Even as a grown man, it’s perfectly okay to admit you’re afraid of tarantulas. In fact, if you are somebody who doesn’t mind one of these crawling across you arm, then we’re going to judge you, not think you’re a manly man.
When it comes to these tarantulas however, we’d to do anything to get our hands on some of their work. The Tarantulas is a group of friends in Northeast Portland that makes custom bikes, specializing in cafe motorcycles. Their customs are made in efforts to provide advice, build a community, and create new motorcycle masterpieces.
Honda CB750 by The Tarantulas
Honda CB750 by The Tarantulas, There’s a lot to be said for bare metal, on this particular bike I can’t imagine any paint job looking better than that brushed steel fuel tank and seat cowl.
This Honda CB750 by The Tarantulas is one of the better Honda CB750 customs out there, it was built by The Tarantulas, a Portland based custom motorcycle garage with a serious talent for very tidy, minimalist engineering.
The contrast between the tan-leather and brushed steel works incredibly well on this bike, the custom upholstery was all done by the talented Ginger at New Church Moto, he’s available for custom jobs as well so hit that link if you need anything done.
Honda CB750 by The Tarantulas
The custom rear cowl, oil tank, battery box, clip-ons and levers on the Honda CB750 by The Tarantulas were all fabricated by James Crowe over at Crowe Customs, he’s also available for custom work if you’re looking for some modern blacksmithery. Hell, between Ginger and James you could probably get anything you want put together.
All in all this is one of the more well executed CB750s we’ve featured here for a while, and whilst a lot of that comes down to my preference for clean/minimalist design, I think this bike has a broader appeal that would captivate people regardless of their affinity for 2-wheeled machines.
Yamaha XS500 cafe racer Strange as it may be, we’ve never featured a Yamaha XS500 before. So it’s a pleasure to show this lovely home-made custom, built by Philadelphia-based Ted Cichocki, that’s caused a stir on the Do The Ton café racer forum. “This whole journey began after owning a Yamaha V-Star 650 custom,” says Ted. “I realized I enjoyed working on bikes more then riding them, and was inspired by the vintage race bike look. I knew I wanted to build one for myself one day. So I sold the V-Star and began searching for my first complete bike build.” Ted discovered a crippled Yamaha XS500 only a few miles from his house, and bought it for $200. “I did literally everything on the bike myself, except for the chrome plating and the powder coating of the frame.” The Yamaha XS500 cafe racer performance has been upgraded with a steering damper, pod filters and a re-jet, but it’s impossible to list everything else that’s been done: it’s loaded with custom parts from fork ears to clubman bars to a Rocket Four seat from Carpy.
Yamaha XS500 cafe racer
Ted took advice from his father and Do The Ton members throughout the build, and after procuring semi-professional equipment, did all the paint himself. The tank is an original XS500 item, but Ted hammered the sides in to reshape it.“I’ve invested about two years into the bike—just weekend work—and about $3,000,” he says. “The investment probably won’t yield any return, but this is a bike I am going to hold on to and cherish forever—just because it means so much to me.”
Thanks to Damian McFadden for the tip. Images by Leigh Wetterau.
What do you do with a half finished 2001 Buell X1 Lightning project bike? That was the question facing John Whitby when he saw it. His friend, Mark Blundell, runs a salvage yard in Canada where the owner brought the non running Buell to get it off his hands. When John and Mark later looked at the Buell, adding new plugs, a battery and some fuel, they had a runner, though still half way to somewhere only the previous owner could know. It sat in a corner for a year when John figured he could do something with it, he had visions of a cafe racer.
Buell X1 cafe racer in the Norton Manx style
Stripping the Buell down, a Lyta-style three-gallon short circuit Norton fuel tank was ordered plus an alloy oil tank and matching seat. Of course, those would never fit the Buell frame so surgery was involved, cutting away the top of the frame and rebuilding it to serve as the base for the tank and seat and creating the look of the Norton featherbed frame it was meant to emulate.
Buell X1 cafe racer in the Norton Manx style
A BMW fender, Lucas style lights, Norman Hyde handlebars, a Sportster carburetor in place of the fuel injection, lots of custom fabrication and all of the remaining Buell pieces combine to make a pretty convincing Norton Manx with some fairly obvious modern touches. In other words, you get the look of the old Norton with the handling of a modern Buell, in my mind, that’s a pretty satisfying combination and far superior to some of the repurposed Buells I’ve seen. Nice work, John!
I stumbled onto this bike, as I do so often, because it’s currently for sale on eBay. Cycle Canada has a very nice article about it, too. It seems to me, the new owner would have a pretty sweet ride and it serves as a source of ideas for anyone with an older Buell who might be tempted to rework it into something new.
This text is taken straight from Ace Cafe London website because they say it best. Some of the pictures have been changed to protect the innocent and maybe some of the guilty as well! But the sentiment is there… …was built in 1938 as a roadside cafe to cater to traffic, particularly hauliers, using the new North Circular Road. With its proximity to Britain´s then new and fast arterial road network and being open 24 hours,the Ace Cafe soon attracted motorcyclists.
