Hot wheels: customised motorcycles take off in Asia
A small band of designers andhands-on enthusiasts are bringing the culture of motorbike customisation to new parts of Asia, writesMark Sharp
Tucked away on the eighth floor of a Chai Wan industrial building, Angry Lane looks like a subculture boutique teleported from Causeway Bay. The sleek space is decked out with racks of casual shirts, shelves of colourful helmets, and cabinets displaying leather goods, watches and jewellery. But it's the motorbikes that take centre stage. These belong to brothers Guillaume and Benoit "Ben" Barras who, along with fellow enthusiast James Dixon, founded the motorbike customisation business.
More than that, Angry Lane, which officially opens next month, reflects the owners' lifestyle and love of clothes and accessories that can't be found in Hong Kong's cookie-cutter shopping malls.
The trio are also among a small number of enthusiasts helping to kick-start the culture of motorbike customisation in parts of the region where it is far less established than in Japan, Asia's spiritual home of the motorbike. The annual one-day Hot Rod Custom Show in Yokohama attracts thousands of visitors, and Ben hopes to show his bike there next year.
"We are in the fashion and graphic industries, and have always wanted to set up a workshop or lifestyle brand around custom motorcycles," Ben says. "We'd been talking with James about this idea and he shares the same passion, so we started to make a plan that gave birth to Angry Lane."
The brothers have been tinkering with bike design since their teens and have since 2009 been distributors for Easyriders of Japan, one of the region's pre-eminent producer of custom motorcycle parts.
"Today, people want to be different. You can easily get custom shoes, custom handbags, custom suits," says Ben. "At Angry Lane, you can get a custom bike, a custom helmet that matches the colours of the bike, and even your own high-quality Swiss watch."