Ians Ramblings

Found some great motorcycle websites lately. It feels like a bit of a change in the motorcycle community either that or I am just picking up on a whole alternative side to it. There seems to me to be a surge in the creative side of motorcycling, individual bikes created by their owners but modified in an artistic nostalgic manner.

I think people are happy to go back to a more chilled out time, with great looking bikes that perform comfortably on the road but also give a real feeling of nostalgia. Something people can tinker with individualise but still use on a regular basis. Especially with so much time spent with technology it’s great to have that juxtaposition on a daily basis as you arrive at work on a bike made 40 years ago and work on the latest technology in the day.

Indian engine

http://bikeexif.com Bike Exif – Great blog and interviews
http://southsiders-mc.blogspot.com – Very artistic photographic motorcycle blog
http://www.dimecitycycles.com/ Great bike builders, making some gorgeous cafe racers
http://www.lossaengineering.com/ Again brilliant bike builder some great retro bikes and cafe bikes

Norton

Had a great day today, picked up my cheeky lil Honda 550F Supersport. It was a good drive back though brakes have certainly come on a long way in the last 33 years I can tell you, though in fairness they weren’t that much worse than my ’99 Sachs roadster that I had about 7 years ago. It was fun and smooth though, rather relaxing though plebs in Audis still race up behind .. ah well the new chav badge, used to be Subaru.

I have been looking at Cafe racers, in particular those built from classic Hondas for about a year now but also looking through sites trying to find one that could be reliable for almost daily usage or also for doing trips abroad or camping trips / biking events even.

I kept looking at the CB750s initially because so many cafe projects seem to use the CB750 as a base, then I started to see a few CB550 super sports, there were less of them but they were lighter, air cooled and less complex mechanically.

The urge to get a 550 certainly grew when I saw results like this: -

Apart from the seat it’s exactly the look I hope to be going for, quite minor rather cosmetic tweaks only for the time being. I want a slightly more practical seat, that can still accommodate a pillion but still with a cafe racer rounded look, probably all covered rather than with a fibreglass tail.

So it basically begins tomorrow really, I need to remove the main centre stand as it has some damage to it which prevents it working, hopefully that will go well and I will start taking pictures of it as I go along.

If anyone else is looking to do the same kind of thing I found a few great websites on which is everything anyone would want to know about Honda SOHC bikes and cafe racers.

http://forums.sohc4.net/ (Defacto standard in sohc 4 forums)

http://caferacer.forumotion.co (Cafe racer specific forum)

http://jonrwilson.com/CB550/ (one example build from a very rough base)

http://www.bikeexif.com/?s=cafe&sortby=newest (Ideas and inspiration)

I also found this useful link to whole range of manuals: -

http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=17788.0