café racer project:
Honda CB500 Four

Introduction - the café racer

Building a café racer

Resources

Café Racer Builds - Getting started

The Honda CB500/550 Four

Comparisons with the CB750 Four

resources

Notable café racer rebuilds of Honda CB Four's

The project: 1975 CB 500 Four

Specs

Ace Café in the 1950s, already home to bikers and truckers for 12 years and going strong.

Introduction - the café racer

Café racers were born in the Ace Café on London's North Circular Road, a 24-hour pit stop, in the1960s (check out MCN's photo album of the Ace Café over the years), with street bikers modifying their motorbikes with race components to meet the challenge of riding a circuit back to the café before the song on the jukebox ended (usually a rock song, which was the BBC censored).

After visiting Ace Café, pastor Bill Shergold organized a youth club for the riffraff "rockers" or "leather boys" of the café racer scene (think of Fonzie from Happy Days) or the teenage generation that did not live through the Great Depression or the War, Club 59, to share his motorbike passion and to bring the rockers back from the fringe of society as hooligans.

The iconic café racer bike came to be the low and narrow handlebars (ace bars), a long petrol tank and a single seat giving a curved top profile, and a stripped-down minimalist look.

Ace Café sometime in the 1950s/1960s

Father Bill in front of Ace Café

Building a café racer

Resources

Café Racer Builds - Getting started

CMSNL OEM spare parts for those in the EU, for Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki as well as aftermarket parts for classic bikes. Excellent site for its exploded diagrams!

Where to get café racer parts around the world + advice from Bike Brewers

Return of the Café Racers with everything on building one of your own.

Fix's excellent article on building a café racer -- sums up the big main things to convert a bike to a café racer:

The Honda CB500/550 Four

The entire Honda CB series is known to be a solid line of bikes and a popular choice for custom builds for its simplicity (and plenty of available inexpensive parts), with the CB 750 (69 hp inline four) considered as the first superbike. The smaller sister CB500, produced from 1971-1973 (50hp @ 9,000rpm, top speed 100 mph, mileage 40-50 mpg, 420 lbs, price 1972/2008: US$1,460/US$1k-$2.5k; more info on Motorcycle Classics) -- in 1974 it was succeeded by the 550 which stayed in production until 1977....