White Collar Bhaskara Thruxton

Angelina Jolie playing Lara Croft never looked quite real. You could stare at the screen, admiring her celestial, silver-clad proportions, mind wandering off into a daydream, asking; can what’s in front of me actually be real, or have the CGI wizards waved their wands around furiously and tricked my wide, misty eyes?
When Ram from White Collar Bike sent these images in, at first I thought Dutch had found a new 3D render filter in Photoshop, those of you who have seen this bike bouncing around the internet will know that this is most definitely not the case. This is mouthwatering, A-grade engineering. Ram designs and builds bikes for friends in his spare time, and is humble in suggesting that he is not a pro-builder, White Collar Bike isn’t even a company. Frankly, if this isn’t a pro-build then I am at a loss as to what is.

Rather than start with a donor bike and modify, Ram bought a 2012 Triumph Thruxton engine from eBay and set to work designing a bike around it. He gets bored easily so wanted to have interchangeable and removable parts so the seat and fuel tank cover simply clip on and off, black, blue and red Kevlar covers are the current range. And to match, or not, there are three different seat configurations, each mocked up in clay before being carved from solid wood. Boredom must have set in as one seat features a machined triumph logo.

To save repeating myself, all components have been designed, modelled and machined in-house by White Collar Bike. Ram, please send us pictures of your machine shop.
The forks are not WCB, merely a common-as-muck pair of Öhlins FG series, with the garish gold anodising removed. The rear shock is Öhlins too, mounted to a combination of billet and 8mm tubular aluminium swingarm and eccentric Ducati 1098 hub. I’m salivating over my keyboard here!

The triple tree is, you’ve guessed it, hewn from a sizeable billet with handmade clip-ons and brake fluid reservoirs; after market Brembo RCS 19 levers have been used though. Come on now Ram, don’t get lazy on us.

The headlight, machined from solid, the foot pegs, machined from solid, countershaft sprocket guard, machined from ….. you get the idea.

Horray for us mortals, some parts that Ram didn’t produce, Ducati Diavel wheels with Pirelli Diablo Rosso II tyres, how very hum drum.

Red Kevlar tank panels, one of the 28 seat and colour combinations. I think I like black with the Café-GP seat combo the best.

Exhausts, handmade of course, improving engine breathing and matching the wide throat velocity stacks. Brembo Monoblocks up front and matched calliper in the rear.

Well, I was going to head to the workshop and make some parts for my own bike but after seeing these pictures I’m not sure I can be bothered. Ram’s part-time, non-pro efforts have rendered me feeling my skills are woefully inadequate. Thanks Ram!
That said, I can’t wait to see his next masterpiece. This one has been sold, mid-build, to Ram’s friend Bhaskara; it would be great to see some shots of this futuristic beast out on the road, just to dispel any slight notion that this has all been a computer generated daydream.
via The Bike Shed