Joe's Garage 

Mumbai to Bangalore via Pune-Goa-Mangalore. That’s something like around 1750kms including in and around cities. Add in roads which didn’t exist, hills, highways and a lot more. On the GIR Fireblade. So that meant that the bike needed to be given into good hands, someone we could trust blindly to bring her back to 100% performance plus prepare the bike to take the best and worst of Karnatake, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. We had never met Joe, but only heard about him, and that too a lot. From his bikes sweeping the Speed Run drags to pumped up 2-strokes being made by him. Therefore, that was the obvious choice for us when it came to getting our Blade checked up. We initially wanted to give the bike in the morning but some work and getting up late meant that it got delayed a lot but Joe was very understanding and made sure he was free for the Blade.. Sunny being held up with work meant I was lucky enough to ride the Blade thru Bangalore’s traffic to Joe’s Garage on Thimmiah Road in G.C colony. The workshop wasn’t any fancy big place with likes of the Aprilias parked, or with jazzy posters and spare parts. Instead it was a small yet properly arranged place with exotic posters, some superbikes and a line up of trophies inside Joe’s office! Trophies speak more than anything about a person’s capabilities, don’t they? When I met Joe for the first time, he seemed like a very soft spoken person. No attitude, no acting pricey and just a humble sweet guy, who is half the times smiling and knows what he is doing. Before he could ask, I shot off with tens of things we wanted to be done on the bike and he patiently listened to me and then took his own time examining the bike. I somehow have full faith in him and started killing time looking around and reading motorcycle magazines. Also had a good time talking to other superbikers and came to know more about the place and Joe in particular. He is responsible for looking after most of the superbikes in Bangalore and also looks after many in Hyderabad too. Apart from servicing and spares, he also deals in superbike sale and purchases and is soon going to get an exotic Italian bike, the name of which I cant let out for obvious reasons! People like Joe mark their presence not with words, but with their work. He himself rides a GSXR K1 and drives a LHD BMW and was a part of the Bharat Parikrama. The Blade needed more than a service – a rear tyre change, new air filters, oil filter and ofcourse engine oil. Joe also cleaned the injectors using the injector sprays, which really showed their magic when I rode it on the way back to the Hotel. The bike was picking up really well at lower RPMs and there was no hesitation present, which was earlier evident around the 2-3000 rpm mark. Ofcourse there are other Superbike workshops present in Bangalore but the level of satisfaction we got from Joe’s garage was more than enough and to top it up, he gave us a good discount too, on the service and spares. In Bangalore, if there is one place where a superbike will be treated as a superbike, you know where to head to.

Some nifty things available in Joe's garage
 

Joe was the support for vehicles in Bharat Parikrama in 2005 

Bunny with Joe 

Disclaimer : My views in this post are mine only and may not conform with other individual experiences, so please excuse any reform brickbats but comments are definetely welcome. 

Joe's Automobile Engineers
307, Thimmiah Road, GC Colony, Bangalore - 560051
Ph : 080-25903812, 09243115500