As you would expect Bonnefication.com features a lot of heavily modified Triumph Twins, but they are not always what you the reader want to see. Unsurprisingly soft customs are more popular with many, after all, not everyone wants to cut up a perfectly good Triumph motorcycle. Sensible, as they are often harder to sell.
It was Dagger Cycles back in June of 2014 who first coined the words ‘Soft Custom’ (though certainly not the concept) when they submitted a Triumph Scrambler to us here at Bonnefication. A build uncut and simply modified using a selection of aftermarket parts and a nice paint job.
Four years later, you can walk into any Triumph dealer and buy a special factory custom sporting parts from the official accessories range, and produce a great looking factory soft custom – but when you park it next to another Triumph Twin, exactly the same colour, with exactly the same official accessories, I doubt it will continue to look the distinctive and personalised Triumph Twin you wanted.
If you truly want a personalised and more individualised soft custom, I would suggest shopping from not only the plethora of aftermarket parts available for both the air and liquid cooled machines, yes, including those from the official catalogue, but also the huge amount of generic parts, and those meant for other retro inspired motorcycles.
An example of such a soft custom is this build by the chaps at Cadiz based COOLmotorcycles, an Official Triumph dealer, who like many official dealers are prepared to offer their customers a little more individuality.
Based on a liquid cooled Bonneville T-120 Black, now named the ‘Madame Julie’, this Triumph Twin has received some simple modifications making her a little more distinctive, and with any luck, stand out from the crowd.
A key item to change on any age or model of Triumph Twin is its seat. On the ‘Madame Julie’, a custom seat base was fabricated, fashionably crafted and sculpted narrower to expose the frame rails and covered in black leather by X-Sits.
Another, is doing something with the horrid stock mudguards – here both front and rear items have been replaced with those from a Mash, which is one of those little retro Chinese motorcycles which COOLmotorcycles are dealers for. These have been modified to fit and painted black, with the rear being fitted with a retro style Shin-Yo mini tail light with numberplate bracket.
Up front, the stock bars have been replaced with those from LSL, and fitted with Max-Inc bar-end mirrors and stock switches and levers, with the levers being drilled to add some individuality without the expense. Max-Inc also supplied the headlight brackets, with the stock turn signals being ditched for the reasonably priced Arizona turn signals from Shin-Yo.From experience, no matter what you modify or fit to your Triumph Twin to achieve a desired style. Not changing the tires can really undermine all your hard work. For example; a Scrambler without knobblies is no Scrambler, and any motorcycle without those unpopular retro Firestones or Avon’s tires is no Brat. Tires can be divisive but are key to the build.
Here, the team at COOLmotorcycles have fitted a mix of rubber to get a Desert Sled vibe, fitting a Heidenau K-60 to the front and a Metzeler Karoo 3 to the rear to great effect.
Your bikes attitude is important when modifying – hearing stock pipes on a modded Bonneville is like listening to an out of tune Steinway grand piano… its just wrong! With this in mind, this T120 has been fitted with a matt black and heat wrapped two into two Emigo exhaust, which should give the desired attitude without being crass.
Finishing details on this build include; a sump guard from Triumph’s official line up of aftermarket accessories, a stock and drilled chain guard, and slick ‘Madame Julie’ graphics on each side cover.
Simple and effective modifications… perfect – whats stopping you!
COOLmotorcycles team:
-.David Henry Moreno (mechanical and electrical)
-.Fran Heredia (paint)
-.Raúl “Metalmal” Toledo (metal works)
-.Christian López (Reaction Audiovisual): photograph.
-.Javier Álvarez (design & coordination)
