A Different Bike Shop

Here's a novel thought: sell bikes to people who have money!

The original Greek is theos ek mēkhanēs, but we know the saying better from the modern Latin: deus ex machina, a god from a machine. My Wordsworth Dictionary of Foreign Words in English explains it very well.

“The machina was a piece of stage machinery used in ancient Greek and Roman drama for suspending actors in the role of ‘gods’ above the stage.

It was often the function of these gods to intervene in the action of a play to resolve a difficulty, and so the term deus ex machina came to be used figuratively for any unexpected or artificial event, person etc that suddenly comes on the scene to untangle a knotty situation or bring reconciliation all round.”

It would be difficult to think of a more appropriate name for the motorcycle dealership in the inner western Sydney suburb of Camperdown. Here, they intervene in precisely that divine way to solve the problem of, well, my motorcycle looking exactly like your motorcycle. And also the problem of my motorcycle not looking like the motorcycle I’ve always dreamed of, namely a Norvin or a Bonneville. But one that actually worked, and didn’t leak oil and didn’t require the kind of expertise that I never acquired (because I was busy learning to be a dentist or an investment banker) just to keep it running. And lots more problems just like those.

All of them are solved by the application of money. At Deus Ex Machina, you roll out your, say, Hinckley Triumph for, say, $19,000 instead of the $13,000 you might pay down the road but it’s not just a bike. It’s a problem solved and if that isn’t worth six gorillas I don’t know what is.

Now I suspect I sound as if I’m sneering here but nothing could be further from the truth. Well, almost nothing. I mean, it would be significantly further from the truth to say that Britney Spears is a candidate for Mensa, but let’s not go there. But I am far from being a laudator temporis acti [damn, but this Wordsworth is good]; I’m just trying to put a rather unusual bike shop into some kind of perspective. Rather unusual? As far as I know, this is the only shop like it in Australia and I’ve not ever seen another like it overseas, either.

Loitering outside the cafe entrance

Simply, Deus personalises — mostly with bits from the booming pseudo-classic bike industry in Japan. It sells a small selection of Japanese grey imports (as well as carefully chosen Australian-sourced used bikes), but it doesn’t sell them standard. The bikes are heavily modified, in a variety of ways variously witty and strange. Yamaha 400 singles feature shorty mufflers and skinny racing seats while TW 200s have their swingarms extended to beach-racing length; Triumph Thruxtons sport polished alloy fuel tanks. Kawasaki W650s respond very well to this kind of treatment, too. To my eye the least successful of the “standard” conversions is the Suzuki DR 650, and that’s only because there isn’t enough potential to make changes.

If you’re wondering just what kids of changes are possible, beyond the one featured in the photos, or whether your bike could serve as the basis for one of these creations then either wander down to Deus or just take a look on the internet at the many crazed creations the Japanese come up with. There seems to be almost no limit to their ideas, and through this shop you have access to many of them.

A different bike shop

These bikes might look weird, but they also look great. This is a place where dreams come true, and if that costs a few bucks then let it — there are plenty of other bike shops where you can go and haggle over fifty bucks off the price of your new machine; at Deus you haggle over whether they can have your — uniquely your — bike ready by the end of the month so you can show it off at your law firm’s annual picnic and make the other partners go green.

Incidentally, I don’t want this to sound as if Deus is a big-bucks-only sort of place. Some of the Japanese imports, especially the TW 200s, are very affordable and pretty much guaranteed to be different from anything your mates might have — even lightly and reasonably cheaply customised.

While we’re on the subject of TWs … one very popular accessory in Japan is a lengthened swingarm. Now I know these can be useful on high-powered dragster bikes, but on TW 200s? This is not what I would call an improvement, and one owner I know backs me up with a regretful smile when I ask about cornering. But even I have to admit that the long swingarm does look cool.

What else? Yeah, okay, I know that I probably can’t afford the bike I’d really like this place to build for me. But that’s all right, there are people who can… and why shouldn’t they have a place to go? And if I can’t afford a bike I can certainly afford a tee shirt — one partner, Dare Jennings, was also a founder of beach fashion house Mambo, and the designs are terrific. There’s lots of other interesting clothing as well, and a good little book section (personal interest here — they sell my books).

So, if you’re not doing much on a Saturday morning (or any time) in Sydney, drop around to 98-104 Parramatta Rd Camperdown, opposite Sydney University; the phone number is 02 9557 6866, and the website is www.deusexmachina.com.au.

Many bike (and especially scooter) shops now have small cafés attached to them, and occasionally the coffee is quite good (because the boss used to be a barista…). Even here, Deus is different because the café is large, well equipped with everything up to a large screen playing bike videos and professionally run. The cakes and light meals are good (excellent fruit salad) and well priced, and the coffee is great. It can get crowded!

And now, the only thing left is for the deus ex machina is to bring “reconciliation all round” with the wife of our new motorcycle owner as the credit card bill arrives.

“You spent how much on a bloody motorcycle!?” she screeches downstage. “Just in case you’ve forgotten, the mortgage on the holiday house in Queenstown is due, and the lease payment on my Audi…” and then the godly stage machinery swings silently into action behind her to … what?

Ah, it’s just as well that the ways of the gods are mysterious…