Old Empire Motorcycles Honda CB250 Brat Bike, "Vulcan"

OEM Vulcan

The design-and-build crew at Old Empire Motorcycles took a Seventies-era ugly duckling Honda CB250, transformed it into a badass brat-style mashup of bobber and cafe racer and called it "Vulcan."

If you'd asked me back in the Seventies if I ever thought a Honda CB250 could be cool, I would've wondered what planet you were from. Well, after looking at this one I can only say that attitude was just due to my own failure of imagination... this little bike is way cool. And come to think of it, a certain member of my family has a Nighthawk 250, just a later model of the old CB250..... hmmmmm, I see some possibilities...

See more pics of Vulcan at The Bike Shed and at OEM's Vulcan page.

Tip of the Hat to BIKEEXIF blog, where we found this baby.

UPDATE: Just saw this awesome CB250 custom at Silodrome.... the "Much Much Go." Wow. Will post more about it later.

Steampunk Vespa Scooter by Cris Cofitis

Pulsar Project Vespa Steampunk Scooter

This steampunk'ed Vespa scooter is the creation of Greek designer, Cris Cofitis, of Pulsar Project. The Damn Geeky blog has an extensive photo gallery of the scooter.

Take a look here at Pulsar Project to see other scooters and motorcycles designed by Cofitis, including the insane custom he calls "Chimera," which was an entry into the AMD bike build at the Sturgis 2011 rally.

Tip of the hat to the Design You Trust blog... we first saw the Vespa at their Pinterest board.

Ryca Motors Sporster Cafe Racer Kit

Ryca Motors Sportster Cafe Racer Conversion

As we noted in an earlier post today, Ryca Motors has now expanded beyond the Suzuki S40/Savage cafe racer, street tracker, and bobber conversion kits to embrace the Harley Sportster with a Sportster cafe racer conversion kit for 1991 to 2003 models. No welding is required, the conversion can be made with standard hand tools.

The base kit includes:

Fiberglass cafe racer seat
Custom Bassani exhaust
Rearsets
Burly Brand "Stilleto" shocks
Choice of clip-ons or clubman bars
Custom taillight with bracket
Choice of bikini fairing or headlight & gauges lowering kit

An upgraded version of the rearsets is also available.

This is a cool expansion of the Ryca Motors product line, and perhaps next we'll see a Sportster street tracker conversion kit from them.

"Hot Rod Jen's" Pinstriping & Art on SmugMug

Pinstriped Panel Art by Hot Rod Jen

I was googling around for pinstriped panel art the other day and stumbled across the very cool Kustom Kulture artwork of Jennifer "Hot Rod Jen" Skidmore on SmugMug. She has a huge volume of her work there, from pinstriped cars, motorcycles, and panels, to original drawings, paintings, and photography. Check it out.

"We Love Cafe Racers" Curation Site... Loads of great links

Darizt Design Bike at Pipeburn

WeLoveCafeRacers.com is a great Scoop.it powered digital curation site that collects cafe racer related blog posts and articles from all over the Web. Think of it as an online magazine with limitless sources of curator-selected content. For example, I found a great Pipeburn blog post there about the cool little Kawi KZ200 based cafe racer pictured here.

I also found the elegant Trident cafe racer you see below from Super Rat in Bellingham, WA through a Silodrome blog post there.

Super Rat Trident at Silodrome

If you are looking for anything cafe racer related, put a bookmark on this site. Or, hit the "follow" button there and receive updates via your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account.

BTW, both Pipeburn and Silodrome are two excellent custom motorcycle oriented blog sites, I like to visit them on a regular basis. Silodrome has a category specifically dedicated to cafe racers. 

Speed Shop Design's "Beezerker" BSA Custom

Beezerker BSA  

Don't think I've ever seen any custom quite like Chris Flechtner's "Beezerker" BSA custom. It looks like a blend of Art Deco and steampunk design concepts.

Chris Flechtner was the owner, designer, and builder at Speed Shop Design in Seattle, WA when he built Beezerker, but has since taken his skills to Tokyo where he's designing and building bikes. He entered Beezerker in the 2010 AMD World Championship custom bike build competition, where it took fifth place in the freestyle customs category. Everything but the BSA A65 motor and the tires was designed and fabricated by Chris.

Chris is not a typical custom bike builder... besides building custom bikes and cars, he professionally restores priceless samurai swords, having apprenticed under the renowned Tatsuhiko Konno, designs boutique furniture, and has an MFA in design and metal arts from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. His blog is here.

A tip of the hat to the folks at the Return of the Cafe Racers blog, who served up a great post about the Beezerker a couple of years ago... I just stumbled into it today and was so struck by the Beezerker that I had to do a post about it here. If you're a cafe racer fan, visit them on a regular basis... they are one of our favorite bike blogs, and have been on the Cool Stuff We Like bloglist since last year.

As an added bonus, here's a link to a Kneeslider blog post about another of Chris's custom builds, the "Speed Shop Special #6." It's based on a 1978 Ironhead Sportster.

Benji's Cafe Racers Blog

BCR Customer's 1975 CB550 Cafe Racer

Back in April we put up a post about cafe racer builder Benji Flpprboi (yes, that is his name), founder, designer, and builder of Benji's Cafe Racers (BCR) in Edison, NJ. I just went back today to take a look at his latest, and found a pic of a customer's bike you see to the left, a a very clean lime-green 1975 Honda CB550.

Benji is also blogging fairly regularly, and has put up a lot of cool stuff since the time of our original post... check out his blog.

