Pune based Dochaki Designs created this one-of-its-kind creation as a salute to the Indian Army.
The term ‘Lokhand’ means ‘iron’ in Devnagri and the raw appeal of the bike truly encapsulates this spirit. Anupam Singh Parihar, the founder of Dochaki Designs created this functional machine as an ode to the Indian Army and their brave soldiers. The inspiration behind this bike is the army vehicles. The military armada is built for toughness. Carrying forward this thought process, Dochaki Designs came up with this chopper which has a raw, armoured and tough feel to it. Not to mention, it has a matching colour scheme.
The whole bike is made up of this single frame structure without any need for additional paneling. Everything from the seat mount to the battery box and even the tank – it’s all part of the frame, designed for scratch. The bike was also displayed at the India Bike Week 2016.
Let’s take a closer look at the rest of this bike:
Bike name: Lokhand
Style: Chopper
Theme: Indian Army
Chassis:
Traditional tube frame was given a pass. Instead, the entire chassis is made out of 8mm steel plates from scratch. Yet, the frame is not too heavy; it’s more or less equivalent to a normal tube frame. The chassis has a rack angle of 32 degree for that extra length. All the holes and mounting points for housing the engine, electricals and other stuff were meticulously planned and measured using vernier calipers before finalizing the blue print for the chassis. In order to keep the weight down they drilled holes throughout the plates this also gives it a feeling of bullet marks.
Engine:
1985 Royal Enfield Engine (iron cast) and dry clutch is used. Engine is slightly tweaked for better performance to haul all that iron.
Tank:
Tank itself is a part of the frame. If you cut out the tank, you will end up with a three sided-frame. The bike doesn’t pose any structural issues despite of the presence of a giant hole in the form of the tank column in the middle of the frame. To counter this issue, two strong metal pipes are welded side by side which were then covered with metal sheet to get the desired shape.
As far as the shape of the tank is concerned, the sides are inspired from the gun barrels of battle tanks while the top half is shaped to look like army helicopters. The petrol cap is also barrel shaped and it’s been painted maroon which is the color of the elite paratrooper forces.
Handlebar: Drag style
Grips: Stock
Speedometer:
Initially, the team was averse to using any dials and wanted to give it a clean look but since it’s a necessity, they decided to go ahead with analog dials keeping in tune with the rest of the theme.
Headlight:
It’s a 7” circular headlamp with grill for added protection similar to what you’d find on army’s armoured vehicles.
Ignition: Kickstart only – again, keeping it all raw.
Seat:
As mentioned earlier, the seat mount is a part of the chassis. They’ve simply added padding on top of it to make it mildly comfortable.
Battery box:
It’s hidden inside the frame itself with an opening which is also cut from the same frame so it merges accurately, it has two cross markings on it to highlight the usable equipment section just like boxes on army vehicles.
Suspension:
Front: Inverted springer forks. It’s a mix of normal telescopic and springer forks. Normally telescopic forks are directly connected to the axle but here the axle and the suspensions are connected through a specially designed linkage which almost forms a pivotal triangle for movement. So front fork is a springer fork but in this case the springs, which also have dampners, are mounted near the wheel instead of top like in a normal Springer fork. Hence, they’re called inverted springer forks. The combination gives it a slightly different movement and comparatively a more comfortable ride than the telescopic fork.
Rear Suspension: Mono suspension
Drive:
It has a chain drive without any jack shaft, for which they have moved the clutch assembly and its mounting shaft out in order to align them with the chain sprocket of the rear tyre. Because of this the bike has dry clutch now, instead of oil cooled wet clutch.
Tyres and wheels:
The wheel rims were sourced from a third-party supplier. For the rubber, at the front it’s a 140mm ContiGo while the rear has 200mm Maxis.
Swingarm:
It was to be custom designed in order to accommodate the 200mm tyres as well as they rear monoshock arrangement and the disc brake.
Exhaust:
The custom exhaust is front mounted and has a short pipe coming out from both the sides of the frame just in front of your toes. Don’t worry, Dochaki guys have taken care of the safety aspect as well. They divided the inner chamber into four parts and engineered it in such a way that the gases get cooled down there only. To add to it, the pipes are also wrapped to further avoid the contact with the hot metal. According to them, “When the bike is ON, you can even touch the exhaust pipes without a worry.” The exhaust chamber also acts as one of the supporting mebmer of Frame.
Indicators:
The tiny round blobs are mounted on the inverted telescopic forks at the fronts while at the back, they’re bolted on the mudguard. Since they’re “out of the body”, it was made sure that the lights are as small and as close to the body as possible to minimize the chances of damage.
Tail lights:
The LED tail light is hidden below the seat inside the frame itself.
Footpegs:
They’ve resused the stock footpegs but repositioned them on the new frame (obviously) to give the the rider a more upright stance.
Paint job:
No prizes for guessing why they used a (military) olive green paint job on this. Gold pinstripping is done at certain places to accentuate the body lines.
