AJAY
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Cool. Searching now.
Cafe Racer Pt.5 starting to look the part
- Thread starter raydog
- Start date
Ok, I think I understand now. Think we were using different terminology. Cafe racer is kinda the same thing as a street fighter kinda style? Think I understood it like that from the posts in here. Either way sounds like you have something that will be completly different than what people are used to and it will look great too.
Well, let's get even more historically technical! Actually, the cafe racer experience began LONG before streetfighters showed up. Cafe racers actually preceded sportbikes AND musclebikes of the eighties. I actually "cafeyed" a 1965 Yamaha YDS-3 with clip ons, chambers and a fiberglass seat in high school in the sixties! Now streetfighters....that all began AFTER/DURING the advent of faired sportbikes. A whole seperate subculture in motorcycling.
It's true, cafe and streetfighters share alot in the final product here in 2009....with at least one distinction being handlebars vrs clipons(or at least drop bars that mimick clipons.
If anyone sees it differently, please speak up! At least that's how I remember it all. Doyle
with a tilted up tail or bmx bars I kind of consider them more as a street fighter than a cafe racer. I always like the classic cafe racer look. I thought the history of cafe racers was more English than Euro though. I could be wrong though.
How about the cafe fairing that was installed around the headlight .....
bazooki
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The biggest difference between streetfighter and cafe racer IMHO is your starting point. A streetfighter starts with a supersport/race style bike and makes it into more of a standard whereas a caferacer goes in the opposite direction turning a standard into a supersport/racer type of bike. I think the whole streetfighter think just started out of guys crashing their gixxers and not being able to afford new fairing bits so they stuck a headlight on it and Kablammo! a segment is born. The cafe was guys wanting to make their standards look like the race bikes of the period by adding clip-ons or drops and changing the seats, adding rearsets, etc.
Looking good sir. Keep us posted 
Good call, definately interesting and accurate points about the origins of both segments. Therein lies the challenge for me...to commemorate cafe racers with the Busa all the while leaving no doubt that the bike just isn't what someone did cause they couldn't afford new plastics! Oh well, like Rick Nelson said, "you can't please everyone so you gotta please yourself". I'm just gonna keep my eye on the prize and work toward that objective.....one thing for sure, it'll be easy to convert to a streetfighter later, just put a Steigler top triple tree and handlebars on it!
To me, this is another experience that certifies how unbeliveably flexible our choices are as Busa owners. Touring, sportbiking, track use, dragracing, profiling, LSR, streetfighting, and now retro cafe! What an amazing scooter! Doyle
I'm looking at that, with or without a 1/4 fairing it'll still be a cafe bike, because of the great speed of a Busa however, I'll probably end up installing something up there!
looks like a fun project. 
AJAY
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I also associate cafe racers with the early stages of the chopper movement that began in the 1950's. "Chopper" did not come from chopping the frame and kicking out the fork into the next county; it came from chopping off just about anything you could to make the bike lighter - and consequently faster. Same with cafe racers, except the handling of the bike and high top speed, hence the quarter fairing, was thrown into the equation.
So Doyle, I enjoyed reading your earlier threads and like your project a lot. I especially appreciate your desire to clean it up, hiding the lines and parts that were originally meant to be hidden by the full fairings. But this is definitely in line with the "modern" chopper art, where you run wires and cables inside the handlebars and basically tuck away anything on the frame that isn't part of the engine. And if you can't hide it, chrome it! LOL.
As for the back end, do you really want to keep that big Busa butt? I'm thinking you could glass up something nice and petite, especially with a solo seat. Some of those tailpieces on streetfightersinc.com are certainly nice, although I may never like those skyward-pointed butts we're seeing come out of Europe nowadays. I think the Busa mechanicals would look great with something abbreviated and thin, showing off the large rear tire without needing to go to a 240 to make it look bigger. A 240 wouldn't fit the cafe themes of lighter and handling anyway.
Anyway, cool project. Wish I could be doing something like that myself. Looking forward to more posts on your redesign. Cheers!
P.S. A few weeks ago I posted this Norton "Dunstall" that was for sale locally on Craigslist. I think it has "Clubman" style bars, common before clip-ons made the scene. https://www.hayabusa.org/forum/random-thoughts/118238-1965-norton-dunstall-sale.html
So Doyle, I enjoyed reading your earlier threads and like your project a lot. I especially appreciate your desire to clean it up, hiding the lines and parts that were originally meant to be hidden by the full fairings. But this is definitely in line with the "modern" chopper art, where you run wires and cables inside the handlebars and basically tuck away anything on the frame that isn't part of the engine. And if you can't hide it, chrome it! LOL.
As for the back end, do you really want to keep that big Busa butt? I'm thinking you could glass up something nice and petite, especially with a solo seat. Some of those tailpieces on streetfightersinc.com are certainly nice, although I may never like those skyward-pointed butts we're seeing come out of Europe nowadays. I think the Busa mechanicals would look great with something abbreviated and thin, showing off the large rear tire without needing to go to a 240 to make it look bigger. A 240 wouldn't fit the cafe themes of lighter and handling anyway.
