Cafe Racer Design Guide - Don't Make Your Build Ugly! 

Thanks 🙏 Happy to hear you liked it 😊

You are absolutely correct! It all originated in the UK in the 60s by youths stripping down their fathers old motorcycle to make it go faster 😎 Today it's mostly about style, secondly you want it to sound good and lastly you want it to go decently fast and have good riding abilities 😊 If you want to go racing you really want a completely other type of bike than a cafe racer today 😏

As someone with my own cafe project waiting in the garage, I will estimate the reason most cafes of today are ugly is due to lack of skill or confidence to start the metalworking. 😅

Hehe, it's a learning curve for sure 😊

As someone who was riding in the UK in the 1960s I don’t recognise most of the objects people seek to pass off as ‘cafe racers’ these days. The ‘proper’ cafe racers were styled to look like (and sometimes go like) bikes that were used in short-circuit track racing. So engines were often tuned, footrests were rear-set, handlebars were clip-ons, gear-change often reversed by turning the gear-pedal ‘back-to-front’ to match the footrests. The tank would often be a larger than standard (usually alloy) number that the rider could lay down on when ‘doing the ton’. Generally people wouldn’t play with wheel or tyre sizes, and that big ugly fat front wheel and tyre on modern efforts just looks WRONG, as it also does on so-called ‘scramblers’. My brother-in-law built and raced scramblers and they had BSA frames for strength, Triumph 500cc engines for lightweight power, and usually Norton Roadholder forks for control. And an 18”-21” wheel combination because that worked. The modern (and to my eyes) ugly offerings are just exercises in styling which probably handle like camels and are almost unridable and certainly poor efforts on a race track or a scrambles (motocross) course. So who cares where the lines go or meet up if the bike is not useable? Might as well be a ‘chopper’ (another useless styling exercise).

Times has definitely changed 😌I don't think many people look at cafe racers as racing motorcycles any more, today you would select a completely different kind of bike if you want to go fast. At least for me a cafe racer is mostly about design and nostalgia 😊

Thanks 👍 You are absolutely right. For newer bikes it's better to build something completely different, for example streetfighter style or modernizing the look.

Hehe, I like to keep my workspace tidy - probably a tiny bit above average 🤔

Thanks 🙏 I agree, and when exact symmetry is not possible or feasible the solution is often to balance the elements to give an impression of symmetry 😊

I would guess the quality is not always top notch? 🫤

@@kihestad well,ppl don't know what they are doing.using many cheap parts,trying to be different in ways that are not logical,but the biggest mistake I've seen,is that many care how the bike looks,but not how I feels or rides.and many technical aspects,like wrong petcocks,don't calculate their reserve,and things like that

Hehe, I am curious about that myself as well 😊 I have to get my Cagiva fixed first, but that's not that big of a project 🤞

Thanks for commenting 🙏 Getting feedback from those who actually were part of the "cafe racer movement" back in the 60s is rare, but very fun and interesting 😊 I guess the style is a bit different now than it was 60 years ago. Many trends are short lived, I think one of the most important reasons for the cafe racer style still exists and is relevant is because it has evolved and adapted to newer bikes. Have to agree, putting on a seat sounds stupid 😅

Happy to hear you enjoyed the video 😊 By just copying or being inspired from others build, you will probably implement most of the guidelines. Nice to have a systematic summary of them though, and it makes you even more aware of them and why they are there 😊

Yes, I know these tires are not for everyone. Remember I am building a "hybrid" cafe racer / scrambler, so I am breaking some of the rules with my build. The motorcycle will be used mostly for short trips to the city centre, but also for trips to the beach and on gravel roads. It's like the opposite of having an adventure bike with street tires for driving in asphalt only 😊

I absolutely agree, keeping the original frame and try to work around it (like I tried on my version 1.0) does not really work 😌 I plan to make the tray under the seat just go a tiny bit lower than the bottom of the seat hoop, but having 45 degree angels on the side walls so you cannot see it from "above". I plan to make my own lithium battery based on 18650 batteries, it will be very slim and should fit in a slim seat tray. The seat tray will go from the tank and to the upswing at the rear of the seat hoop. Oooh, a broken valve does not sound good 🫤Thanks for watching and commenting, and good luck with your build as well! 👍👍

Glad you liked it and thanks for the sub! I am trying to minimize the use of cut scenes, I don't like them either. It requires more work though: more planning, practicing and B-roll footage. Trying to improve each video, but sometimes easy solutions are made in the edit just to get done 🥴

Thanks 😊 The tank is the original to this bike, it's a Honda CB400N super dream

Buell is a vey interesting company, their motorcycles as well. Take care of the one you have, good luck improving it 👍

The reverse Comstars (I think Honda called them Comcast) is very cool. They are a bit wider than the older Comstars, and I like that they have sharper "edges" compared to the comstarts 😊

Sounds like a good plan!

