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Before i found my Kat, i was looking for a classic Honda or something similar so that i could make a Cafe Racer. I like the look and how nice you could make them look for not too much money. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on Cafe Racers applied to a Kat. I have a 1996 Kat 600. It needs work so i figured that now or never it gets done. and if anyone has made their Kats into Cafes then post them up. i would love to see how nice they can look. This isnt 100% either but, im interested. Advice?
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to be honest... it's not the best cafe platform. i love cafe racers and im cafeing mine out and bp has a similar set up but there are better bikes for it. but good luck.Please, Just go home, relax, and have a think or two... hell... have as many as you can handle! It'll do all of us some good.
Tony
94 Katana 600 -
As Tony said, my inspiration was the Cafe look.
I'm going to move this over to the Street Fighter section...Comment
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thanks guys. and sorry Peter i wasn't quite sure what section to put this in. street fighters are pretty similar to cafes right? to my knowledge a street fighter is , to be vague about it, is like a modern cafe. just slight differences right?Comment
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No worries bud, just one of the services I provide..Originally posted by GolferGeek View Post
Cafe racers were bikes that started stock and the owners mix and matched parts, sometimes just carbs, sometimes engines.. The greatest, most lusted over being the Triton. The Norton "feather-bed" frame was the state of the art. The Triumph Twin the engine with the most power potential. Put them together and it's magic. Bimota based their business on that model. The took the best engines of the time and built magic chassis to put them in.
Now a street fighter, that starts as a whole race replica street bike. The "kid" who owns it crashes it (as that sometimes goes) but then the kid gets to thinking. "Hey, I could take the $2000 insurance money and get the plastics fixed and repainted. Or, Olin's shocks, forks from a newer bike. engine goodies.. Slap on an old single headlight and screw the looks" (more or less)Comment
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Street fighters are really a Euro version of the chopper- but it came out of the cafe' movement, so they are closely linked cousins, really. Frankly, you can make any bike in any style you want, that is the great thing about motorcycles, it takes so little to so radically alter the original look. If you can make a harley cruiser into a cafe bike- you can turn ANY bike into a cafe' bike LOL
It is easier than you think with a Kat, because the tank design is not so far off- here is where I see it being done- You have to chop off the tail subframe, and get a new top yoke for your forks, and you are mostly there. That is after you remove all plastics, of course. you would have to re-mount a new rear subframe for the tail section- depends on how much of a fabricator you are, you can buy a fiber tail section, or make your own. with a top yoke for your triple tree that holds 7/8 bars, you can get your cafe bars, and then you just need a round headlight to mount it up- and viola'- you have a cafe racer.Comment
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Sorry bud but I disagree with about everything you have said.Originally posted by Cruisingram View Post
Street fighter are not analogous to choppers. The Cafe racer maybe.
Street fighters and Cafe racers are only connected by street racing.
And yeah you can turn any bike into a Care racer but only if you change frames Not every frame or suspension is suitable for racing.
I agree about the tank..
You do not have to chop the sub frame on either type SF or CR..
Adding 7/8 bars is a street fighter thing, Cafe racers did drop their bars but the "real" ton up boys ran clip ons..Comment
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Originally posted by Cruisingram View Post
eh..... I disagree. the frame of the katana around the motor will need alot of attention. The frame is just too big! And it's got a lot of tabs and brackets sticking out that need to be taken care of. Plus it's got the weirdest parimiter / double cradle frame thing going on that makes it a challenge for cafe racer builders. As i said before the katana isn't the best platform for a cafe racer... but i feel that if you plan ahead and sketch it out it will turn out to be a good looking bike.Please, Just go home, relax, and have a think or two... hell... have as many as you can handle! It'll do all of us some good.
Tony
94 Katana 600Comment
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now your talking! Spondon frames look amazing too.Please, Just go home, relax, and have a think or two... hell... have as many as you can handle! It'll do all of us some good.
