Marlin's Motorcycle Clocks & Thermometers

by Bill C. for webBikeWorld

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It's not easy to call our new Ducati GT1000 a hack bike because it simply looks too cool to serve as the webBikeWorld runner.

Nevertheless, that's what it is.  Who knows how long it will stay in the garage?  Rick's already got his eye on a Multistrada 1100S...

No matter which motorcycle is used during our product evaluations, a thermometer is always a required accessory.  It's important for us to know the temperature when evaluating helmets, clothing or gloves.

Other motorcyclists must have the same need, otherwise why would there be so many motorcycle thermometers for sale? 

They come in handy, second only to a clock, which always seems to me to be incongruous on a motorcycle, except that it's virtually required to keep the hyper-charged personal schedules of the 21st Century.

Besides, adding a motorcycle thermometer or clock helps to sharpen up the looks of just about any bike.  Our Formotion stick-on thermometer looked like it came right from the Triumph factory after we installed it on the Tiger.

But a black stick-on thermometer just wouldn't cut it on the shiny chrome of the new Ducati, so it became my quest to search around for something more appropriate.

I'm not sure how I found the Marlin Corporation, but I'm glad I did.  They have a huge selection of motorcycle thermometers and clocks with adapters for just about any motorcycle. 

Marlin's products are focused mostly on the Harley and cruiser market, but some judicious sifting among the specifications will turn over a few applications for other types of bikes.

The monster-sized thermometer shown here is also available as a clock and this baby definitely has Harley written all over it (figuratively speaking, that is!), but I thought it would look perfect on the Duke. 

You're looking at the Marlin Corporation Bullet Billet, 208 grams (7-3/8 oz.) of solid chrome-plated showboat. 

I couldn't believe how much this thing weighed when I took it out of the box!  Marlin says it's "Engineered and assembled in the U.S.A. and manufactured in China", if you can figure that one out.  But it has that heft and the solid, thick chrome look that Harley owners demand.

The thing even comes in its own black jewel bag with a string tie!  It's quite a piece of, well, I guess you can call it jewelry?  Or eye candy?  The thermometer face is a beauty and the dial has some type of glow-in-the-dark coating.  And it's also easy to see and read the numbers, which is important for a thermometer!

The thermometer must be removed from the top section of the billet "Bullet" to install the Bullet on the handlebars.  Marlin recommends a thin knife, which works well as long as care is taken so that the chrome doesn't get nicked.  The thermometer body is pried away from the body and eventually enough of the edge is freed up and a fingernail can pull up the rest.

The thermometer or clock has a silicon ring around it that keeps it in the body of the Bullet via friction, much like the Bike Watch Motorcycle Clock we reviewed some time ago (hey, a pun!).  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that the Formotion, Bike Watch and the Marlin clocks and thermometers are all made in the same factory.

Marlin supplies a hex (Allen) wrench to remove the two fine-threaded hex head cap screws.  This separates the Bullet in two pieces.  Marlin claims that the Bullet can fit on handlebars from 7/8" to 1-1/4" in diameter.  The smaller diameter bars require the use of the silicon spacer that can be seen in the photo.  It worked fine and did not need to be trimmed. 

Installing the Bullet Billet is about as easy as it can be.  The only problem I had, which I anticipated before we ordered it, is that the Bullet is slightly too long for the low GT1000 bars.  So we had to tilt it back slightly to fit between the handlebars and the triple clamp, which works fine.

The Bullet Billet is relatively expensive at $69.95 but this thing is a real conversation piece and it somehow looks perfect on the Duke's dash.  Oh, and by the way -- it does a good job at telling us the temperature too!