Anyway, cool project. Wish I could be doing something like that myself. Looking forward to more posts on your redesign. Cheers!
P.S. A few weeks ago I posted this Norton "Dunstall" that was for sale locally on Craigslist. I think it has "Clubman" style bars, common before clip-ons made the scene. https://www.hayabusa.org/forum/random-thoughts/118238-1965-norton-dunstall-sale.html
AJAY
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Just read the wikipedia entry on cafe racers
Café racer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and thought the closing paragraph sure hit the mark:
Classic cafe racer style has made a comeback recently, thanks largely to the increased interest in vintage motorcycles in general. The baby boomers were responsible for a surge in motorcycle sales in the late 1960s and '70s, and many of this generation now find themselves with the time and discretionary income to recreate the bikes they had--or wished to have--in their younger years.
Café racer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and thought the closing paragraph sure hit the mark:
Classic cafe racer style has made a comeback recently, thanks largely to the increased interest in vintage motorcycles in general. The baby boomers were responsible for a surge in motorcycle sales in the late 1960s and '70s, and many of this generation now find themselves with the time and discretionary income to recreate the bikes they had--or wished to have--in their younger years.
Regarding the tail of this bike....I have a perfect (unused) hump, unopened HotBodies undertail and the rear body is in perfect condition ALL IN THAT BEAUTIFUL METALFLAKE LE BLACK AND MATCHING THE TANK! Funny that this came up cause Daniel just PM'd me asking about doing a "special" type of tail, I want the Busa look BUT now I'm thinking.....I gotta have another discussion with Doctor Goldenchild!
Below are pics of my other Busa, picture the rear in black, I just love the lines! BTW, thanks for all your opinions, they are quite valued. Doyle
Below are pics of my other Busa, picture the rear in black, I just love the lines! BTW, thanks for all your opinions, they are quite valued. Doyle
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AJAY
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It's the broadness / width of the tail that doesn't seem to support the cafe look (IMO). Maybe you could keep the hump, but drop the sides down from its base instead of continuing to flair out like the stock tail does. I don't think you need the width to cover the frame. Of course, if you make a custom glass piece, you don't really need to use the hump at all - you could just incorporate that design element.
I was at a local bike shop today picking up an oil filter. I like how this shop mixes brands up (except for the Ducatis), with all the bikes of the same category and displacement grouped together. Naturally, the ZX14 and the Busa were together. (Great price on the ZX, btw. I'd have a hard time picking the Busa when the Kaw was so much cheaper.) With these two next to each other, you could really see how different the tails were, with the Kaw swept and up like most sport bikes and the Busa retaining its unique, even enigmatic profile. It would be nice to retain elements of that in a "stripped down" cafe bike, but maybe just slimmer to match the new, slimmer, unfaired front end.
Changing gears, I lost my bid on a genuine steel Harley XLCR tank on ebay last night. Looks like I'm going to be doing some fiberglass work to repair the tank on my '89 Sportster cafe project. I gotta look for some pics from when she was still together. Really want to get this bike on the road next spring.
It's painful to read your XLCR comment, I once turned down a worn out one (but very straight and bone stock) for $800.00. (20 years ago of course) I always thought if I did a Sporty I'd have a hard time deciding to go cafe OR Ascot type, I've always loved the v twin track bike look (ala Storz). Talk about the original "streetfighter"! Before the term streetfighter was even invented, lightened Harleys and Triumphs with fiberglass seats, track bars and billet parts were roaming the streets!
Re: the tail, actually the whole bike will be a work in progress...I'll get it detailed and complete BUT a bike like a "cafe Busa" will always be begging for updates (like your Sporty)it's just that there is so much to do elsewhere on the bike and I do have all new tail parts right now. Doyle
AJAY
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You shoulda bought it! Of course, I shoulda bought the '62 Impala, the '61 Porsche, and I never should have given away my '77 280Z. A decent XLCR will go for about 8 grand nowadays, $10-$12K for a pristine low mileage original, and $5K for a ratbike. But it wouldn't touch my evo sporty with the Branch Flowmetrics heads, Mikuni flatside, and Supertraps - dyno'd just over 90 which wasn't so bad when I built it. Plus she only weighs about 430 lbs - doesn't take it into sportbike class, but definitely a runner for a Harley. Let me look for those pics.
As for the tail end of your scoot, I know where you're coming from. I've been really into the stock look for my Busa, but since you posted those pics of your hotbodies, d@mn, now you got me thinking....
Nothing to do with the Busa, but this site has beautiful (or at least I think so) cafe style cb750s.
Little bit of inspiration for you Sir Raydog.
cb750cafe.com - custom cafe racers
cheers
ken
Little bit of inspiration for you Sir Raydog.
cb750cafe.com - custom cafe racers
cheers
ken
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