Colby Higgins Honda CX500 Cafe Build

CX500 Cafe Racer Build

Industrial designer Colby Higgins transformed a rather beatup Honda CX500 cruiser into this very clean and simple cafe racer. More pictures here at his Coroflot portfolio.

Darizt Design Honda GL100 Boardtracker

Daritz Design GL100

Here's a very cool little Honda with boardtracker styling from Daritz Design of Indonesia, courtesy of Bike EXIF blog.

How to Build a Cafe Racer

Honda CX500 Cafe Racer

Charles Tregolan is a professional car designer by trade. In his spare time he designs and builds his own bikes. He's written a set of guidelines for cafe racer builders at the Bike EXEF blog.

The guidelines tell the builder how to scale and set the parameters of a cafe racer to give it a professional look; how to size and place the tank relative to the engine and crankcase, how to set the fork distance, where to set the limits of the seat length relative to the rear axle, and so on.

He uses the Honda CX500 cafe racer you see here as a real-world, guiding example. If you have an interest in building, or plan to build a cafe racer, check out his article.


  

Deus Ex Machina "Boundless Enthusiasm Bike Build-Off"

2010 First Place Winner "Much Much Go" Honda CB250 Custom

We just learned of the Deus Ex Machina custom bike build shop's Boundless Enthusiasm Bike Build-Off. The latest was held this past October, and the team at Deus says it's now officially an annual event that they'll be hosting. The build-off was a distributed, global event held at Deus's shops in four nations: Sydney, Bali, Venice, CA and Milan, Italy. Over 200 bikes were entered.

The first and foremost guiding rule for entrants is, "Create the most with the least." The second and third rules say, respectively, that all entries must run and stop under their own power... "these are motorcycles, not art installations" as the Deus team puts it. The fourth and fifth --- final --- rules are about ingenuity, originality, and creativity in conception and execution, such as use of repurposed parts, handcrafted parts, and so on... it's not about picking items from catalogs. This is the bike build-off for the rest of us, the little guys and gals.

2013 5th Place Finisher, Backyard Customs Honda

The cool Honda CB250 that we alluded to in our previous post, the Much Much Go by Australian industrial designer Nick Eterovic, is pictured above. It took First Place in 2010's build-off. You can see the October build-off's top twenty bikes here. Our favorite is this little Honda cafe racer from Indonesia's Backyard Customs pictured to the left here.

We are very happy to hear that starting with October 2013 build-off Deus is committed to making this an annual event.

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.

Exesor Motorcycles Honda Cafe Racer

Exesore Honda CB Cafe Racer

We just saw this very cool little Honda cafe racer at BIKEEXIF blog this morning. Christian Schwarzenlander of Exesore in Germany began this build with a 1976 CB250 basket case purchased on eBay for $340. He replaced the CB250 motor with a CB360 motor punched-out to 390cc, and equipped with a hot cam and custom intake manifolds. Check out the BIKEXIF blog post for further details of the many mechanical modifications Christian made.

Regarding the bike's aesthetics, Christian adopted one rule: No chrome. All the metal parts are either nickel-plated, black chrome galvanized, or bare stainless steel.

You can follow Christian's work at the Exesor blog.

Analog Motorcycles CB550 with Sidecar, the "Family Truckster"

The "Family Truckster" is a very stylish 1978 Honda CB550 with sidecar rig from Analog Motorcycles. It belongs to Tony Prust, owner and founder of Analog. He calls it the Family Truckster because he's racked up a lot of road miles on it hauling his wife and daughter around... wife on the back, daughter in the sidecar.

Last year we featured another bike built by Prust, a well-executed 1978 Honda CB750 cafe racer called the Analog 01.

Bryan Fuller's ShoGun Cafe Racer in Latest Cafe Racer Magazine

Cafe Racer Magazine Issue 25

I picked up a copy of the latest issue of Cafe Racer, one of my favorite bike mags, at Barnes & Noble yesterday. The cover article features famed hot-rod builder Bryan Fuller's "ShoGun" Honda CB-550 cafe racer.

The engraved metalwork --- tank, headlight shell, engine covers, and fork legs --- is what really makes the bike stand out... Fuller commissioned legendary metal engraver Tay Herrera (aka Tarrera) to design and create the Japanese-themed engravings. Go here for a video of Tarrera at work with his chisels and hammers on the ShoGun.

