Cafe Racer Forum banner
81 - 100 of 140 Posts
Pluses: tire doesnt look like it will scrub anything. the swingarm swap is kind cool. pretty decent fit and finish it appears.

Minuses: the exhaust is horrible. just horrible. all those little kinks and bends. it doesnt flow aesthetically and probably not performance wise either *cough* Stock carbs and pods. He spent that much time constructing this thing and wouldnt even pop for a couple of flatslide mikunis (hell even round slides off of _something_) to give it a little punch?

The wheelbase vs bodywork is off. It reminds me of those slammed hayabusas with the 14" over swingarms i see wobbling around town. I understand this was probably due to the swing arm he selected/built whatever. but make the seat longer.

Does it not have a shifter? I cant make one out in the picture.
 


oh... and it's going to lose the bike of the month voting to a CB175 that looks unfinished.... just 'sayin

That is a lot of interesting work to waste on a cx500. Imagine if he started with a real motorcycle. I actually dig the pull type rear suspension. The exhaust is trying too hard. surprisingly that probably fixes most of the issues with the cx500 chassis - doesn't fix the engine though. Nothing short of a galatic shot of nitrous or a hairdrier big enough to swallow small birds will fix that bike being slow.

There is no honor in being DTT bike of the month - that's pretty much a stamp of approval that your motorcycle is shit. In order for it to mean anything the judges have to have knowledge of the subject matter and standards. It's member judged so they have neither.
 
every bend in exhaust is a little more friction. I would have come off the heads, made a 180 and let the resulting pipe mimic the intake/exhaust slant and run up to the muffler. like a 180 turn and maybe a 45 and thats it. Better carbs. and somebody somewhere could probably grind some sort of cam. But that would require you know...tuning...and engine work...and stuffs....

Realistically...in that frame config turboing it would have been easier exhaust fab than what he did. Where did a stock turbo cx carry the turbo? up front? Wonder if a ddfi controller could be coerced into running it. ah crap...
 
raven, you've already invested too much thought into a cx500.

The cx carried the turbo up front and to the right of the radiator (I think). At least that is where the exhaust exited from. I've ridden one but I don't think I've ever seen one without it's bodywork. They really tried to temper turbo lag with that design.

Honestly If I am gonna turbo a v-twin I'd rather turbo an ironhead or a ducati monster - at least when you grenade it you can get parts.
 
moto guzzi turboed might be fun too.
 
Poking the Bear. Reminds me of something.... Google Shake that bear. I'll get fired if I link it here. :cool:

The banned me twice before I ever posted anything on their sites. The thrid time I was just poking the bear.

The owner of DTT is a member here. he posts occasionally when I say rude things about him or the forum.

Initially I was pissed because you could get good deals from noobs who had no idea about the parts they were selling, but apparently they don't want their members to take my money.

I used to post some of the more unsafe builds here and I think I am part of the reason why they don't let you see embeded pics if you aren't a member (or at least I like to flatter myself that I am). Actually I am pretty sure just they way half their members were treated here is why that forums is an overmoderated hypocritical toilet. For a while it was the official forum of cafe racer tv - that should tell you volumes.
 
Discussion starter · #89 ·
And there the distinction is lost on you, apparently. That bike is in no way "cosplaying".

-Deek
I was simply referring to the appearance, not it's functionality. Super-wide cooling fins, the little circular pneumatic bladders, all the big belt sprockets, the overly-massive cast wheels...I thought the whole thing made it look very busy, like someone who was wearing a bunch of sci-fi props.
 
You have to gauge your audience here. This is the #1 google search hit for cafe racer so we get A LOT of guys and girls who saw something cool and fashion-y and now want to jump a bandwagon. Motorcycle TV programming has been largerly chopper-centric for the last 10-15 years so for most that is their only frame of reference. The problem is that what works and is lauded in the chopper world does not work for the rest of motorcycling. Some of the often terrible misconceptions are:

- you need to start with as cheap a bike as possible. While this may work for a full boat custom where the only thing stock at the end is going to be the engine mounting points and you don't really care how it works as a motorcycle, the reality is a performance bike needs a solid base to start from and often you buy the previous owners work at a discount.

