Australia’s image, even deep here in the heart of the 21st century isn’t really compatible with artful postmodernism. Nor is the motorbike itself particularly associated (in the UK at least) with the tendency to fetishise the object.
Our biking tradition is fundamentally stained happily and perhaps eternally with the greasy rag. Free born Brits love bikes and dig the aesthetic of two wheeled speed – but the reflection tends to begin and end with the practicalities of saddling up and riding hard.
Contrast our died-in-the-wool mentality with the way of approaching bike culture as typified by our antipodean friends at Deus bikes in Sydney.
Part design studio, bike workshop, part café (the type that serves lattes rather than fried brekkies), Deus is a self-conscious temple of all things bikey. They will sell you a classic bike and accompanying paraphernalia, and will design and build with you your very own bespoke mutant, from Café clones like the one pictured above) to Steve McQueen-ish Desert racers and back again.
The whole idea is the brainchild of a trio of Aussie creative ruffians, one of which helped create the iconoclastic, explosively successful and delightfully subversive surf/street brand Mambo.
Whatever English biker purists might think of it, these guys have tapped beautifully into an increasingly popular creed of international classic bike enthusiast who appreciates the beauty of motorcycle culture design and engineering at a whole other level.
Placing the retail Deus experience in a beautifully designed space will generally helpfully migrate your passion for the classic side of motorcycling to the realms of high culture.
Power to their leather-patched elbows. And make mine a mocaccino.
