working on the improv show Thank God You’re Here that he met comedian Merrick Watts, the other half of Post Modern Motor Cycles. Merrick is probably best known as a Nova FM radio show host in Sydney and, more recently, as an actor in another Working Dog production, The Hollowmen.

James describes the project’s seed as a discussion about customised motorcycles, bobbers, choppers and beautiful Japanese custom madness. When Merrick proposed customising postie bikes, James found the amusement and absurdity of it instantly appealing, a feeling now reflected in the names given to each model: Junk Mail, Post Mortem, Dear John, Express Post and Blackmail.

“I took some photos of a postie bike, sketched a few of my ideas over the top of them and sent them to Merrick and he said, ‘Yeah, that looks great, lets go for it,’” says James.

Post Modern Motor Cycles now have five models in the range with more to follow. Customers can choose one of these or request to have their postie modified with James’s styling input.

The first one built was Blackmail. It has a bobbed rear-end, stripped-down front and a set of Ace-style handlebars to give it a café-racer feel. The Nitro Heads seat and matt Iron Cross painted onto its gloss black paint give it a much more masculine look than the original. Like many of the models, it also sports a Brooks saddlebag on the left side, as well as a neat Brooks leather toolbag attached to the front crash-bar’s down-tubes. You can unclip the toolbag and take it with you when you park the bike and the dark tan complements the leather mud-flap out the back.

James took quite a while to find the

the determination of two men to turn the prosaic

into a sexy beast.Words & photography by Alec SimPSon

With its bobbed rear-end and iron cross, Blackmail is the postie bike of choice for the urban berserker.

“it’s … the sort of custom bike you would expect if you put a comedian and a designer in the same room…”

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right tyres for the Post Modern Motor Cycle collection, but has now managed to source Avon Speedmasters in the correct size. He wanted a good-looking, vintage-style tyre and has pretty much hit the nail on the head. The ribbed pattern works well with the old-school style of the revamped posties.

The Post Modern motorcycle isn’t about performance; it’s about style, and your inner-city urban type’s ability to get around in some. Zero to 90 in 10 minutes might be the CT110’s catch cry, but if it’s just inner-city café crawling, who cares?

The donor bikes are sourced from auctions, and James makes sure to get hold of only the good ones.

“They have three grades, from good to almost dead. We take the A-grade bikes,” he says.

James does go over the engine and running gear of every bike they sell, but only to ensure reliability and make sure everything is tolerable. This involves bead-blasting all alloy finishes and cleaning up the usually rusty cast-iron barrel. The clean metal complements the painted crankcases, a Post Modern Motorcycles signature.

Of course, those who want to indulge in the performance catalogues can do so to their hearts’ desire. James has access to a range of performance parts that will bolt on, thanks to the huge popularity of Honda Cubs in Japan.

Express Post is bright silver with flat bars and a café-racer-style seat with the filler cap cut into the middle. It wears a miller-style stoplight and license plate holder, and bullet indicators. This is a model that, like Blackmail, is not a major departure from the original bike, and that James says makes up most of the demand.

If James doesn’t make the part or have it made locally, it’s likely to have come from either Japan or England, the Daytona ’bar-end mirrors being a good example of this.

“It’s incredible quality compared to

other aftermarket stuff,” he says.The most radical Post Modern Postie

so far is called Junk Mail. Its stretched frame, peanut tank, rigid rear end, Tokyo exhaust and old, sprung, bicycle seat give it a low-slung, gothic, hot-rod look the others don’t have. The lead-grey paint, reversed handlebars and wide tyres on black rims manage to make even a CT110 seem menacing.

The stretched frame involved cutting and welding in an extension using a sleeve, and James uses this bike to demonstrate how far you can go.

“My main objective with that bike was to get it as far as possible from a postie bike: the polar opposite, but still have it rideable and usable and legal. People have chased me down the street to see it again.”

“When I ride it, people are always coming up and saying, ‘What is that, ‘40s, ‘50s?’ And I say, ‘Nope, 2007.’”

A standard makeover retains most of the original postie bike parts. Indeed, one striking aspect of these bikes is the lack of bling. Sure, they use chrome on the exhaust shrouds, but it’s never over the top, giving the bikes a cool, understated feel that fits nicely with their amusing nature. James reckons he wanted to build an urban gentleman’s or lady’s ride, not something pretending to be something it's not.

James also does the paintwork on the bikes, which is now oven-baked,

while the individual trimming, such as the seat on the Post Mortem, is done by Gary Blackman in Melbourne. As James says, it keeps the bespoke feel. The baked paint speeds up the drying process considerably and so reduces the time it takes to build a bike.

it’s not Australia Post regulation, but who cares?

Post modern turns the ct110 into both means of transport and objet d’art.

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“If you mark the paint putting it together, it’s devastating,” he says.

The drab olive green of the Dear John model has been a hit with the girls.

“For some reason, they really seem to like it. The brown leather seat seems to set it off and it has a sort of Steve McQueen Great Escape feel.”

James thinks the Post Modern Motorcycle CT110 will appeal to those in the inner city who are fuel conscious, hate sitting in traffic jams, and just want to make short trips between places like Fitzroy and Prahran or the city. In that role, they are great. The clutchless four-speed auto makes them easy to ride, while the low power means they aren’t intimidating.

“A good ride for those who would otherwise have ridden a scooter. Hey, they’re even a good progression between a scooter and a motorbike,” says James.

One particularly nice feature is the foot pegs. They are Brooks leather bicycle handgrips modified to fit onto the CT110 footrest hanger. It’s a nice touch and shows just how much thought has gone into turning these suburban postal hacks into postmodern motorcycle art.

James tells me that the next bike in the range will run two front-ribbed tyres and be modelled on a salt-flat racer. I am trying to imagine what it will be called, given the tongue-in-cheek postie themes of the others. “Snail Mail”, maybe.

James is pleased to be customising Postie bikes as he feels that most everything else has been done before, and he wanted to tackle something new and different. That he is doing it with a comedian like Merrick Watts gives it just the right amount of irreverence. After all, when it comes to postmodernism, humour and style is more important than performance. 2w <www.pmmc.com.au>

the footpegs are made from Brooks leather bicycle handgrips.

could Junk mail

be the world’s

loveliest postie-

bike chopper?