- you are a hero if you can bring an absolute piece of shit back from the dead - eh it's an admirable feat for sure but not what most noobs are up to and certainly not the path to instant gratification. It's also less impressive and less of a bragging right to people who value well maintained old bikes.

- Looks are everything. A chopper doesn't have to stop, handle all that well, or be comfortable. In fact the ones that seem to get the best press don't to any of those things well at all. It just has to look good and sell people on how you are the baddest mofo on the block. It is not the sum total definition of all custom bikes. Adventure bikes, dirt bikes, race bikes, and yes cafe racers are all bikes where their function defines them. It has to work well (or at least better than stock) first and foremost. Otherwise you are just building a differently shaped chopper. If you are doing it right, the bike will get you 85% of the way in the looks department anyway and what's left you can make aesthetic choices about. There is no such thing as an ugly race bike but there are plenty of ugly bikes pretending to be racers.

- there is some sort of scene, culture, etc....that you get access to just by having a "cafe racer". This is largely fiction. Every town has an old bike community, but not everywhere is it specific to one group like it is with the chopper community. cafe racers did not start and end with the english rockers in the 50's and 60's - IT went from the late 40's to 1992. Why 1992? because that is when the first generation of race replica sportbikes hit the used market and became affordable to the masses. Up until that point if you wanted to go fast on a motorcycle you had to build a fast motorcycle - there wasn't a showroom race ready darling. The guys I knew as a kid in the 80's who called themselves cafe racers rode late 70's/early 80's superbikes, idolized spencer, and lawson, cooley, and rainey, and took those big jap leg burners out for top speed runs at night down the highways. Every generation has it's own heroes and villains and it's own definition of things. A lot of the old timers I hang out with call production class racers cafe racers because the bikes are "technically" street legal. These are guys who saw the birth of the superbike era first hand. However, that kind of shit doesn't sell leather jackets and patches, and what not - but greased up 50's rockers do. Anybody who talks about being part of a culture and being connected to history has drank the kool aide and been sold a lifestyle by magazines and television. IF you look at the real heroes of performance motorcycling from the 50's till now - guys like Dick O'Brien, Don Vesco, Cook Neilson, Don Emde, Reno Leoni, Jimmy Adamo, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, and on and on and on none of them look like nancy boy english rockers - they just look like men on a mission.

The reality is that because this place gets inundated with the tragically stupid who are also unwilling to listen to good sound advice (because good sound advice never made anybody a hero) it is super important to give a proper introduction here about who you are. The advice changes depending on the audience and you don't know your audience until they tell you who they are. It is terribly presumptuous for people to think that just because a forum exists it is there merely to help them and their questions. Really forums exist for entertainment - very little good is actually done in this space. Sure it can help you think through a problem, and it's is nice to talk things out and get feedback but you get back what you put out.

There is no one answer. There is no instant gratification. In this hobby there are only bikes and the enjoyment that comes from riding them. Everything else is window-dressing.
I appreciate the thoughtful reply. This is obviously the wrong forum for me since I'm not interested in an entertainment forum.

Enjoy the 'Bear-poking'.

Cheers!
 
I appreciate the thoughtful reply. This is obviously the wrong forum for me since I'm not interested in an entertainment forum.

Enjoy the 'Bear-poking'.

Cheers!
Another one shot his wad debating G.

Do I think he'll go off and build a bike that I find inspiring or even serviceable? No

Was there even an actual bike involved in this thread or was it all hypothetical? I dint see no pictures. You fuckers like to type waaay more than I like to read.

Brevity it's underrated.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^Look here I said some shit in less than a hundred words.
 
I am wondering if DTT members are signing up here for the sole purpose of pushing the standard buttons.....



...and Geets, it's been far too long since you told someone to go slam their "member" in a door.
 
new guy here and have been thinking bout building a cm400. i'm pretty new to the bike building thing and was wondering why i shouldn't build one or try to.
I'm decent with hand tools but want to try some fabrication.
 
new guy here and have been thinking bout building a cm400. i'm pretty new to the bike building thing and was wondering why i shouldn't build one or try to.
I'm decent with hand tools but want to try some fabrication.
Those are the best.
 
81 - 100 of 140 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top