The Risky Business Of Innovation

For roughly forty years – each of those years we have witnessed a new model of bike launched by local assemblers into the Pakistani market, ironically, every part of the 40 year old bike can still be retrofitted on the latest model of the bike. So the phrase should be modified to ‘Introducing the 40-year-old new bike’ when advertising, because that’s just more appropriate.

Some say that original Kawasaki GTO had been banned by the government of Pakistan some gazillion years back but then couple of years back from today; someone started building those same, very same models back.

In my teacher’s last lecture on marketing, he told us about a research carried out by some experienced marketing research company of Pakistan. The experiment held in the research was about recognizing the Cola brand by simply tasting them out of an untagged glass, the research concluded that almost 80% of the people who tried out couldn’t recognize the correct brand of cola they just drank even though they blabbed a lot they could do it, but they couldn’t guessed it right.

So my point is and believe me that you will also conclude your research with similar results with a higher percentage of folks not being able to recognize out any of the untagged, sticker-less and number-less red CD70s or 125s you put infront of them. Although, while tasting a pepsi, you can tell that if its old or not but in this research, you won’t even be able to tell apart the difference between the models from 1980 and 2010, forget guessing out the actual model-year (manufacturing year).

So as my government plunges deeper to get revenge, a Pakwheeler decided that he had too much of this non-sense by the assemblers and decided to build a new bike himself which is innovative in every way.

This line, spoken by Lt. Gordon to D.A. Harvey Dent in the movie Dark Knight, ‘I have to do the best I can with what I have’, best describes Junaid’s build.

It was Junaid’s personal 1984 Honda CG125 which by the way exactly looks like the 2010 model but now, its hard to tell apart. However, despite not being a bike rider at all, I can also tell where the chassis comes from and that it is still the Honda CG125 in the books but I think that more owes to how our policemen behave with bikers, its best to avoid that hassle.

The engine is still the original CG125 engine and I just noticed that it looks the same engine as that of CD70 except the size. Engine was overhauled and Japanese Sankei Exhaust was installed.

Junaid’s aim when designing the bike was to avoid anything that could become a hurdle later when he decides to move the bike to its former shape, you know how deadly we are for anyone whose car or bike is not original. Keeping this in mind, only two additional welds were done on the bike’s frame.

The front suspension has telescopic and the rear has monoshocks. After trying out 8 monoshocks, Junaid finally stumbled across the right one which fit in perfectly. And don’t ask about which is it as Junaid don’t even knows himself because that’s the perils of buying stuff from Shershah – either you should be able to recognize anything by just looking at it or be ready to try out a dozen like Junaid. Rear-fork arm is from Kawasaki Japan by the way.

Moving forward, usually, when modifying cars or bikes, improving your braking power is our least concern. When it should be your number 1 concern but we don’t. Of all the cars and bikes I’ve seen – rarely that anyone has given any effort towards improving the braking strength when mostly sport bikes do 68 mph in first gear, they will land you in jail in second gear and they will kill you in third gear. Gears four through six are usually reserved for dead people in a hurry. However Junaid, even though he didn’t touched the aspect of improving engine performance but he did improve his brakes by adding Japanese Disc Brakes in front and bigger drums in the rear-wheels.

So now you must be wondering how it goes around, well even Hayabusa or Aprillia MV Agusta Brutale isn’t good at cornering, infact they are an apparition from heaven for straight-line racing. But as you stretch the wheel-base, stability increases as its evident by those thousand mile long drag-bikes, Junaid increased the wheel-base hence improved stability and grip. 17” rear tire were added to improve the grip further.

Seating may look like the rider is in pain but you have to remember that there’s no package of comfort for sports, you either choose sports or comfort and according to Junaid, suspension has improved the ride comfort.

Junaid, a visualizer/graphic designer by profession didn’t first receive the kind of appreciation he has now, folks laughed at him but he began the work on his bike in February 2010 and completed in December 2010, and that’s when he shared his DIY project on PakWheels. Almost everyone was astonished to see his work done and appraised but the best comment throughout the forums I’ve read in a while was by Ashfaq;” One guy does what the whole team of Honda professionals failed to do in the last 30 years, well done bhai”. Indeed well done!