Once the Ace Cafe London was established, the owner’s thoughts turned to the motor trade. In 1939 he opened a service station with a battery of 10 pumps on adjoining land, with a spacious washing bay, showroom and repair shop.
The Ace Cafe London was reopened in temporary accommodation and subsequently rebuilt in 1949.
Before its ‘greasy spoon’ tag, the Ace Cafe was a state-of-the-art cafe/restaurant, with home-made food being prepared and cooked on the premises.
Ace Cafe London
The post-war increase in road traffic and advent of the “teenage” phenomena saw the Ace booming, and with it, the arrival of the “Ton-Up-Boys”. The British motorcycle industry was at its peak, and along came Rock ´n´ Roll. Not played on radio stations, initially the only place it could be heard was at fairgrounds or on jukeboxes at transport cafes.
It became the place to meet, have a meal or cup of tea,arrange runs (often to other cafes or the coast)or simply to mend your bike. People came to listen to the jukebox, many subsequentlystarting bands or clubs. Some gaining successand considerable reputation.
From this powerful fusion of motorbikes and Rock ´n´ Roll came the legends of record-racing, “drop the coin right into the slot”, and race to a given point and back before the record finished.
The Ace Cafe, with its combination of motorbikes, speed and Rock ´n´ Roll was the launchpad for many famous racers and the birthplace for many bands.
The tabloid press carried many articles portraying cafes as the places where decent people didn´t go.
Changes in the social order, the growth of the car market at the expense of the motorbike industry, and the expansion of the motorway network saw the Ace Cafe servingits’ last egg and chips in 1969.
Ace Cafe London in 1969.
The building had been used as a cafe and filling station. The cafe played a leading role in the 1963 Sidney Furie film THE LEATHER BOYS, which starred Rita Tushingham, Colin Campbell and Dudley Sutton, utilising many of the cafes’ patrons as ‘extras’.
Shooting scenes at the Ace Cafe, Furie, eager to achieve realism, took advice from the local riders. “You’d never find an Ace boy wearing them jeans” he was told one morning.
Furie’s direction and strong performances combined to make The Leather Boys one of the great British films of the sixties.
Rita Tushingham, Colin Campbell, Dudley Sutton, and author of the novel, The Leather Boys, Gillian Freeman, were all present for the Grand Reopening in September 2001.
The legend of the Ace Cafe lives on in the minds of those who went there, those who wish they went there and those too young to have been there.”
Whilst this is an abridged version of the story of the Ace Cafe, the story has hardly been properly fleshed out here. There has been an explosion of interest in the cafe racer bike and the culture recently.
There are websites like “dotheton.com”, “benjiescaferacer.com”, “rocitycafe.com” and so many more. The list is long.
Better still, with the price of insurance, cost of new motorcycles and government fees, many young folks are finding that classic bikes are a cheap way into bike ownership.
Let’s hope this movement helps create a rennaissance regarding cafe racer bikes, and classic Japanese bikes in particular! And a lot of credit goes to the Ace Cafe London for kickstarting this phenomenon. There’s even a new TV series about cafe racers. Google it!
A café racer, originally pronounced “caff” racer, is a type of motorcycle as well as a type of motorcyclist. Both meanings have their roots in the 1960s British counterculture group the Rockers, or the Ton-up boys, although they were also common in Italy, Germany, and other European countries.
In Italy, the term refers to the specific motorcycles that were and are used for short, sharp speed trips from one coffee bar to another.
Rockers were a young and rebellious Rock and Roll counterculture that wanted a fast, personalized and distinctive bike to travel between transport cafés along the newly built arterial motorways in and around British towns and cities.
The goal of many was to be able to reach 100 miles per hour (called simply “the ton”) along such a route where the rider would leave from a cafe, race to a predetermined point and back to the cafe before a single song could play on the jukebox, called record-racing.
They are remembered as being especially fond of Rockabilly music and their image is now embedded in today’s rockabilly culture.Rockers on Cafe Racers at Cafe, UK.
A classic example of this was to race from the Ace Cafe London on The North Circular road in NW London to the Hanger Lane junction as it then was – it is now the more famous Hanger Lane Gyratory System – and back again. The aim was to get back to the Ace Cafe before the record on the jukebox had finished.
Given that some of the Eddie Cochran tunes that were in vogue at this time were less than two minutes long, the racers had to make the three-mile round trip at extremely high speed.
Buell X1 cafe racer in the Norton Manx style
Buell X1 cafe racer in the Norton Manx style
Buell X1 cafe racer in the Norton Manx style
…was built in 1938 as a roadside cafe to cater to traffic, particularly hauliers, using the new North Circular Road. With its proximity to Britain´s then new and fast arterial road network and being open 24 hours,the Ace Cafe soon attracted motorcyclists.
People came to listen to the jukebox, many subsequentlystarting bands or clubs. Some gaining successand considerable reputation.
Ace Cafe London in 1969.
The goal of many was to be able to reach 100 miles per hour (called simply “the ton”) along such a route where the rider would leave from a cafe, race to a predetermined point and back to the cafe before a single song could play on the jukebox, called record-racing.