ADB Enduro Editor, Geoff Braico, takes us on a tour of his recently finished dirtbike garage.
With the world seemingly turned upside down with the current health crisis, you might find yourself spending a bit of extra time around the house. Extra time you now have to dust off the power tools and start building things and decking out your dirtbike garage or man cave with cool stuff. Put up some shelves for your helmet and boots, build a new workbench, throw on a fresh coat of paint and maybe you can finally go through all those spare parts boxes that you have and throw out all those parts you have off your old bike from 10 years ago. It amazed me how much I accumulated from decades of riding dirtbike.
If your dirtbike garage looks like a sad wreck (like mine did) use this time to build an epic man cave! If you don’t have a house, draw one up and get yourself a plan so when the day finally comes that you do buy your own property, you’re ready to go! After all, your bikes are more fun to ride if they are kept in an epic garage.
Building your own epic dirtbike garage isn’t cheap, so here’s a list of essential items you can start ticking off that belong in there:
Workbench with stainless top The bench is the place where you spend most of your time in the cave and cops plenty of abuse. Prefab or flat pack cabinets are great value for the base of the bench and they also hide everything and keep the place looking tidy. You want a solid benchtop that can handle all the abuse, timber planks are ideal. A sheet of stainless steel isn’t overly cheap, between $300 and $400 for a 2400×1500 sheet, but once you get it folded up to sit over a solid timber benchtop, it creates a seamless benchtop that is also easy to clean.
A BIG TOOLBOX AND LOTS OF TOOLS
Sitting on top of your bench needs to be a toolbox capable of holding every tool that you need to work on your bike. Companies like SP and Kincrome do awesome boxes full of a variety of tools and, depending on your budget, you can get boxes that already come loaded with every tool imaginable. Sockets, screwdrivers, spanners, T-bars, pliers etc are everyday items when it comes to working on bikes.
SHELVING
You need to try and keep your dirtbike garage organised. It is not easy, that’s for sure, but with the help of a solid shelving system you can make it work. You want the shelves to be capable of holding plenty of weight and be at least two metres high with 600mm-wide shelves. You then load those shelves up with some heavy-duty storage containers and label what is in them. Most shelves and containers are available at places like Bunnings or, if you go online, there are plenty of places that have racking systems. And, in order to make the shelving look the best, make sure you buy a bunch of matching containers with lids to keep your shelves looking tidy.
EPOXY FLOOR
One thing that is a guarantee in a man cave with motorbikes is oil, grease, fuel and a whole host of nastiness dropping on the floor. All of these things, if dropped onto a plain concrete floor, will soak in and leave a terrible stain on your floor. An epoxy coating on the floor stops all this and creates a barrier which allows anything that is dropped to be cleaned up with ease. Megapoxy MC is a high-quality, easy-to-apply epoxy that looks awesome as well. Just remember to do the right preparation, otherwise the epoxy won’t stick.
MEZZANINE FLOOR
Look, I know every garage is different and there is a good chance that you don’t have the ceiling height for an extra level but if there is a chance you can fit a mezzanine level within your roof space, do it! It will happily take those item that you use every now and then but that just get in the way if they are left on the floor. A mezzanine will keep them off the ground and keep them in good shape.
MOUNTAIN BIKE HANGERS
Pretty much everyone I know who rides moto also enjoys a good pedal. Mountain bikes are a great way to keep fit and explore but they also are pretty good at getting in the way because they aren’t exactly the easiest shape to store. So, visit your local shop or jump online and grab yourself some MTB hangers. They’re not overly expensive if you go for the simple ones, but they keep your MTBs out of harms way.
THE ESSENTIALS DRAW
If you’re like me, there are a few key items that you always seem to use while you’re in the garage. These items include pens, pencils, Textas, tape measure, duct tape, Stanley knife, cable ties etc. You know, the kind of essential items you need to do the random stuff that we do during an evening in the garage. Well, get into the habit of putting them in one drawer each time you finish using them. Perhaps you can mark the drawer with a particular sticker. It makes it so much easier to function at a high level.
TV
Every cave needs entertainment. Get yourself a Smart TV capable of getting YouTube and get amongst the old-skool moto vids. I personally love watching the old AMA motocross and supercross races because it just seems that the guys were more on the edge back then and were putting everything on the line. Anything with RC in it is always gold because he was so damn good at everything. You can watch the old MXdN races too pretty much back from the early ’90s to today.
SECURITY SYSTEM It’s no secret that these days, bike theft is on the rise. It’s horrible to wake up and see a bike stolen on social media. I don’t know where the people get their motivation to just take someone’s pride and joy away from them and I’ll never understand it but it’s just something that happens. Give yourself the best chance of being able to get your stuff back with some good quality cameras so you can get a clear shot or video of who did it. With the power of social media, there is more chance of finding the bikes or gear and getting it back. It doesn’t happen every time, unfortunately, but there has been lots of stories of people getting stuff back thanks to security camera footage.
Last June
I can’t remember when I first thought that I needed my own dirtbike garage, but I am pretty sure that it stemmed from many years tripping over my dad’s crap in his garage while working on my bikes getting them ready for the races.
It wasn’t easy prepping a race bike and a practice bike each night amidst piles of work gear while listening to his terrible music.
It drove me nuts and I remember saying to him that, when I moved out, I was going to do my garage my way and make it epic.
Late in 2015, I bought my house and it had a shitty little single-car garage that I knew wasn’t going to be around for long. It leaked, had no storage and didn’t even come close to being a man cave. For three years, I put up with that shack and last June, the excavator rolled down our road and tore the old one down to make way for the man cave. I have to say that seeing my new garage come to life was something that I never thought would happen. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
I decided that I was going to build the garage myself. For the next 9 months, I slaved away swinging off string lines, laser levels, tape measures, nail guns and drank way, way too much CC and Dry. My brain rarely switched off from shed mode always thinking about how to do this and how I’m going to make it epic. You have little wins during the build that are enough to keep you motivated to do the extra hours. The day the slab was poured, the day the frames went up, the roof going on, these are all wins that happen and they feel so good. My wife, Ash, just looked at me like I was nuts when I would just sit in that empty space and do nothing before bed.
With the structure up, I lined the walls where the bikes and workbench were with plywood so I could screw shelves or brackets into wherever I wanted rather then just into the studs. The rest was gyprocked and we painted the walls a light grey colour, which with the 20+ downlights is now nice and bright. I put in a mezzanine level as well which is awesome cause you can never have enough storage. The epoxy coating on the floor sealed the deal literally for me. It not only is super easy to keep clean but it looks like a factory race team workshop in there. The final touches to the cave included a big electric opening garage door, a stainless-steel bench, lots of shelving, a Smart TV and, of course, a security camera system.
It’s been a massive project and I’ve learnt so much. There were so many people that helped out during the build and once all the small leftover jobs are done, and the coronavirus goes away, there is going to be a man cave party. We will throw on some old school moto videos, talk plenty of shit, drink lots and catch up on where everyone has been during this crazy time. Stay safe everyone and build your cave!
STILL TO COME
• Red Bull fridge or some other glass-door fridge
• Couch
• Framed jerseys
• Bar and bar stools
• Gaming console connected to TV
• Surround sound system to blast tunes
• Air con would be nice
• Intercom to the wife for home-cooked meals
WORDS // GEOFF BRAICO PHOTOS // MITCH LEES