1973 Honda XL 285

Short of cash after the build, Jake was forced to send the XL out to work in a bakery

Finding and showing the world great custom bikes. It’s what Pipeburn does. But being at the pointy end of the whole process with it’s constant search for the latest and greatest can easily make you forget about the other amazing part of the process – the part where all you guys arrive and check out the cool bikes. Now here’s the really cool part of the whole process; like some crazy custom bike feedback loop the bikes we find and feature then go on to inspire the new builds to a greater or lesser extent. Like the simple, clean, elegant Honda you see here. Except in the case of Jake Lyons and his XL it was a little more, shall we say, direct than usual. See Jake went from nothing to knee deep in grease and Shoichiro design after his first ever session of Pipeburning. So if you’ll allow us a brief moment of pride, please enjoy the bike that Pipeburn built.

1973 Honda XL 285

“I’m Jake Lyons – a Washington contactor and bike fan. While on a job site a couple years ago I began to speak with an electrician about motorcycles. Prior to this conversation I had zero awareness of any sort of vintage scene, I had only owned enduros and newer sport bikes. He insisted that I take a look at your site; arriving home that day I pulled up Pipeburn and after about 6 hours and 60+ pages later the decision was clear – I would be building a bike. I already had a sentimental old XL sitting in my shop and I began work immediately.”

1973 Honda XL 285

“I pulled up Pipeburn and after about 6 hours
and 60 pages later the decision was clear -
I would be building a bike”

“This XL 250 was in fact the first motorcycle I had ever ridden and learned to ride on back in 4th grade. My dad picked it up in the late 70′s and dragged it around the states, beating it up along the way. In late 2008, it had nearly 40 years of abuse when I pried it from under some old lawn chairs below his deck. He made me complete various tasks, including climbing and pruning cedar trees before I could have the title but I was rewarded with this 4-valve, rusty matriarch of a machine.

After getting it home I put new tires on it and drove it once before the kick starter snapped off inside the case while up in the mountains. After nervously compression starting it and getting it home, it sat for over 2 years until my eyes were opened to Pipeburn. I started the project in mid July 2010.”

1973 Honda XL 285

Won’t

1973 Honda XL 285

somebody spare a thought for the poor tuna cans…

“I started with a complete tear down. I stripped most of the excess tabs off the frame, welded in a hoop and sent that and the swing arm off to powder coating. I do all of my own work and put the majority of other components into primer, wet sanded, and then base/clear black. The tank was beat by my father and took some effort to straighten out; the blue paint being a 40’s Ford truck code. The motor was rebuilt with the JE 285 kit in trade for a parts bike I had bought for it. The seat I built using a piece of steel I yanked out of the bin at a recycling place and then plasma cut it out after making a cardboard template. I then used some neoprene foam and a steak knife to get the shape I wanted. I had all of the paint and body work supplies from my car projects. The bike fit perfectly in my shop and just came together really smoothly.

Being my first bike, each decision took at least 10 times as long to make as the actual building took. I got the bike into a roller within a month and then took an additional year to really finish it, working in the evenings. The 13 year-old across the street, Harrison, usually helps me with projects and this was no different. He was a huge help and came over to work pretty much any time my garage door was open.”

“After a battle fitting the front CB 18″ wheel I got for free, using a CB 360t front end and some pro bono millwork by my friend Mike, I finally fitted the 4:00×18 Avons I had been drooling over. I had it dyno tuned a couple of times before the bugs were worked out for the 285 kit but now it first kicks and runs super strong. It even picks up the front end into second, which was not quite an option before the build.

I’m completely addicted to these classics now and have several other projects in varying degrees of completion. A 1968 Yamaha YCS1, a 1974 Honda CB550SS, and a 1981 Honda CB750k. I love the energy of these bikes, they have a distinct soul in comparison to their modern day successors.”