ShoGun's Engraved Fork Legs

Pictured at the lower left here are closeup shots of ShoGun's engraved fork legs. An extensive gallery of pics showing details of ShoGun's metalwork is available here at Digital Press Images.

Car Guys: The Speed Hunters blog has a collection of great pics of Bryan Fuller's 1960 Caddy "Thundertaker" hearse, taken at the SEMA 2012 show.

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.

"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.

Lossa Engineering Cafe Racers

Lossa CL350 Cafe Racer

Lossa Engineering of Long Beach, California builds a lot of clean and sweet cafe racers on vintage platforms, like the Honda CL350 pictured here. Owner Jay LaRossa and his crew also build some bobbers and do restorations.

LaRossa grew up in a family where both father's and mother's sides owned SoCal motorcycle dealerships. He started his professional life in the four-wheeled world, building hot rods and SEMA showcars, then relatively recently switched to bikes and opened Lossa Engineering.

Jay LaRossa says the SR500 cafe racer pictured here is "by far the best bike I have turned-out."

Lossa SR500 Cafe Racer

Check out the gallery of completed bikes, and keep up to date on Lossa builds and doings at the Lossa blog. Check out the online store for Lossa designed and manufactured custom parts.

The Honda RS750, Factory AMA Grand National Flat-Tracker

Bubba Shobert's Championship Honda Flattracker

There were a few years back in the Eighties when America's dirt tracks were ruled by a bike that didn't sport an orange and black paint job and wasn't made in Milwaukee... Although it was red, white, and blue, it came from the Land of the Rising Sun, and in the hands of  Ricky Graham and Bubba Shobert for four straight years it totally dominated that most American of motorsports, AMA Grand National flattrack... the awesome Honda RS750.

In the early Eighties, Honda decided to get into AMA dirt track racing. A couple of seasons of campaigning a bike based on the CX500 V-twin (hate to digress here, but was there ever an uglier bike on the market?), the NS750, yielded mediocre results, even with Number One plateholder Mike Kidd at the controls. Honda then decided to get really serious and build a dirttracker from the ground-up. And "getting serious" meant beating Harley-Davidson and the mighty orange-and-black XR-750... Rumor has it that Big Red bought one, shipped it back to Japan, and tore it down to the last nut and bolt to get a complete understanding of why and how the XR worked so well on the dirt. Out of that effort came the RS750. It wasn't just a clone, there were significant differences between the two, the biggest being Honda's use of overhead cams and four valves per head, versus the pushrods and two valves per head of the XR.

The RS750 debuted in the 1983 season, with supremely talented and fiercely competitive Dirt Track Hall of Famer Hank Scott in the saddle. As you would expect with a brand-new from the ground-up machine, that first season was mostly an exercise in shaking out the bugs, though Scott did win one race at his favorite venue, the DuQuoin mile.

The following season, Honda hired 1982 AMA Grand National champion Ricky Graham of California and Texan Bubba Shobert. Randy Goss, piloting an XR-750, took the Number One plate from Rickey Graham that year, but Ricky Graham took it back in the 1984 season on the Honda, beating teammate Shobert by one point. The following three seasons, Shobert in his turn blew everyone else off the track on the RS750 you see above, which is on display at the AMA Motorcycle Museum. 

In 1988, the Honda began losing its competitive edge when the AMA changed the rules to require carburetor restrictor plates that limited horsepower. The loss of horsepower made the XR-750 more competitive against the RS750. The official line of the AMA rules committee was that limiting horsepower would make campaigning a dirt bike cheaper by saving wear on rear tires (one of the most challenging aspects of dirttracking for the rider is to avoid burning up the rear tire before the race is done, especially on mile tracks).

The rules committee soon followed up with another rule that required Big Red to load an extra 15 pounds on the technologically superior RS750. Thereafter the Honda really did lose its competitive edge and Honda decided to put its racing dollars and energies elsewhere, but what a wild ride while it lasted. Once again Honda had shown its technical prowess and savvy, this uncanny ability to jump into some new racing arena and dominate it within an astonishingly short period of time, and to do it even in a sport that Harley-Davidson had dominated for decades. 

