Name 'the' cafe racer?

**Brian d marge** · 19th March 2009, 18:47

Originally Posted by T.W.R

Pic 1 : serious end of the cafe' racer spectrum : Kennedy Lyster Special = Norton 650ss engine in Lyster frame total weight 300lb

Pic 2 : speaks for itself

now I know where all my old bike mags have gone .... YOU ave em ...

Thankfully I didnt throw out my collection of easy riders or Iron horse .... nice young ladies in there , there was ......

Stephen

**twotyred** · 19th March 2009, 18:57

no such animal

**T.W.R** · 19th March 2009, 19:00

Originally Posted by Brian d'marge

now I know where all my old bike mags have gone .... YOU ave em ...

Thankfully I didnt throw out my collection of easy riders or Iron horse .... nice young ladies in there , there was ......

Stephen

just got one or two stashed away

**Motu** · 19th March 2009, 19:04

Originally Posted by popelli

I could never understand the rationale behind fitting the triumph engine in the norton frame to build a triton, both bsa and norton built better engines

The Triumph was more ''tunable'' by backyard wannabes.While the Norton may have been a better engine,getting the bits to make it go faster was more difficult.There were so many Triumph bits around that it was fairly easy to bring an old T'Bird up to Bonnie specs.

My Triton wasn't built as a Cafe racer,it was built by Mathew McCahon (RIP 2007) as a beach racer - there being no Classic movement back then,old racers were retired to the beach.A subsequent owner made it into a street bike.Old uncompetitive race bikes were a cheap way to pick up an exotic hybrid back then - I had the Triton,then a Rickman as road bikes,next an old roadracing sidecar became a bike to hoon around the streets on.The classic movement stopped these things being sold for a pitance to uncaring youth like me.

**Paul in NZ** · 20th March 2009, 05:56

The story (as told to me) was more complicated than that re tritons... remembering people in the UK had been assembling all sorts of weird harold specials for yonks so a triton persay was no more special than anything else but....

Dave Degens etc won an edurance race on one and somehow it just caught peoples imagination that here was a fairly simple bike that looked the bizzo that could be made at home. Magazines published articles on how to do it along with templates for engine plates etc.

Set that into an enviroment where new bikes were in relative short supply but there were a few old wrecks about and specials made sense. The advent of HP and the improvement in the economy made better (new) bikes more easily attainable and it made less sense...

One other factor (unproven) was the popular formula junior car class. These were 500cc bike engines in small open wheelers. The engine to have was a 500cc manx Norton but Nortons would not sell you a bare engine for a car so... There were a few Manx chassis about needing engines.. (note - a top class Triton has a pukka Manx chassis, it's still a feathbed frame but very different). The trick was to make it look like a racer hence the swept back headers and all the rest...

This is useful

http://www.ace-cafe-london.com/History.aspx

Look at the bikes in the pictures in period compared to the modern versions....

**Motu** · 20th March 2009, 17:51

Originally Posted by Paul in NZ

One other factor (unproven) was the popular formula junior car class. These were 500cc bike engines in small open wheelers. The engine to have was a 500cc manx Norton but Nortons would not sell you a bare engine for a car so... There were a few Manx chassis about needing engines.. (note - a top class Triton has a pukka Manx chassis, it's still a feathbed frame but very different). The trick was to make it look like a racer hence the swept back headers and all the rest...

Just like in the '80's when there were an excess of YZ125's minus engine.....they went into karts.It was just a pity the YZ had a right hand chain.

I remember Len Perry showing me a brand new,never used featherbed frame ($80,he was always overpricing a bargain).There were a lot of Triumph engines that went in TQ midgets too - but no one want a Triumph minus engine.

**Brian d marge** · 20th March 2009, 22:16

F,,, me ..That brought back a few memories ...I used to do the Chelsea bridge run ..on my Ducati single ,,, ,,, ' fully worked ' ...cept for rake, it was a nice bike ,,, ( the bacon sandwiches were crap on C/bridge dont know why we went there ,,, possibly becuase of the embankment , you could open things out a bit )

Stephen

**LBD** · 21st March 2009, 02:15

Originally Posted by Big Dave

Blah blah blah - Name the ONE.

I want it for an analogy - The... is not a ....

The one that always and still comes to my mind was/is the Rickman Honda 750 from the mid 70s.

Used to see a couple in Canterbury, one in particular with a gold fairing matching the gold Honda tank that I spotted at Ruapuna on the track a couple of times. It never came anywhere that I recall because the rider was a bit of a beginner, may even have be asian... if my memory serves me right.

Can any one else recall this?

Anyhow I liked the bike enough to recall it 30 years on so it must get my vote for a quintesential Cafe Racer....

**Madmax** · 21st March 2009, 06:37

seally 750

**Forest** · 21st March 2009, 14:19

I quite like the Ducati SS models of the late 70s.

To my mind, they are still the ultimate 'factory' cafe racers.

**xwhatsit** · 21st March 2009, 23:28

Fairing. V-twin. worngA!

**Forest** · 22nd March 2009, 10:37

Originally Posted by xwhatsit

Fairing. V-twin. worngA!

You're quite right.

Cafe racers are simply wannabes and look-alikes.

The 750SS and 900SS were the real thing.

**Motu** · 22nd March 2009, 12:46

No,you are still wrong.The ducati was a wannabe - it was a production copy of a home built Cafe racer.Same as the Superglide was the first production chopper.The factories copy what is out in the real world to cash in on a trend.

You can't buy a Cafe racer,or a chopper - you build them.