Dues Ex Machina Builders and the Kawi WS650

Deus Ex Machina WS650 Custom

Thanks to the crew at Deus Ex Machina, I am falling in love with the Kawasaki WS650... at least as the basis for all kinds of cool customs. For example, the bobber they call Le Gicleur Noir that you see pictured here.

Also check out their Moto Grigio WS650 cafe racer.

"Return of the Cafe Racers" Readers Rides on Pinterest

ROTCR Reader Donny's CL350 Cafe Racer

While preparing our previous post on the Roland Sands Technics Sportster cafe racer, we found that the folks at Return of the Cafe Racers blog have put up a Pinterest page that features pics of their readers' cafe racers. Check it out here.

Roland Sands Technics Sportster Cafe Racer

Rolands Sands Technics Sportster Cafe Racer

Hat tip to one of our favorite blogs, Return of the Cafe Racers, for a story about this Sportster cafe racer built by former roadracer turned bike builder, Roland Sands. It was commissioned by Panasonic to publicize their Technics audio products. Note the details of the front wheel, which is designed to resemble a Technics analog turntable for vinyl records.

This custom started life as a stock Sportster 883.

If you've got a Sporty and are considering remaking into a cafe racer, check out the Roland Sands Design line of cafe racer accessories for the Sportster.

Also check out the Technics Sportster video here at Return of the Cafe Racers.

Classified Moto's New XV1100 Cafe Racer

Classified Moto XV1100 Cafe Racer

John Ryland and the crew at Classified Moto have rung the bell again with their new XV1100 Cafe Racer, based on the 1989 Yamaha Virago. We did a post earlier this month about their Virago XV920 based cafe racer, and have been keeping a close eye on their doing since then. I couldn't find much at the Classified Moto site about this new Virago, but BikeEXIF has got the jump on it.

An aside here: The BikeEXIF gang always seem to be first with the news about cool new customs, so if you really love unique and offbeat bikes, you really ought to check in with them on a regular basis. 

Check out the latest entry at Classified's blog about a special showing of their bikes in a loft in the Big Apple. Also check out Greg Hageman's Virago based cafe racers, one of which was featured on the cover of Cafe Racer magazine an issue or two back, which is still available at Amazon... see the link below.

LSL Clubman Kawasaki W800 Customs

Clubman LindyBob Kawasaki W800

I've been looking around the Web lately to see who's out there building cool customs based on the Kawasaki W650 and W800 models and am finding a surprising number of really great machines. A couple of prime examples are these two from Clubman by LSL, a custom shop in Germany. 

The W650 and its successor, the W800, are retro standards inspired by the Triumph and BSA parallel twins of the Sixties... Nostalgia delivered at low-cost and with high reliability and Japanese quality. Turns out they're a great platform for custom builders.

Clubman W800 Streettracker

The Clubman LSL website is in German... I can't see that they have a button to flip it to English. Can't speak or read the language, so I am at a handicap as far as the shop's details are concerned. However, I did find this new post at BikeEXIF about the LindyBob. That post included a link to an earlier BikeEXIF post about LSL's Triumph Scrambler custom. Check 'em out, LSL does beautiful work.

The Awesome Morgan Aero Supersports

Morgan Motor Company Aero Supersports

While researching the Morgan three-wheeler cyclecars for another post, we found out more about what they are doing in the four-wheel domain, and have to say this Aero Supersports is awesome, beautiful work. Sensuous curves, beautiful interior woodwork and leather, and performance to boot.

Check out the cars of Morgan Motor Company... and they've also brought back the three-wheeler.

Yeah, Jay Leno's interested... and he's got a three-wheeler, too.

Honda CR-250 Cafe Racer!

Honda CR-250 Cafe Racer

Amazing... this freestyle rider guy, Drake McElroy, teamed up with Roland Sands to transform a Honda CR-250 motocross bike to the cafe racer you see here. You can read more about it at the Return of the Cafe Racers blog.

What a hotrod... cool.

Darwin Motorcycles Brass Balls Bobbers

Brass Balls w. Indian Powerplus 100 Motor

Like Sucker Punch Sallys, Darwin Motors is another innovate, small custom cycle outfit that's made an international reputation designing and selling high-quality retro-styled bobbers based on Harley-Davidson style 45degree v-twin mills. Last year they branched out into another style theme and won the 2011 AMD championship with their RLX cafe racer based on the new S&S 56degree X-Wedge v-twin motor.

They've got a great Old Skool design sense. Visit their site if you love bobbers.

Back Alley Bobbers

Back Alley Bobbers Honda Spirit 750

The folks at Back Alley Bobbers specialize in converting modern Metric Cruisers from Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Suzuki into Old School bobbers.

They currently offer nine build conversions for everything from 250cc Honda Rebels to the Yamaha V-Star 1100.

My personal favorites are those based on the Honda Spirit 750s.

Check 'em out, especially if you've got a Metric Cruiser that you're lookin' to customize. They are in Salt Lake City, but will ship anywhere in the world, they say.

"Big Ned" Monster V-Twin Total Custom Bike

Mark Walker & Big Ned

Saw this ground-up custom in one of the classic motorcycle mags on the rack at our local supermarket this morning. Phenomenal, mind-boggling. Designed and built from scratch by Australian mechanical genius, Mark Walker. It's called Big Ned. You can see a lot more of Big Ned at the website of Australian blogger "Computech," who's a friend of Mark Walker.

From what I can tell, virtually every bit of this monster was designed, built, and assembled by Walker, especially the engine. This is unlike anything I've ever seen.

How is another entry Computech that includes some early pictures chronicling the birth of Big Ned.