So, why did the AMA change the rules in a way that brought the Honda down? More cynical observers said that H-D lobbied the AMA adopt rules that would take away the clear technical advantages of a competitor that was beating them at the game they'd ruled for so long. Remember that at the time Harley, with its new Evo Big Twins, was just climbing out of years of financial turmoil and near-bankruptcy, and the disaster that was AMF ownership and management. Harley needed the good publicity that a bike in the winner's circle brings... "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" as the saying goes. Maybe the cynics are correct about the AMA rules committee being in cahoots with Harley... if so, well, they wouldn't be cynics, would they? They'd just be... correct.

Cobra RS750 Tribute

Well, it was pretty cool while it lasted to see two heavyweight manufacturer's, two very different companies with very different images and cultures, duke it out on the mile and half-mile. The RS750 is definitely not forgotten, however. We've included here a pic of the RS750 tribute bike from Cobra, the popular aftermarket accessories company, which is based on the Honda RS750 Shadow.

Sidenote: We were dissin' the CX500 here, but gotta say that this CX500 cafe racer from the Copenhagen-based Wrenchmonkees shop is very cool.

While you are at it, check out this four-part video series about Ricky Graham's astonishing, miraculous 1993 AMA championship season, in which he won an unprecedented twelve dirt track races. 

  

Classified Moto Virago Cafe Racers & Customs

Classified Moto XV920 (Photo by Adam Ewing)

Classified Moto of Richmond, VA works wonderous transformations upon the likes of the Yamaha Virago, and other seemingly unlikely machines. I like the way they present themselves and their mission:

Classified Moto is a tiny workshop in Richmond, Virginia (USA) that specializes in affordable alt-moto customs and random creative expressions.

Classified Moto founder John Ryland has an interesting, inspiring story to tell, especially to those of us who have taken the hit in this crummy economy:

Change comes in all sizes. New pair of shoes — small change. New career/business/lease on life — extra large change.

One year ago last week, I got my walking papers from the ad agency where I worked for 11 years. It was like being punched in the face and knocked into the next room. Only the room was full of sweet motorcycles and some of the coolest people I’d never met.

What could have been a disaster of super-sized proportions, instead opened the door for Classified Moto, which might go down in history as the luckiest company on the planet.

From the day I got laid off and set out to make my living in the motosphere, I’ve had something to be psyched about on an almost daily basis — one of our bikes in a magazine, a killer road trip, an email from one of my heroes, a project wrapped. There’s a kind of constant gratification for us at Classified, and we’re trying our best to keep it going.

Interesting thing is, John says he wasn't really all that interested in motorcycle's until just a few years ago.

By the way, the Yamaha XV920 pictured here was created for director Sunny Zhao's experimental film, Reciprocity.

Check out their blog here. Also very interesting is the blog of founder John Ryland. And keep your eyes peeled for a Classified Moto feature at Cafe Racer TV Season 4.

UPDATE: Check out this Vimeo video that features the build of Classified Moto's famous lamp from recycled motorcycle parts.

Dime City Cycles, Vintage Bobbers & Cafe Racers

Dime City Honda CB450 Bobber

Dime City Motorcycles, "Redefining the motorcycle, one rusty bolt at a time."

Great tagline for an outfit that transforms everything from classic Hondas, Kawis, Suzukis to modern Triumph twins into nicely crafted cafe racers and bobbers. Their work has gained them some recognition... Herm Narciso of Dime City has been featured on Cafe Racer TV.

In addition to complete bike builds, Dime City design and sells parts for the do-it-yourselfer. They also offer a lineup of parts from other small, boutique makers, such as Roccity Cafe Racers.

Dime City is located in Largo, FL, but is setup to take orders domestically and internationally.

Dime City Honda Shadow VT800 Cafe Racer

Dime City has a very extensive, well-designed and well-organized website with plenty of technical content. Their blog here is good place to start.

Update May 12: Dime City guys just tweeted about their interview at Cafe Racer Podcast. 

Analog Motorcycles Honda Cafe Racer

Analog Motorcycles "Analog 01" Honda Cafe Racer

Awhile back we stumbled across a very elegant and classic Yamaha RD350 cafe racer from Analog Motorcycles that was featured at BIKEEXIF. We were so impressed with its clean good looks and stylish logo that we jumped to Analog's site to have a look around and liked what we saw there. So, we featured one of Analog owner Tony Prust's customer builds, a clean and muscular Kawasaki K750 streettracker here.

We went back the other day to take a look at what might be new or what we might have missed the first time through and found this Honda cafe racer, the Analog 01. Follow the link and you'll see a gallery of very good photos of the bike from all angles.