Farkles. What exactly are they? If you are into bikes at all, you would know what farkles are. The urban dictionary states that it is the combination of two words: function and sparkle…hence…farkle. In reality, farkles are the things that make any bike owner bleed money through the nose…function or otherwise. There is, of course, another perspective to this. Farkles allow the bike owner to make a statement. A means to make a bike that is common…unique!
I recently got myself a new bike…except it is an old bike that had so many previous owners I lost count. Still, what matters to me was that it was a bike that I had never had before. Unfortunately, it is a bike that was so common that you would probably hit one if you hurled a stone, blind-folded, in a bike parking lot! So how did I go about making it my own? You guessed it…FARKLES!!!
I started off in all earnestness. Looking at items that had a real function. Like crash bars for safety, a windshield for comfort, better seat to protect my rear end, LED spots for visibility and so on. I already had boxes from my previous bike so I had those installed. My bike looked pretty good actually. I would even say it looked unique!
I mean, look at it! How many Super-fours out there has that large curvy windshield, or those shiny crash bars, or those spots, or those blinkers? I had, successfully (to my eyes anyway), made my bike unique. Every function that I need – comfort, safety, storage – was mostly taken care of. My journey with farkles is complete!
But not for long!
You see…farkles are an addiction! And there is no end to them! I could think of a hundred different things that I would need…OK…maybe not really need…but still…a GPS, better suspension, brighter head lights, LED panels…you get the idea!
So I recently started looking at my boxes again…and I realized that they looked alright from the side…and even from the front. However, they did not look all that nice from the rear. After all, my top box (the trunk) was a 45 litre GIVI box while my side boxes (the panniers) were a set of 21 litre KAPPA boxes. So they looked a little…out of proportioned…and I did not like that very much.
Can you see how that top box simple dwarfed the side boxes? Furthermore, I had trouble fitting my jacket and pants into the side boxes and that meant greater inconvenience while riding out in Singapore…and what about my upcoming ride around West Malaysia? I would not have enough space to store all the stuff that I need to bring!
Now I had reasons to procure a new set of boxes! To top it off, the boxes I had installed were also your run-in-the-mill common boxes that EVERYONE had! That did not go well with me…since I like to be unique. Hahaha!!!
I looked at all sorts of boxes. The classic GIVI E45, the new and stylish GIVI V35, the Hepco & Becker Junior, as well as some aluminium panniers. I had a list of criteria, of course, since it was to be quite a costly upgrade. The list was something like this…
- looks good on the bike
- looks good on my (yet to be purchased) new bike
- spacious
- rugged and durable
- unique
Honestly, though, that list could be distilled to just 2 items: looks good on the bike, and looks good on my new bike. I was not really worried too much about the rest!
I pretty much settled on the boxes that I wanted. They would be aluminium for durability. They would be at least 40 litres for added storage space. They would be beveled at the bottom so they do not get scratched in over-enthusiastic leaning as I carve corners. They were perfect! My choice was the SW Motech Trax boxes.
They sure looked good on this bike! And I bet they would look good on mine! The catch…these boxes would set me back S$2000…and that did not include the customizing that I would need to do so they would fit on my current bike. Still…it was all worth it…wasn’t it?
To cut a long story short (I seem to be saying this a lot recently), I decided not to get them. I saw the light, so to speak, on what farkles are…an addiction! If I were to get them…there would be no end to other farkles…and it would be arguable (at best) on any real benefits of getting them…beyond the fact (to me at least) that they looked so much better than my current boxes.
Sigh.
Don’t get me wrong. That wasn’t a sigh of sadness or regret. It was a sigh of relief. Relief that I no longer needed to carry the burden of researching for the right boxes, nor the worry of spending money that would not bring me a proportionate amount of added utility. I feel a huge weight lifted off my shoulders! I feel much happier too!!! Yeah!!!
So now…on to more important things…that GPS I was talking about…
