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.
Eric Meglasson lives in Bend, Oregon, and his motorcycling journey has had its fair share of twists and turns. “Over the years, my bikes kept getting faster and faster,” says Eric. “But I started longing for a slower, more fun, naked bike to ride on the street at more reasonable speeds.” Although Eric owned a Monster, he’d been collecting images of café racers for years. “I loved the pure, shiny café racers, but also loved the fat tired, matte-finish bikes. I didn’t even know the term Brat existed at that point.” While recovering from knee surgery after a supermoto race accident, Eric sold a dirt bike to free up some dollars—and started researching his next purchase. “I probably looked at every motorcycle on Bike EXIF. After several weeks of Craigslist and eBay shopping, I stumbled upon ‘Rusty’. I was blown away. The second I saw this Honda cafe racer, I knew it was exactly what I wanted.”
The CB450 was built by Jared Johnson of Holiday Customs, a one-man builder in Portland, Oregon, who shares a shop space with two other builders. The engine has been revitalized with an overbore kit from Superior Sleeve & Machine in Milwaukie, OR. The airbox has been removed, and cone filters fitted. The custom straight pipes are raw steel (“requires lots of WD-40 to keep the rust at bay”) with custom baffle inserts “to keep my neighbors happy”. To accentuate the clean look, the flat bars have a sanded raw steel finish and house just levers and the throttle—no instruments at all. “The local coppers have looked at it, but don’t seem to mind, as long as I hand signal,” says Eric.
The suspension has been lowered 1½” all around with shorter rear shocks and lowered triple clamps; the wheels are 18“ front and rear, shod with 18 x 4.5” Coker tires. The frame has been bobbed at the back, with tabs shaved off, and fitted with a custom seat pan. Aside from the paintwork, the finish on the bike is mostly wire brush on the shinier metalwork, with matte black everywhere else.
After buying his cafe racer, Eric tidied the bike up still further with a complete re-wire, and now does all his own maintenance. And he’s been inspired to get his hands increasingly dirty. “I’ve started my own project bike, a 1982 Virago inspired by Classified Moto—and I’m also helping a couple of friends with their own builds.”
Great to see another home builder in the making—especially one with such good taste.
Images by Alan Brandt Photography. Thanks to reader Rex Havoc for the tip.
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 bike’s 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.
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.
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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
