In life, the best advice you will get will comes from friends. After all, if you can’t trust your friends, who can you trust?
When 2 of his mates took ownership of Tamarit Motorcycles Conrado was subjected to hearing their relentless praise of the bikes. Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him. He visited the Tamarit website to browse their portfolio and stumbled across a Triumph Thruxton 900 cafe racer named ‘Stalker’. One thing lead to another and he found himself standing in Tamarit HQ placing an order…
“At Tamarit we always say that we won’t make the same bike twice. We strive to respect the exclusivity commitment we have with our customers. However, when a customer indicates they like one of our previous builds it helps us to know which aesthetic direction they want for their bike” says Tamarit head of marketing Raquel Morales. So with the Thruxton 900 Stalker setting the tone the Tamarit designers got to work creating a unique adaptation that suited Conrado’s individual needs.
The Tamarit Stalker was the companies 50th custom build and fell into their “pure cafe racer” category. Now with an impressive 77 builds under their belt, Tamarit has learned a few new tricks and added even more Thruxton specific parts to their catalogue since it’s completion. So with new skills and resources at their disposal, the Tamarit team got to work on a new Thruxton 900 project named, Rúbrica.
“One of the main components to highlight with on this custom Thruxton 900 is the split seat.” Says Tamarit. Their goal with the seat was to replace the Thruxton’s plastic cowl and long seat with a vintage-looking saddle. The front section of the setup hovers over the seat pan like the sprung saddle seen of a Triumph Bobber. The rear pad is mounted directly to the fender, providing barely enough space for your average derriere.
Similar to the Stalker, Conrado’s Thruxton wears a pair of slash-cut Tamarit Speedster exhausts. The Ruby side covers expose a set of K&N pod filters while still leaving enough space to stash all of the bikes unsightly electrics.
Rúbrica also sits much lower than a standard Thruxton 900. To achieve this, Tamarit trimmed down the front end and mounted it using a set of custom made triple trees. The vintage-look external springs are more form than function, but they’re a damn sight better looking than rubber gaiters. To keep things nice and level, Tamarit then installed shorter Hagon shocks at the rear.
Closer inspection of the front end reveals a digital Motogadget Motoscope Mini integrated into the bespoke top clamp. Adjustable fork caps hint at improved internals and the stock bars have been replaced by more aggressive Kustom Tech clip-ons.
To tighten up the Triumph’s proportions Tamarit took to the frame with a grinder. The entire rear subframe of Rúbrica is a custom design created especially for this project. Unlike the Stalker, this bikes hoop sits flat to make things a touch more comfortable for passengers. The new hoop pulls in the rear end and incorporates an LED taillight to keep things clean. The license plate sits on a hugger style bracket behind the rear wheel.
Additional Motogadget upgrades come in the form of switches and bar-end indicators. The chopped fenders do a great job of exposing the chunky Victory rubber, making the most of their vintage looks. To make up for the lack of protection offered by the trimmed fender, Tamarit has retrofit one of their own engine bash plates.
Having complete confidence in the Tamarit team, Conrado agreed to give them control over the finishes used on the Triumph aside from the colour. For this, he stipulated a deep midnight blue which they’ve applied to the fuel tank and side cover scallops. As for the rest of the bike, Tamarit went all shiny and chrome.
“We decided to apply chrome instead of a satin finish to this Thruxton 900. We chromed the whole engine and the front end of the bike. This gave it a more distinguished and elegant finish.”
As you’d expect Conrado is just as happy with his Tamarit Triumph as his 2 buddies. So that’s 3 from 3 for Spain’s pre-eminent custom Triumph workshop. We wouldn’t have expected anything less.