1973 Honda XL 285

So there you have it. And do we feel like proud new fathers of a beautiful, bouncing baby bike. Scott’s just lit the stogie and I’m on my third glass of single malt. Jake, the mother in this case, is doing well though he’s obviously a bit tired and definitely needs his rest. Quiet now – you don’t want to wake her…

Kawasaki W650 by Deus

The French MotoGP rider Randy de Puniet has been spending a fair bit of time in Australia lately. So when he needed a bike to get around Sydney, he gave Deus a call. “Randy’s design brief was for a middleweight, 2-up twin,” says Deus creative director Carby Tuckwell. “Easy enough to kick around the city, and with enough legs for out of town.” Deus’ head wrench Jeremy Tagand is also French, so this custom Kawasaki W650 has been dubbed The French Connection. It’s been lowered at both ends, and the rims and hubs have been given a film of black satin paint to accentuate the big-tired look. The tank is from an SR500, with a simple Daytona speedometer tucked into the front cut-out; a vintage-style headlight supports the tachometer.

Kawasaki W650 by Deus

With the air box gone, this W650 breathes in through K&N filters, and out via a custom 2-into-2 exhaust system. To add to the old school look, the fork legs were swapped over and the Tokico caliper positioned on the lefthand side. The forks themselves have been upgraded with higher-performance internals, and Ikon shocks keep the back end planted. The front and rear fenders are custom, and the whole shebang is finished off in a hard-hitting orange, black and white paintjob. It certainly looks the business—and with de Puniet on board, should be a match for much bigger machines around the city streets.

Kawasaki W650 by Deus

Kawasaki W650 by Deus

Kawasaki W650 by Deus

Kawasaki W650 by Deus

Kawasaki W650 by Deus

Dnepr K750 Bobber

Kickin’ it Slavic style. Note the great headlight adornments

The Cold War. A passive aggressive stand-off par excellence between the world’s then super powers that lasted almost 50 years. It was meant to be the ultimate separation of ideals with a bloody great wall through Germany as the ultimate “this is mine and that is yours” gesture; like two kids fighting in the back of the family car. But with nuclear weapons instead of a few pinching fingers. As high and mighty as their egotistical intentions might have been, all it really served to do was flood the East with an obsession with American Pop Culture and flood the west with some pretty lame espionage movies. Spies Like Us, anyone? Thought not. While we’re not sure much Eastern-influenced biking goodness came to the West, we know that at least one really great thing that came/is coming from the East. We’d like to submit as evidence exhibit A, Richard Gordon Faika’s “Charlotte” from his Metric Customs Shop. Na zdorovie!

Dnepr K750 Bobber

Tank emblems subtly match cylinder heads. That’s art, that is

“Richard here. My interest in two-wheelers apparently formed early. When I was 4 years old I gave my scooter a thicker rear wheel and removed the breaks. At 7 years old I swapped a home-made air rifle for a moped. I never really got it to run, but the direction was clear. After the escape of my parents to West Germany, we landed in West Berlin. During school time I built my first moped from a bicycle and a moped engine. At 16 I invented my first engine concept; the Rotary Stroke engine, but the marketing failed due to lack of experience. After finishing my vocational training as a motor mechanic and electrician I was more interested to program computer software and make music. In 1997 I founded my own small software company for web design and programming as a side job. With this money I got my dream car – a 7-series Beemer. Ten years later in 2007 I got a little nostalgic and bought two Russian military motorcycles as scrap. That’s the beginning of Metric Customs – now we make tuning packages and other things like electronic ignition for the fans of this great little flathead boxer.”