That was good news! I hoped someone would approve it, so I did not have to redo it 😊

That's exactly how it was for this bike, the side panels continued where the weird bend is now. Without the side panel the bend is quite useless 😵‍💫

I was going to suggest that. Merging the new covers into the existing end of the tank. I like it so far, Is that a CM400T?

It's a CB400N from 1984

Agree, better to keep the bike original than ruin it with a bad rebuild. If a classic motorcycle is in decent condition, I would recommend restoring it. If it's not a classic, and in poor condition, well then a cafe racer build is OK, but it has to be done right 😠😊

Agree, but there are some other tasks that come first. The next job is to fit the rear fender, then make the seat tray and the seat. I want to do all the wiring and mount all kinds of small stuff to make sure I can remove unnecessary brackets and add new ones where needed. Then comes the fun getting it cleaned up 🤩

Hey, skal sjekk ut YSS shocks - takk for tipset!👍er med i en del FB grupper, men ikke den norske tror jeg - skal sjekke.... 😊

Haha, yes it's absolutely a challenge with these small podfilters. Jetting them to provide more fuel is possible, but for carbs made for laminar flow It's hard to get good performance using podfilters directly on the carb intake as it leads to turbulent flow (I think 🤔).

@@kihestadexactly, I've seen alot of solutions on these honda twins. blocking the wide end of the podfilter with some tape seems to work. placing the podfilters further away from the carbs seems to work better but doesn't look as good. Personally I leave the stock airbox on my cb400t in combination of having a balance in the exhaust system. But yeah, that leaves me to deal with the awkward frame these bikes have.

That's true, the first rule : "the foundation" says the wheels should be fairly similar in size. No guidelines beside that. The wheels are quite important and a big part of the visual appearance, it could absolutely be a separate guideline!

Yep, it's a bit tall at the front and/or low at the rear to be a 100% cafe racer type. But I am not really aiming for that, this one is supposed to be a tiny bit scrambler-ish 😊 I think it will be a bit better with taller rear shocks / raised lower mounts.

Glad to hear that 😊

Yea, I am afraid I have to agree 😞

I have to agree, not sure why though 😏

👍

Thanks 😊 yes, agree about the shocks. Has not found any yet, but still searching

Thanks for the tips! 👍

I am quite satisfied with it, I wanted originally a scissor lift but they are too expensive for my budget. This one was very affordable, at least when I bought it (on sale). I made a video about it here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H4oMGfEGHKc.htmlsi=MDHvpav4Lb3CHR5V

I have never planned a mono shock on this build, and it's not a typical cafe racer thing - although it is possible. Bobbers typically use mono shock, but that is quite a different style

Yea, this tank will never be perfect if the aim is to get a true old school cafe racer style 😌 I have however decided to keep it as is, trying to make it a feature instead of a flaw 😬 By having parallel lines with the upswing on the seat hoop and "reverse curves" on the tank decals I hope it will look OK. At least it's some kind of unique design, and some kind of tribute to the original bike.

@@kihestad Sure it's option. And good one in regard of breaking the "rules". Imo too many stick to guideline X and make their builds fairly generic looking and losing a lot of personality going that route. Like virtually 95% of modern cars. Made with aerodynamics and trends in mind and they usually end up looking really boring and similar. I personally like surprising ideas some have come up. Recently saw for sale 90's Kawasaki ZZR made to modern scrambler and military paint camo style with hand made leather bags and stuff. It looked really bizarre and unexpected in a very good way. Never ever thought that frame and bike like that would be suitable for such conversion.

Yes, that's a very good point! We don't want all bikes to look the same. It's nice to see experiments, some builds really surprise with unexpected and very good looking design 😊

The wheels are the standard on this bike, called Comcast 🤩

@@kihestad thanks mate

wheels what? 🫤

The tank is not the classic cafe racer type, I have decided not to swap it though. Trying to keep some of the bike's original look to see if it can work out 🤞

I am glad you are defending those who ended up with a less successful result. I think however nobody wants their build to end up looking ugly, and hopefully knowing about these guidelines will help those who might not really know how to do it in the first place... 🤔

@@kihestad yeah, no doubt. Even though it may have looked like it, its not a jab at you per se, more of the motorcycle community as a whole who enjoy to belittle others because their bike's styling may not conform to what's 'proper' or 'correct'. Everyone does it, even I'm guilty of it if my mood is off, lol.

Beats me 🤔

@@kihestad 😀😀😀

It's a budget build, a new tank is too expensive for me 😏

It's an acquired taste, not for everyone 😊

Thanks bro, glad to get your approval - tried my best to combine two topics this time: a bit design theory and real life usage of it - glad to hear you thought it worked out 🤩🙏