Cafe Racers

[Pantless Spency]

man up! ride the bike fer crissakes! seriously though i understand there are some crazy drivers out there but you need to pay attention to the patterns, find the hole and get through it.

Last year had two friends hit a deer, Brad and his wife were killed in Montana, and at his funeral ran into Morgan whose dad had brought him because he was in wheelchair with broken arm and leg.

point is urban idiots are more predictable than animals. if you are scared to ride in city but think country is ok i would disagree with that.

PS I think kawi police bikes are really cool. very good motorcycles for touring or around town and a bargain for what they will do. congratulations

yikes im really sorry to hear that, i hadn't even thought about the wildlife dangers of country riding.

unfortunately the deal on the kz1k fell through :/ but it has me itching to find a good deal on something similar.
best regards.

[skids]

man up! ride the bike fer crissakes! seriously though i understand there are some crazy drivers out there but you need to pay attention to the patterns, find the hole and get through it.

Last year had two friends hit a deer, Brad and his wife were killed in Montana, and at his funeral ran into Morgan whose dad had brought him because he was in wheelchair with broken arm and leg.

point is urban idiots are more predictable than animals. if you are scared to ride in city but think country is ok i would disagree with that.

PS I think kawi police bikes are really cool. very good motorcycles for touring or around town and a bargain for what they will do. congratulations

[Pantless Spency]

super old thread bump.
picking up a 94' kawasaki kz1000 police bike tomorrow.
i'm a little nervous, i don't want to ride it much in Vegas because Vegas is nuts.

[Brandon12V]

i really don't mean anything of the sort and that's not what i implied. what i did say was "when i think of 'Cafe Racers' there are only a few bikes that come to mind". that means it's subjective and only my opinion, but maybe it doesn't translate well into norwegian.

I understand what you're saying but its not necessary to get all defensive. I was busting your balls. No need to be so technical or copy & paste a fucking definition from Wikipedia. It is your opinion but basically insults every builder that calls their jap, Italian, whatever the fuck cafe bike just that... A cafe bike. You were there? Cool story. Your age and presence in that era doesn't negate your ignorant opinion. Manufacturer's emblems are pale shadows to the true essence a bike can bestow and the builder/company makes that possible.

[LJ851]

You can call this Guzzi anything you want, i'd rock the shit out of it!

[tom d]

i really don't mean anything of the sort and that's not what i implied. what i did say was "when i think of 'Cafe Racers' there are only a few bikes that come to mind". that means it's subjective and only my opinion, but maybe it doesn't translate well into norwegian.

[Kvasi]

here, let me entertain you. quoted from wikipedia because i'm too lazy to write. and who are you to call me ignorant. i was there, were you? one more thing, an impostor or imposter is a person who pretends to be somebody else, so therefore any cafe racer based on a jap bike is therefore an impostor, simply because the cafe-ers were not using hondas in the 60's to build with.


A café racer is a type of motorcycle as well as a type of motorcyclist. Both meanings have their roots in the 1960s British counterculture group the Rockers, or the Ton-up boys, although they were also common in Italy, Germany, and other European countries. In Italy, the term refers to the specific motorcycles that were and are used for short, sharp speed trips from one coffee bar to another.

A classic example of this was to race from the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Road in northwest London to the Hanger Lane junction as it then was—it is now the more famous Hanger Lane gyratory—and back again. The aim was to get back to the Ace Cafe before the record on the jukebox had finished. Given that some of the Eddie Cochran tunes that were in vogue at this time were less than two minutes long, the racers had to make the three-mile round trip at extremely high speed.

The café racer is a motorcycle that has been modified for speed and handling rather than comfort. Café racers' bodywork and control layout typically mimicked the style of contemporary Grand Prix roadracers, featuring an elongated fuel tank and small, rearward mounted, humped seat.

The bikes had a raw, utilitarian and stripped-down appearance while the engines were tuned for maximum speed. These motorcycles were lean, light and handled road surfaces well. The most defining machine of its heyday was the homemade Norton Featherbed framed and Triumph Bonneville engined machine called "The Triton". It used the most common and fastest racing engine combined with the best handling frame of its day, the Featherbed frame by Norton Motorcycles. Those with less money could opt for a "Tribsa" - the Triumph engine in a BSA frame.




sorry brandon, but the honda RC166 is not a 'cafe racer' it is a 'Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) Grand Prix Racing Bike'. a 'cafe racer' is a road going bike based on the design of roadracing GP bikes of the day, you ignorant fuck!

