Saturday, February 8, 2020

Flat tanker leather knee grips

These leather knee pads were once a fairly popular accessory on more sporting flat tank machines of the twenties (or at least the machines of owners who had sporting pretensions).Whilst I would never claim that my '27 Triumph N is a performance machine it does have quite racey handlebars and the knee pads certainly add to the look.

I picked the pads up from a chap at the Stafford Show who was making reproduction vintage leather items. Lacing the pads on took a little bit more head scratching than I anticipated - in order for the leather to sit nicely over the top of the tank each eyelet must have the leather string laced over it in order to pull it flush with the tank. The pads do need to age a little bit to blend in but overall I am very happy with the result. An unexpected bonus is that the pads act as stops to the handlebars: there are no stops fitted to the forks and the low pattern type bars can make contact with the petrol tank at the extremes of lock. Now the bars are neatly brought to a stop by a cushion of soft leather.



8 comments:

  1. Never seen these before. Very nice touch.

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  2. Very cool! Never seen them before, but they really do fit the bike like a glove.

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    1. Thanks. Yeh, I'm pretty pleased with the way they look.

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  3. You don’t happen to have the guys contact details do you, as I would like to purchase some of them.

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    1. Hi there. The chap's name is Mark Baker, he trades as Mark's Spares. The contact is 01562 710366, Lawnranger210@btinternet.com
      He goes to quite a few of the larger autojumbles.
      Cheers, Richard

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