Dnepr K750 Bobber

Like two prison cells welded to the side of the bike

“After build I got my hands on a springer fork made by a good friend and great builder, located in Romania. To this time he was to start their own shop and we helped together (I made his website and spruked him whenever I could.) One of his first bikes (the rat) influenced me and his springers and the rare boxer-customs gave me the idea to build “Charlotte” in my complete own style with many nice touches; complete newframe, lots of different old bike parts and my own completely rebuilt and tuned flathead boxer engine while keeping in mind of German Road laws – mostly…”

Dnepr K750 Bobber

“I designed and made the electronic ignition
and it’s running my own programming language”

Dnepr K750 Bobber 

B. For “Badass”. Or “Borscht”

“I like the combination of the style from the twenties, brass, black and a little bit of chrome in conjunction with modern techniques like my own indicator control unit or the (not visible) programmable digital ignition system. The ignition system was necessary to get maximum of power from the old modified engines. I designed and made it all and it’s running my own programming language.”

Richard tweaked the exhaust so that he’d never have a dusty rear wheel again

Richard’s also shot us some links which cover off the build and the sound of the bikes. He also pointed out that all his bikes are daily rides, with Charlotte just cracking the 10,000 km (6,200 m) mark. Impressive stuff. We look forward to seeing more of Richard’s culture clashes soon. Nice work, comrade Faika!

Dnepr K750 Bobber

Cologne-based JvB are kings in the art of creating specials with attitude, and this is their latest creation – the JvB Brit Bob.

Triumph Thruxton JVB Brit Bob ridden

Based on a Triumph Thruxton, the Brit Bob has been lowered by 50mm, most of the rear-end clutter has gone, the subframe shortened and a specially designed rear mudguard and light fitted.

Up front are JvB-designed mudguard and headlight surround with custom made handlebars completing the chopper-meets-flat-tracker look.

Read the full test in the December 21 issue of MCN.

This is a sweet little bike. It started out as a 1975 Yamaha 650 sx. This bike has a clean title with matching numbers on the frame and motor. I did not build this bike so i dont know much about it. I have riden it and everything works as it should. It starts easily with just a few kicks. It is kick start only! It has twin makuni carbs. the carbs could use a little adjusting to idle smoother. It has a custom hardtail and awsome reptial skin spring seat. The paint is nice, i would call it a sunburnt orange. Tires on the front and Back are in great shape. The only thing i have found wrong with this motorcycle is it will not charge itself. It has a good battery and with a full charge you can ride it untill the battery goes dead. The bike is located in southern Indiana, just north of Evansville. Nick

Holy cow! Now this Suzuki SV650 is not a classic yet but as a bobber, it’s one of a kind with the Honda single sided swingarm, super-chopped back frame rails, up-gunned front end and much more. Excellent execution!

Suzuki didn’t sell a lot of GN400′s but suprisingly, there’s still a good percentage of them on the road today. This one’s been given a second life as a lovely bobber.

Check out the creation the builders at Hiroshima, Japan based Heiwa Motorcycles have created. This 2002 retro twin is a great basis for a lightweight bobber. Amazing attention to detail here!

Heiwa Motorcycles is a Japanese bobber builder so you’ll likely have to do some travelling or lots of paperwork to get yours. It’s a shame!

This very nicely done Suzuki bobber is a Savage S40 belt drive. I think it’s an early eighties or even nineties unit which makes it an extremely clean bobber motorcycle. It’s a 650cc thumper and is probably the nicest Savage I’ve seen. There’s bound to be more out there as the Savage seems to lend itself beautifully to being bobbed. Think I’ll go find some more…

Paul Crowe from a great site called The Kneeslider says this about the Aussie custom bike shop called Deus Ex Machina;

There’s an Australian motorcycle shop by the name of Deus Ex Machina that is guaranteed to make you feel a bit slighted by the Japanese manufacturers. You see, in Australia, it seems they can purchase brand new Kawasaki W650s and Yamaha SR400s (W650s? I didn’t know that!). And just to rub salt in the wound, Deus Ex Machina takes these bikes, along with a few Triumphs and Sportsters, and turns them into some of the nicest custom cafe racers and street trackers you could possibly hope for. Subtle, not over done, just right. If you liked Bratstyle, you’ll really like these guys.

