My First Cafe Racer I built here

Yes, this was my FIRST full on Cafe I created here in the United States as my daily ride.

It didn’t always look like this as I bought this bike out of the Recycler newspaper for the sum of $800 and almost all stock condition.

This was a 1975 HONDA K5 CB750K inline Four of which I love to ride.

I wanted a pretty much stock one and it took only a few days to locate such a machine, as back in the early part of the milenium when I moved here NOBODY was building cafe’s and especially out of CB750 Honda’s, so I had a great choice of bikes to go and pick from. So, after a little bit of haggling, I rode this bike home from Anaheim hills, the only thing that was not stock from the factory on this machine, was the aftermarket exhaust system the guy fitted in the 1980’s.

This is how I ran around on the bike for a while, I had an Original Paul Dunstall gas tank and made a seat base from an old H2 Kawasaki racing seat and was fortunate to have an original series One ” Yoshimura” 4 into 1 system, and soon as I fired it up with that exhaust on, it bought back many many memories of the 1970’s when I used to walk up to the local Motorcycle shop in my Lunch time from school and I would hear these amazing exhaust scream past me.

I painted her all Black first as this was my Only means of transport and was trying to get a feel of what I waned to do and the color scheme was almost there but missing something, so I rode her around like this with a checker stripe on it for about 5 months.

I had many miles of smiles on this machine and finally after a lot of thinking I came up with my color scheme for my Cafe Racer and wanted to do as much as I can from home, but first, I kept getting so many people ask me, ” What is that bike”? or “what do you call that style of bike?”

So, I had Bob Iverson Gold leaf the word ” CAFE” on my Gas tank, as if people would ask me and I would simply point to the tank.

I rode the balls out of it and went to many places and checked out some great roads in Southern California, I was a happy guy for many thousands of miles, until I had an issue with the carbs and the clutch.

I fixed the clutch and carbs and whilst I was starting my website on webtv, a guy in North Carolina liked my bike so much, that he offered me $5000 for the bike there and then, well, I was in need of some loot, as I had some room mates move out and was stuck with the bills on my own.

I sold it and off the bike went to Raliegh N.C.

I was sad to see her go and missed the hell out of it, and whilst the bike had gone to a new owner, I kept busy restoring bikes and selling them in the paper and on my website, well, things did pick up for me and my name got around, so, out of the blue about a year later, the owner of my now infamous #59 bike, called me to see if i was interested in my machine back.

So a deal was done and in a couple of months, I had her back with me in Southern California, I was more stoked than a steam trains boiler, and thought to myself that I think that I will revamp the whole bike and make a killer Cafe like I wanted to.

One cold and wet day towards Christmas time I decided that I would rip the old girl apart and just build her how I wanted to, but, I was also building a 1928 Roadster in the garage and had no room to do anything in there, so, I parked the bike on my porchway and became to wrench on her, having a cup of tea in between to keep me pinkies warm.

Here is the transformation as I build this bike on my porch way, outside the front door of my house.

Now I am into it, there is no turning back on this bike and I needed it back up and running as quick as I can.

Really starting to look like something now and the Aztec Gold look great and just the look I was actually after.

I chromed the rear swing arm, used a New Harley Rim and laced to CB750 Hub and used CB1100F shocks.

Now I am into this, I thought that I may as well go all the way, so rebuilt engine and I even refaced and drilled my own Brake Rotor.

The Aluminum rim belonged to Don Vesco, I bought it at an auction, so had to have that on my bike as he is a legend.

Everything wanted to go together really well, I was really happy at the way my Cafe was looking.

With all the parts together, including new wire harness etc, she really looked a jewel.

So, My old 1975 Cafe was all done and all dialled in, I was happy as hell with her, then a promoter for a Hot Rod and Custom show invited me to the Grand national Roadster show in Pomona, this was synonymous with cool cars and bikes.

So off I went to Pomona, only to find I am the first ever Cafe Racer to go in this show and against top Chopper builders in the Custom class.

I had a ball there, meeting many cool builders and enthusiasts, I was opposite the infamous Chica Custom Cycles and we got on like a house on fire.

What I didn’t know was that I won FIRST place, I was totally gobsmacked and to this day I still grin as this was one of my proudest moments in my life.

Chica and me became great friends and many times I have met him and actually took three of my Cafe Racers to Sturgis with him.

The photo’s above were taking via Cycle World, as they saw my bike at the show and wanted to do a feature on that Motorcycle and it was indeed featured as a double page spread and I won the American flyers nomination, and they took some cool shots, as you see above me.