cafe racer | David DeMartini actual

Hunting to find info on the missing parts from my bike, I’ve collected a few of these as reference. What I notice in this one, is that my side panels are missing some sort of ‘intake grate (black on this blue bike).
kz400-01

After a lot of work, documented here on VW Vortex.. he’s got one hell of a cool result!

Then it starts to look like this. Very clean.. classy. I’m still split on going retro-rat or going with super-clean (but I want to do silver, not perl white). Decisions.. decisions…

cafe10

Ordering some parts

8d92_1_b I want to get this thing going… and the first step will be to get me some of those clubman bars. Found these, hopefully I did not get douched on the price ($52.00 with shipping), from Oregon.

I’m thinking that I can mount them either up or down, depending on how radical I want to make this thing.

At least I’ve taken the first step, and decided that I am NOT going to ‘restore’ the bike, but instead build my first ever Cafe Racer Replica. God help me. At least this will be A LOT less expensive than playing with sports cars, and more mentally challenging than watching Television (gack).

Tonight, I think I’ll really dig into this thing by doing some sanding and bobbing the back fender off.

And a couple more interesting ‘inputs’ on final styling:

Check out the tail light and turn signals.. very cool.

And one more idea for the road:

like the dual exit pipes on the right, red tank and that seat is sweet.

I’ve been looking at a number of vintage bikes, and some cafe racer bikers. Going to save these for reference, and what about each one I really like. It will be interesting to come back to these articles once I finally finish the bike and see what I was thinking.

Bike 1 – Honda twin

black painted forks
cool custom high routed exhaust. The wrapping adds a nice effect
chopped off tail
stripped off fenders, front and rear
it’s also a parallel twin

Bike 2 – Honda twin

black paint with gold pinstripe
chrome megaphone exhaust in polished stainless looks cool
short bars
it still has the fenders but they are minimalist and painted.
nice steel braided oil cooler lines
painted branding (no cast emblems)

Bike 3 – Honda CR550F

cafe03

red and yellow paint, with black side panels is a nice look.
black painted exhaust might be easier to achieve than fixing the pitted stock chrome system
again, the bobbed tail

Bike 4 – Honda (looks like an old Silverwing)

cafe04

I was originally considering silver paint for the bike, not sure about the blue stripe.
like idea of the painted frame
one thing that I really liked is the flat metal cover below the seat, instead of the stock curved piece.

Bike 5 – Norton

cafe05

gloss black paint, and stripe.
rubber boots on the forks
silver painted forks (I think)
color matched hub on the rear brake

Bike 6 – Norton

cafe06

nice custom job
modern front inverted forks and brakes
cool high-mount megaphone exhaust
also looks like a mono-shock rear end, very trick.

Bike 7 – Honda (I think its an old XR400)

cafe07
cafe08

looks like a dirtbike single converted to a street cafe racer
cool chopped rear end

Bike 09 – Kawasaki, maybe?

cafe09

paint, love the flat olive retro-vintage WWII paint scheme
site exit mega-can exhaust, in black
top mounted bars (no clipons) but sort of inverted looking!
front still has fender, not so sure about that..
rubber boots on forks

Bike 9

flat black paint. I can do that right now.
know official name for those bars, ‘clubmans’ it would be the place to start!

David DeMartini actual

Tag Archives: cafe racer

KZ400 – more thoughts on the Cafe project