Stop dreaming of hayabusas and harley davidsons. Our correspondent explains how to modify regular bikes for better style and off-road performance
Tired of riding your Pulsar, Karizma or Royal Enfield, but don’t have the dough to graduate to a Hayabusa, or a Harley Davidson? Maybe you should take a serious look at the world of modification. Of course, your engine will remain the same, but, depending on the money you spend, the rest of your bike will be transformed into a head-turner.

There are two basic aspects to modification—the aesthetics and the engine. Here we shall confine ourselves to the aesthetics or the styling part, with the engine specifications unchanged. Aesthetics can be further categorised into two segments, styling, whereby a 100 or 150 cc bike can be beefed up to look like a super sports, and specialised modifications for specific events such as dirt-biking, motocross or rallies.

STYLING
The most important thing to be kept in mind is that the modifications should not be at the cost of performance. If the physics behind the fixing of components like tyres, handle bars, shockers are not adhered to properly, the end result will only be a massive bill.
The foremost thing to be considered is the power to weight ratio of the bike. A 1350-cc Kawasaki Ninja or a 1000-cc Yamaha R1 is designed to be a hyper/super sports bike. A lot of engineering goes behind to ensure that the frame is able to withstand the weight of the heavy engine, the aerodynamic fairing, extra wide radial tyres, among others. The bike is also engineered to withstand vibrations along with the heavy load and still attain a top speed of 300 kmph.

... contd.