If you’re after a job in the motorcycle industry, Deus Bali has got to be one of the best places in the world to work. The ‘Temple of Enthusiasm’ is headquartered in Canggu, a resort village on the south coast of the island, and within riding distance of excellent surf beaches.
The Deus guys in Indonesia have been churning up the beach sand for a few years now, so they know what makes a good beach bike. Heavier motorcycles will bog down too quickly, and while it’s hilarious watching your mates somersault over the bars, someone is eventually going to get hurt.
So the Canggu crew wanted to build a lightweight bike to skim across the heavy sands at low tide. A bike that makes it easy for you to put your left foot down, crack open the throttle and slide round. Something with a bit of a flat track vibe. So they built this heavily modified Kawasaki KLX 150.
“Indonesia doesn’t have a flat track fraternity at all,” says Deus’ special projects manager Anthony ‘Ano’ McInerheney. “There is no knowledge base out there. There’s also a 250cc ceiling on bike size. Above that ceiling, the price goes from already expensive to absolutely insane.”
With that all in mind, the Deus crew went out and bought a Kawasaki KLX 150 straight off the showroom floor.
“Our mates thought us a little crazy,” says Anthony. “But what they might have forgotten is that the KLX 150 is strong and nimble, with a smooth power band. It puts out enough HP to keep it pinned the whole time. A KLX 150 might not be what you’d ride at home, but in Indonesia it’s readily available. And that was halfway to making this bike exactly what the doctor ordered.”
Photoshop is your friend when designing a bike, Anthony reckons. “Take a pic of it stripped-down. Scale it and drop in the wheels you want, the tires you can get, and put the handlebars on. Start playing with shapes for the tank and the tail.”
“Before long, you can come up with the goods to feed to the guys in the garage.” Or as it’s called in Indonesia, the Bengkel.
It’s in the Deus Bengkel that Arwin, Koko and the other lads work their magic. “They were excited to get their hands dirty on a project both new and different. The side stand was barely down before the bike was stripped,” says Ano.
Card templates were passed back and forward, but as soon as the silhouette was sorted, the Bengkel Boys grabbed their tools. “They’re basic at best—a hammer and a massive block of ironwood, no English wheel here!”
Surplus parts were cast aside, and the existing subframe was chopped off and redesigned. In fact, the whole geometry was tweaked to make the KLX 150 happy to slide.
“We threw away the 21 and 17 inch wheels, replacing them with a pair of 18 x 2.5 rims,” says Anthony. “Then we cut and repositioned the gooseneck to level the whole bike out.”
The tires, surprisingly enough, are road-biased rather than knobbies. “They don’t rut the beach up, but they slide beautifully on hard-packed sand.”
The high and wide bars are a tracker style item from the Japanese Hurricane brand, and fitted with Scott grips. “This combo turned out to be great for grabbing on to while jamming the front tire to the right!”
The bodywork is all custom, and finished to Deus’ usual exemplary standards. The hand-built tank, side plates, headlight surround, and the seat and tail section were all hammered out of steel sheet.
Then the KLX 150 was reassembled, adjusted, and bashed and tapped still more until the Bengkel was satisfied. Then the Kawasaki was broken down again, this time to send the new metalwork to the paint shop to be prettied up.
“Our beach tracking KLX isn’t your common garden variety flat track bike,” Anthony admits. “But this bike flies and slides.”
“It’s more fun than a month of Sundays when ripping along the water’s edge.”
Deus Bali | Facebook | Instagram | Images by Harry Mark
