cafe racers on HD Theater

LOUD MOUSE · Post by **LOUD MOUSE** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:02 pm

I'll ask ya to complete your location as steve did. ....lm

teazer wrote:The term Café Racer has been adapted to almost any resto-mod type bike with low bars. On DTT they seem to think that low bars and a fat front tire plus pleated, flat version of a stock seat equals a Café Racer.

The More pseudo British the better it seems. I don't quite get it, but then again, I don't think I'm teh intended audience.

It's an interesting trend. maybe it represents the desire to get away from the excesses represented by chopper$$ and back to simple and cheap built around a myth of what Rockers were all about. It's interesting and I'm sure someone will get rich.

davomoto · Post by **davomoto** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:11 pm

I watched the first episode yesterday, now have my DVR programmed to record it. Teazer, I have sen so many older bikes for sale on craiglist as Cafe' because the guy put clubman bars on it, and cut the fenders. What I remeber from my youth, the 70s not the 50s or 60s, was that to make a bike a Cafe' racer you had to strip off every uneccessary piece, turn signals, reflectors, battery, etc, upgrade the suspension, the tires, the exhaust, add clip-ons or clubmans and hop up the motor if your budget allowed it. We were doing it to RD350s, CB400Fs, H1 Kawis, basically the jap bikes from the early 70s. BTW, the CB77 came with flat bars in the US until 1966.

Spargett · Post by **Spargett** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 1:55 am

I don't watch TV, but a good friend of mine who does great builds watched it. He said it bummed it him out pretty bad, everyone talking about "cafe" this and "cafe" that, then constantly cutting to the new bonnie's with clubmans on it. Sounds like a lost generation trying to emulate a myth rather than truly recapture the spirit of the history.

IMO doesn't matter how many 'ton up' or '54' buttons you have on your "period" leather jacket. If you wanna know what they were all about, make sure what you're riding is built, not bought.

Again, I haven't seen the full episodes yet, but this is certainly the vibe I get from cafe resurgence happening all around. I'm a younger guy, and it's alot of peers only interested in the getting the look with the least amount of effort.

I'm curious to hear your experiences.

teazer · Post by **teazer** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:52 am

Spargett wrote:Sounds like a lost generation trying to emulate a myth ....................

IMO doesn't matter how many 'ton up' or '59' buttons you have on your "period" leather jacket. If you wanna know what they were all about, make sure what you're riding is built, not bought.

Again, I haven't seen the full episodes yet, but this is certainly the vibe I get from cafe resurgence happening all around. I'm a younger guy, and it's a lot of peers only interested in the getting the look with the least amount of effort.

100% spot on. Very perceptive young man. If it gets young people interested in older slower bikes, that's good, but there are a lot of people building junk bikes that will not work well - not even as well as they did in the day, and that's not so good.

mike1969 · Post by **mike1969** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 1:58 pm

Watched the latest episode last night and found out that Mike Saite publishes the Cafe Racer mag about 8 or 9 miles from my home.

Also suprised to see the motorcycle junkyard where I but most of my Goldwing parts on the show.

Gun · Post by **Gun** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 3:26 pm

100% agree with scott.

Sascha · Post by **Sascha** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 1:04 pm

I know the guys who run the "Do The Ton" website... They are from my city. There is a HUGE cafe racer scene in Toronto, Canada believe it or not. A lot of people are trying to build them out of CB550s/750s and half of them are a piece of garbage. I think they have too little knowledge to build something that goes 100mph+

Funny enough, my new roomate (my wife is gone to school abroad so I rented a room in my house out to a friend) asked me to help him build a CB550 into a cafe racer. He purchased the bike (its his first) and I took the whole thing apart and started to cut the excess of the frame as well as polish all the bits... Its not a rush job like most of them think it is, to build it right take a lot of time, reading and knowledge around dangerous tools.

I think the cafe racer fad will come to pass (as all things do) and people will start building choppers again or something... Its all a big cycle just like fashion in my opinion at least. Who knows!

I know the guys at Dime City Cycles too (they are a big part of the show on TV) and they are good guys... Know their stuff, good wrenches and friendly, so I cant say anything bad about them but I think TV gets to the kids heads and they think they can build as well as the guys at the shop (on tv) do... Usually not the case, however there are the gifted few that create really amazing bikes.

thats my very long 2 cents.

-Sascha