If u really mean that the english owns the right to call a bike a cafe racer,
do u call BMW X5 (feks) a SUV? Cause thats originally a term for a bunch of american cars with stiff axles, no handling, tons of weight and so on,
and cant be compared to european quality cars designed at this side of the ww2 :mrgreen:

[Deltron Dirty30]

found these beauts on tumblr

[tom d]

The british motorcycle companies might have been the few who pioneered the idea of a light, nimble frame, but they certainly didn't refine it. Cafe Racer has become more of 'style', The Honda RC166 is one of the best examples of a 'cafe race bike'. Feel free to post a rebuttal after you build a bike that isn't an 'imposter' ya ignorant fuck. ;) <3

here, let me entertain you. quoted from wikipedia because i'm too lazy to write. and who are you to call me ignorant. i was there, were you? one more thing, an impostor or imposter is a person who pretends to be somebody else, so therefore any cafe racer based on a jap bike is therefore an impostor, simply because the cafe-ers were not using hondas in the 60's to build with.


A café racer is a type of motorcycle as well as a type of motorcyclist. Both meanings have their roots in the 1960s British counterculture group the Rockers, or the Ton-up boys, although they were also common in Italy, Germany, and other European countries. In Italy, the term refers to the specific motorcycles that were and are used for short, sharp speed trips from one coffee bar to another.

A classic example of this was to race from the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Road in northwest London to the Hanger Lane junction as it then was—it is now the more famous Hanger Lane gyratory—and back again. The aim was to get back to the Ace Cafe before the record on the jukebox had finished. Given that some of the Eddie Cochran tunes that were in vogue at this time were less than two minutes long, the racers had to make the three-mile round trip at extremely high speed.

The café racer is a motorcycle that has been modified for speed and handling rather than comfort. Café racers' bodywork and control layout typically mimicked the style of contemporary Grand Prix roadracers, featuring an elongated fuel tank and small, rearward mounted, humped seat.

The bikes had a raw, utilitarian and stripped-down appearance while the engines were tuned for maximum speed. These motorcycles were lean, light and handled road surfaces well. The most defining machine of its heyday was the homemade Norton Featherbed framed and Triumph Bonneville engined machine called "The Triton". It used the most common and fastest racing engine combined with the best handling frame of its day, the Featherbed frame by Norton Motorcycles. Those with less money could opt for a "Tribsa" - the Triumph engine in a BSA frame.

The Honda RC166 is one of the best examples of a 'cafe race bike'. ya ignorant fuck. ;) <3

sorry brandon, but the honda RC166 is not a 'cafe racer' it is a 'Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) Grand Prix Racing Bike'. a 'cafe racer' is a road going bike based on the design of roadracing GP bikes of the day, you ignorant fuck!

[Brandon12V]

Umm, ok. Tell that to Shinya Kimura, Dave Mucci, the guys at Radical Ducati, or Lossa engineering(just to name a few). The british motorcycle companies might have been the few who pioneered the idea of a light, nimble frame, but they certainly didn't refine it. Cafe Racer has become more of 'style', not a specific bike(much like a bobber or street tracker). The Honda RC166 is one of the best examples of a 'cafe race bike'. It's Japanese and proud of its heritage. Feel free to post a rebuttal after you build a bike that isn't an 'imposter' ya ignorant fuck. ;) <3

[tom d]

all of the jap bikes that are being posted are nice, but when i think of 'Cafe Racers' there are only a few bikes that come to mind and none of them are japanese.

the term cafe racer as coined in the 50's and in the early 60's there was a bunch of british cafers being constructed, the coolest being the Triton and the Norvin. both of these bikes were built using the Norton featherbed frame due to it's superior handling. these are the real 'cafe racers' all others are cheap impostors.

Triton - triumph parallel twin 650cc with norton frame








Norvin - vincent engine with norton frame

[Mlarsen]

That's a turbo, fuck yeah.

[Kvasi]

A friend of mines Buell, and my Toyota behind it

[Ryan Stewart]

Nice ride , Ryan.
When those first came out i did a lot of first services (valve adjustment) on them here in Atlanta because the dealer wouldn't do them cause they "couldn't get parts". I think they were scared of the radial valve actuation. Let me know if you need service, i'm available, and experienced.

Thanks, are you a shop or just doing it on the side?

Ive been looking and it looks like there is a service shop in town but I havent talked to them about the MV, the only one with any "expertise" listed is a BMW dealer about 15 miles away (oh the joys of being ITP, everything regarding vehicles is out in the burbs).

[Ryan Stewart]

very nice. as the curator of that bike it is your responsibility to maintain it. can you imagine someone chopping it up?

Oh I dont plan to. At most I will update it. Plan on swapping in HID headlight (just low beam) and then put in LED tail lights.

Im debating doing the license plate relocation. I dont think I will want to delete the turns altogether but get some smaller ones to minimize the black plastic. If I do its going to be down the road. First job is to do the lights for safety and then just get the bike under me.

Hopefully it will be here in a couple of weeks, having to ship it.

I am still considering building a cheap cafe from an old 500 or something just to tool around with. There was a Duc on craigslist with a top tier conversion but he wanted 10k for it and that was a bit much for a used bike (for me).