Versoflor flooring
From £253.20
www.versoflor.com
THE CLAIM
“Versoflor is practical, personal and so easy. Simply clip the tiles together, no tools or adhesives are necessary. Create a truly unique anti-slip floor with individual push-in mosaics. Make your floor even more individual, with underfloor LED mood lighting.”
THE REALITY
Garage flooring is not a new concept to keep you or your bike off a cold base but this one from Versoflor has been designed to make creating a floor easy, scalable and individual. It doesn’t matter if it’s for an entire garage or, as here, a bike-sized pad for the workshop; any size can be catered for.
The idea is based on inter-connecting plastic tiles, with a half-matt, half-gloss finish to avoid looking like a massive hole in the ground when laid. The tiles click together easily with no tools, as do the side ramps and the corners, so no banging edges together with a mallet on your knees. The company — run by a family of bike nuts — has created the system to be as “intuitive as Lego”’ and reckons a three-by-nine mat is ideal for use in a garage at a trackday while a four-by-nine, as shown here, is a good start point for home garages.
The tiles are perforated, so any spills go through to the ground for clean-up and you won’t contaminate tyres, sidestands or your clothing. These holes — 5mm across so the majority of bike fasteners shouldn’t go through, so you won’t have to pull them up to get to them — also allow coloured mosaics to be inserted to create any logo you like. We chose a RIDE logo — of course — but you could go for your bike’s manufacturer. The company is currently offering a free design service when you place an order.
In addition, you can add LED lighting strips, designed so each LED unit shines through one of the holes in the tiles and there are more innovations coming in the future. Each tile is capable of supporting some 12 tonnes so the mat will easily take the bike, its side or centrestand, one or two paddock stands and each is guaranteed for three years though break one and the company will replace it.
A 3x9 mat, with connectors, edge ramps and corners starts at £232.20 while a 4x9 is £312.90. Mosaic tiles are £18 for a pack of 100 and this mat used ten packs for a one-tile deep RIDE logo on each side, making £499.20 in total.
This is, of course, considerably more expensive than other types of flooring or off-the-shelf carpet-style mats. However, it is superb quality and creates a stable, safe and pleasant environment for any workshop or garage that can be personalised to match your bike.