Tony
94 Katana 600Comment
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The chopper and the street fighter are the Difference between American streets and Euro streets- where did the chopper come from> Same racing pedigree as the street fighter look- the word "chopper" came about because salt racers would "chop" the fender because the front fender would rust out, and they would take the rear fender and 'chop" it and put it up front- the rake came about because more rake = higher speed stability. Later, it became more style than racing- and in Europe, the Cafe racer, the same thing- they didn't have clip ons until the early 70s, instead, they turned thier 7/8s bars upside down, or bent them into the shape of "angel wings" which was close to the same placement as clip ons. Like with Choppers and lakes racers, at some point, street fighters diverged from cafe racers due to the reality of the roads they were driving on- in America, long, straight interstates really meant you didn't need a super handling bike- or even a rear suspension to some degree LOL- where the urban settings in Euro are very much like there are here in Honolulu- dirt bike bars, no fairings, lane splitting, jumping curbs, going slow for a minute, then jumping up to 100mph on the autobahn for a couple minutes, then back into heavy traffic. No long straight roads. Go to a Euro bike show sometimes, look at the street fighters- they went with the same overkill of the look as the choppers in America- huge fat rear tires and lots of stuff that have nothing to do with utility and everything to do with looks.Originally posted by Black_peter View Post
The street fighter is to the Euros as the choppers are the US- different looks and bikes for different roads and riding styles- but both looks go with the foundations in racing and riding.
bars for a cafe racer are called "clubmans" by the way- you can get them fairly cheap- but you have to have 7/8 risers to use them LOL-
You chop off the rear subframe of the Kat, and make a bracket to hold one of these tail sections on it- http://www.cb750cafe.com/parts.php?id=61
use the headlight, clubmans etc- you have a cafe racer. Spoke wheels wold probably be the only thing you really have to have-
Seriously- people have built cafe' racers from sport bikes, much less a Katana
Typically, BTW- for the most part, cafe racers only cut stuff off the bike that were not neccesary to the bikes going down the road- they did very little if any frame work- with some notable exceptions like Spondon or Rickman- though Rickman was not really cafe, more racer. Chopping brackets and doo-dads off the frame was the cafe thing, and chopping off the tail and adding a different seat or deleting the rear fender completely was the thing- not-re-doing the frame- the frame has little to do with the cafe look, the tank "knee cut outs" were a much bigger deal really as far as metal fab went.
This guys has a perfect bike for an example of a cafe racer and street fighter look mixed- though he calls it cafe straight up
On one of the best street fighter sites also has a cafe section- http://www.customfighters.com/forums...play.php?f=143Last edited by Cruisingram; 04-09-2011, 01:44 PM.Comment
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OK...
Now I know you're just pulling my leg..
You really had me going there...Comment
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Check the orange one I just posted- definately a great cafe bike.
Lots of ideas here:
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I went to several "rockers vs mods" runs this last year, got a lot of pics, got to talk to a lot of influential people "in the scene" and am seriously considering using the pics to write a book on the history of the custom motorcycle in the US and Europe.Originally posted by Black_peter View Post
here are a couple wiki entries on both cafe and street fighter styles:
The cafe racer has a lot in common with the chopper or bobber scene in the USA and both have their roots with post-World War II veterans. Riders rejected the large transportation-oriented motorcycles of the time by taking these motorcycles and removing parts deemed unnecessary. While American GIs would take military-spec Harley Davidsons and "chop" off anything unnecessary to improve performance, European veterans took similar measures with their motorcycles. Both looked to make the standard factory motorcycles faster and lighter, although the difference between the nature of the US and European road systems led to somewhat different results. While the Americans favored a low heavy cruiser style of motorcycle for straight line comfort, the Europeans preferred a higher, more nimble motorcycle better suited to the more twisting roads of their nations. In Britain, many roads can be traced to Roman origin and even older roads following terrain. There were no interstates/autobahn type roads until late 1950s. 'A' roads were(are) better surfaced and wider with multiple travel lanes in built-up areas or between urban areas but may be only two lane undivided highway in low traffic areas. It must be remembered that it was also a style born largely out of the poverty of Post-War Europe and so not given to the excesses of later Harley-Davidson billet barge style customization.
(It must be noted here that choppers were cheap bikes at first)
Though it has its styling roots in the Café racer culture of the 1950s and 1960s, the streetfighter is very much inspired by the new Japanese bikes of the late 1970s and early 1980s,[10] possibly from young riders in the UK who couldn't afford to replace damaged fairings after repeated crashes. Later, more appropriate headlights were added, then high handlebars to aid in wheelies and other stunts.[11][12]Comment
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