If you’ve been paying attention to changes in the motorcycle world, you’ve certainly noticed the resurgence of the cafe racer. Cafe Racer: The Motorcycle by Mike Seate takes a look at the whole concept of cafe racers, the social scene where they originated, how they developed, many of the notable people involved and, most likely of greater interest to many readers of The Kneeslider, he has a large number of photos of cafe racers old and new, where you can find some pretty interesting ideas for your own ride if the thought of building one has ever crossed your mind.
Seate examines at length the origins of cafe racers, something not many riders are really familiar with, even though they might know a cafe racer well enough when they see one. Everything is covered from the motorcycles chosen by those early riders, the things they did and the reasons for doing them that contributed to the look of their bikes and their choice of clothing plus the many period influences that helped shape the movement. Evolving at much the same time as the early chopper movement here in the states, cafe racers were uniquely British in style though both the freedom motorcycles offered and the social aspects of cafe racer gatherings was, and still is, a universal pursuit.
My favorite parts of the book were the later chapters where he covers the production bikes most often given the cafe treatment, the mongrel mashups like the Tritons, Norvins and Tribsas, and lastly, the newer bikes appearing now from various builders that owe much to the cafe racer heritage.
Many of the names and bikes that appear in the book will be familiar to The Kneeslider’s readers, Steve “Carpy” Carpenter and his CB750 cafe racers, Kenny Dreer and his Nortons, the many Rickman variants and a lot more.
The book notes two contributing causes of the cafe racer renaissance. One is the extreme performance of today’s replica racers. Building your own bike used to mean looking for more performance and creating something unique. Today’s thinly disguised racers with performance few can master and certainly cannot be approached on public roads leave little room for anything extra. Can you make your bike quicker? How would you ever know? Taking an older Honda 750 and getting the most from it while giving your bike that special look is a more achievable and quite possibly more challenging and fun pursuit than putting a turbo and nitrous on your 180hp GSXR. The other contributing factor is the demise of the chopper fad where super expensive, poor handling show bikes sit in garages, seldom ridden and are easily outperformed by bikes costing tens of thousands of dollars less. Maybe it’s time to get back to less expensive bikes that are fun to ride, fun to work on and offer you a real opportunity for a little extra performance and self expression.
If cafe racers get you thinking again about the fun side of motorcycling, this book is a good place to reintroduce yourself to these cool looking bikes.
Jeff says
Yes . Less expensive and fun to ride .
todd says
Exactly. The less money I spend on a project, the more fun it is. Thanks for the tip on the book.
-todd
tim says
this is on my christmas list now. Thanks!
Rayd says
Yea, we new cafers finally get some get some ink. I started my cafe project to get back into riding for low cost and high style…somehow got derailed and now have two unfinished projects one of which is way more polished and plated than I meant for it to be…you guys know how that goes..now if the neighbor will sell me that RD350…DO THE TON!
Mark says
Nice, definitely going to have to pick up this book.
ZREXER says
One can only hope that the upcoming ” Cafe Craze” will not be ruined by high end builders and television producers.
Clive Makinson-Sanders says
It would be neat if they resumed production of small to moderate displacement “standard” carburated road bikes that could be modified for weight reduction and horsepower gains.
Theres always royal enfield!
QrazyQat says
now if the neighbor will sell me that RD350…DO THE TON!
You know, a CB350 Honda also makes a nice cafe racer. Back when they had — for a very brief period — a small superbike class in the AMA I rode a friend’s CB350 at Daytona. We didn’t do much, just installed low bars and some Ferodo linings and drilled big vent holes in the front drum, but you could do some other nice things to make it look neater (I think some mufflers combined with the CL upswept headers would look great and would help with cornering clearance).
Anyway, I could get that very nearly up to 100mph on the banking. And during practice all the superbikes practiced together. Yvon DuHamel on the Z1 passed me a couple times between turns 2 and 3… ever so slightly faster 🙂 than me. And Reg Pridmore passed me on the banking several times very close, which I took as a compliment (you don’t do that with a slower bike if you don’t trust the rider); 40 mph faster at that point about a foot away.
If we hadn’t partially melted a piston I think I could’ve made top ten, and we were really stock while the RD’s were rather heavily sliced and diced, portwise.
Clive Makinson-Sanders says
Qrazy, my brother has a 75 cb360t thats begging me to tear it apart. He doesnt ride or tinker with it, but he refuses to sell it to me. What a waste.
dennon says
I hate to break it to you Clive but even Royal Enfields are fuel injected now.
This shouldn’t stop us though, a small displacement bike that is light and good handling is way more fun on real roads than the supersport bikes in my opinion. You are also less likely to hit a tree at a ridiculous speed or lose your license as well.
coho says
I’ve been leaning toward a cafe style for the TW200 I’m currently shopping for, can’t wait for the REDZ TW catalog.
I’ve been looking at a lot of cafe bikes lately (research, you know) and it seems to me that they were very much the streetfighters of the day (lighter/faster/lighter/faster), but since fully faired from the factory wasn’t an option back in the day, it was unnecessary to first crash off the plastic. Handy.
Skizick says
I only wish the Cafe’ers would realize what a poor venue public highways are. As EMT’s we constantly scoop up wantabee Rossi’s that didn’t plan on that Winabago stopped to take a picture of a squirrel. No one is there to wave the red flag befor the hazzard is upon them. There’s old ones and bold ones, but no old bold ones goes the addage.
Gaston says
I love a Cafe racer because it is more fun riding a slow bike fast than a some highly strung modern rocket fast. Fun is the key word. Every motorcycle review should have a fun rating and the bike be totally judged to be worthy or not by this rating. Also Cafe racers are partially custom machines that hold my interest much more than the massed produced computer designed soulless “things”.