Festival of Thump - Bali Style

There’s nothing like seeing thirty beautiful motorbikes to get the juices flowing, is there? That was the scene in the Deus Backyard last weekend. With an awfully long time between events here at the Deus Temple of Enthusiasm, we finally sunk our teeth into something we hold near and dear. A homespun celebration of the tradition of customizing thumpers. A little thing we like to think of as the Deus Festival of Thump. Whether they arise from the holy trinity of locally obtainable blank canvases, the ubiquitous Yamaha Scorpio, the often sought XS650’s, or the nowadays less common, Honda Tiger or from other equally known brands, they all have one thing in common, a single cylinder.

It doesn’t matter if they are big bore or small, these workhorses propel the people of Indonesia about their daily lives and the art of personalizing them in Indonesia, has long been something of an art form.

We decided to celebrate the community with an afternoon long event, and put forward Prizes for Best Restoration and Best Free-for-All. We also had one category for all those who were on ground during the day, the People’s Choice Award.

There were over fifty bikes that entered to be part of the event, but with limited real estate in the Deus Backyard we had a super tough time whittling them down to the thirty that could comfortably fit.

While we were going through the selection we did let a couple of twins slink in. We couldn’t resist and being the guys who owned the clipboards we came at it with a lot of flexibility and inclusiveness.

People and bikes began arriving from around ten. We shot all the bikes and riders (Be sure to check out the separate Blog Post) before they wheeled off to their places.

People knew what lay ahead and settled in for the duration with an ebb and flow of mingling and chitchatting. The best thing about these events in Indonesia is the camaraderie. There was plenty of different camps and clubs. Each took up different positions around the yard but over the course of the afternoon the lines are blurred, and they all got on. The joked with each other and were all genuinely happy to be a part of something a little different to what had gone on before.

To bring a layer of legitimacy to the proceedings we invited two of the best bike builders in Bali to join Arwin to preside over the judging. Arwin is our own head mechanic and bodyworker supreme, he’s had a most heavy hand in every bike pushed through our Bengkel (Garage) over the past eight years. Kedux, the owner of Kedux Garage is something of a Rockstar to the greater custom community here in Indonesia. He’s also a hell of an artist and designer. The other judge was Ajus, owner of AMS Garage. His guys push out some of, if not the best aluminum work, of all the garages in all of the Indonesian archipelago. I know, massive praise but not without a huge amount of respect for what they do. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming along and helping out.

The three of them also held a masterclass where they talked through technic, trends and staying true to your own wants and desires when building bikes. Amazing peek behind the curtains on what they all do to stay on course.

We had the incredible Dennisha Sinay & Geri Centuri on the mic’s all day. Their banter informed, amused, educated and probably once or twice, frustrated one or two who made up the mass of people who filled the backyard. They kept the focus on things when attention spans waned.

The judges had their work cut out for them to whittle the two categories down to just three. Best Restoration or Classic
1^st Yosef Gumilar - Yamaha XS650.
2^nd  Ketut Kartika - Harley Davidson Knucklehead.
3^rd Gede Arya Pramadika - BSA B44

Best Custom
1^st. Dewa Putu Putra Pratama -  Honda NF100 - Chopper
2^nd Dika Kambing - Kawasaki KZ200 - Chopper
3^rd I Made Pranawijaya - Kawasaki KZ200 - Skinny Chopper

The crowd played their part choosing the best on field, with the People’s Choice Award. A single bike that above all else displayed all the qualities we were looking for. It was no surprise to anyone when Dika Kambing took it out with his KZ200 Chopper.

I’d be errant to not slide in here at this point and say it was an incredibly late call we made to hold the event, less than a month out, and as everyone knows, these things can suck up a huge amount of time in planning and execution, so kudos to all the Deus Staff who gave it their all, the behind the scenes who spruced the place up a bunch, to the incredible brush people who came onsite to do some trick pin striping and a rad artist who goes by the handle, ‘Kidney’ to redo the long overdue graffiti that lives on the wall behind our skate ramp. Keep an eye out, he’ll be back for a show in the Deus Gallery in 23!

The Deus Café folks rose to the occasion and put on a bunch of fill ya’ tummy food specials, offered all and sundry some super delicious thirst quenchers and doused the place with DJ’s and three bands that transformed our show and shine into an amazing party.

Full disclosure, the event also gave us a chance to invite some of our distributers and resellers over for a bit of a thank you, meet, greet and eat. Made perfect sense to give them, and all the other punters who dropped in to see what the commotion was all about, a sneak peek at our new summer range which was ready to hit the racks, the new Deus x Eastpak Collection & the new Deus x Barstow 100% Goggles.