The SR400 can be ordered in a variety of configurations from the Stage 1 Rocker or Stage 2 Custom to a Stage 3 Manx or Grievous Angel. Each one has a style that would stand out on bike night and look great on the road but, of course, unless you dig up an old one on eBay, you can’t build one of these. The same goes for all of the variations of the W650.

Yamaha SR400s are very popular in Japan and Europe and in Australia, too, it seems, but according to some folks these would not sell in the U.S. No one would want a nice, light, easy handling motorcycle that can be customized into a gorgeous little cafe racer. Absolutely no one and it would be really hard to start selling them here because they would have to ship some over here along with the rest of the bikes already coming over. How could they do that? It’s probably way too much trouble. … Right.

You know, we could make a pretty big list of all of the cool bikes sold elsewhere that someone has decided couldn’t possibly sell here. How hard would it be for the Japanese manufacturers to try re-introducing a few models and see what happens. Bikes like the SR400 have a huge aftermarket overseas. If someone were to set up a custom shop selling bikes here like Deus does in Australia, just see what would happen. What could it hurt?

Deus Ex Machina seems to be one of the few pros to regularly use Kawasaki motorcycles with which to create quality bobbers.

Chris Tschiffely describes the creation he hopes will launch DESIGNS IN COLD STEEL into a succesful bobber/special motorcycle business. Heres’ hoping Chris and partners succeed!

“The bike started out as a $300 1982 Yamaha Maxim 650, or XJ 650. We originally bought it with the intention of making it a mildly bobbed and chopped daily commuter bike for me, simply a different seat, handlebars and head and tail lights were planned. We never intended to invest too much time or money in it..

So, out came the tools to strip down the body pieces, seat, and electrics enough to chop the rear tail section. After I saw the back end shorter and lighter, I really began to dislike the looks of the stock, tear drop gas tank and after encountering a bird’s nest of wires in the headlight, something had to be done to lighten the look of the front end.”

“We just happen to have picked up this really sweet Moto Guzzi gas tank at a local salvage yard for 60 bucks about a year before. It was rust and dent free but was with out a gas cap. I knew this tank would look awesome and would fit the mental sketch I had drawn, however due to the triple tube backbone of the stock frame, this awesome little cafe tank wouldn’t work without some considerable frame work. So after converting the backbone to a larger diameter single tube, and connecting it to the front down tubes for reinforcement, the tank bolted up with its new mounting tabs.”

The next step was to get rid of the ridiculous stock turn back handlebars, so we chopped them up and made our own clubman style bars to fit the factory top mounts. We ended up using a brake lever/master cylinder and clutch lever off of a mid 90′s GSXR, and the new twist throttle from a Honda CR 125 MX bike. This gave us the clean, bare bones look we were after.

As each my ideas were slowly coming to form exactly what I had envisioned, I could see that the project was really straying from the original quick chop idea.. I didn’t want to hold back anymore.. So mock-up and fabrication of the rear fender, seat and tail light followed..

This is when the bike really began to take shape and many new parts including rear shocks, front fork seals, engine gaskets, exhaust system, tires, air filters and jets were ordered.. At the time, my brother Josh was working at a machine shop, and off the clock he was working on many one-off pieces such as the very unique billet gas cap, starter button, frame tube plug, foot peg mounts and bolts, a really slick license plate bracket.

I created a custom wiring harness to slim down the look, and hid the battery, starter relay, and fuse panel inside our own custom oil tank look alike. This was definitely the least enjoyable part of the entire project.

“I knew from the beginning I wanted a paint job that mixed styles, era’s and emotions. I really wanted a Hot Rod on 2 wheels, so I chose a Porsche red as the primary color, with a pearl white and my dads custom mixed gold/titanium color as an accent..

After assembly the bike fired up on the first try (with rebuilt carbs), and after some basic hand carb tuning (no vacuum sync guage for me) it ran like a bat outta hell. The sound coming out of the 650cc 4 cylinder was absolutely heavenly..

We couldn’t have been more pleased with the way the bike turned out, and after a few car shows with it, we now have 1 customer bike in the works with high aspirations for more..”

Helluva start!
Wow! Greg Prouty has created a visual feast here. Nothing has been left to chance. Really, the only thing left of the 650 Yamaha looks to be the motor, maybe the forks, and ummmm…well, that looks to be it! OH, maybe the tank. That’s all I got.

This seriously pro Yamaha XS650 bobber has it all! Huge tires front and back, old English Brooklands Speedway style pipes, classic lightweight headlight and bobbed back fender, velocity stacks, and on and on.

Beauty!

The dominant feature of this Yamaha SR400 bobber is the focus on the front and back wheel/tire combo. It’s a nice visual balance as the same sizes are used at each end. Cafe Yamaha 400′s and 650′s often use this set-up but the blacked out wheels and big heavily grooved tires are a stand-out.

Nicely done back-end and classic tiny headlight round out this solid bobber.

A talented fellow named Lang has created this 1977 Yamaha xs650 bobber he’s given the moniker “Emma”.

I found this brawny beauty on XS650Choppers.com, a great place to check out bobbers and choppers and the stories behind them.

Lang describes Emma and the build;

“Funded by firearmsThis is Emma, my ‘77 XS650. I bought her a year ago after about two years of planning out what I would do with an XS and searching for the right donor. Fortunately, she’s turned out pretty much exactly as I envisioned.

She was funded almost entirely by me selling crap that I wanted less than I wanted her; the bulk of the money coming from firearms, bike parts, and vintage skate and punk t’s. I’m Lang and I’ve owned and ridden bikes all my life; got my first dirt bike at six and my first street bike at twelve. In fact, I never did own a bicycle.

This is my first ground up build (well really assembly) and as you’ll see, I had a lot of help from some very talented folks at The Chopper Underground.

My friend Dirtnap did the +2? hardtail and 36* neck rake. He also turned the brass rods for the brake arm and stay and made the fender struts. The bike wouldn’t exist without his help and friendship.

CCgirl (Brianne) of Cycle Cosmetics covered my seat and did a fantastic job of tooling in my design – yes, there’s a meaning behind each element on the seat, but I won’t bore you with them.

Southernmenace (Kevin) of Bartertown Bikes made the brass risers for me and they fit better than any set of risers I’ve ever held. Scrapmetalart (Craig) from Front Street Cycle made the peaked fender and bent the bars to my specs. Craig’s work is top notch.

G&L Choppers did the brass pegs and mid-controls; really great folks to deal with and they were happy to accommodate my suggestions. And finally, Blacksmithbilly made my 1.75? pipes, which contrary to their appearance, were a real bitch to get bent – the guy is an artist.

Now if you’re still with me, I’ll give some more details.

When I got her, her compression was low and the poor girl had been sucking in the remnants of her air filter for the last decade or so, so I had Thomas Racing Service in Indiana bore out the engine to 750cc’s w/ Wiseco pistons and install a #1 Shell cam.

Then I popped on a set of 34mm Mikuni round slides. She also had a cooked rectifier, but rather than just fix what needed fixin’ I went a little overboard and threw on a Sparx three phase alternator and a Pamco ignition. She’s got decent pep now.

The front end is a hodgepodge of Yami enduro parts: stock 34mm XS trees, DT400 forks, an XT500 hub and some Yami 21? shouldered rim (to match the rear 18? stocker).

The headlight is a 105mm CEV moped bucket that I fitted with a mini speedo, push button dimmer, and a tractor headlight.

The gas cap is an old diesel truck cap that I cut and mated to a vented Harley cap.

The electrics bags under the seat are French sniper scope cases I found at the local Army Navy – one’s got my battery and the other has my fuses and ignition switch – I rewired her from scratch.

Well, that’s about it so thanks for listening and honk if ya see me on the road!”