The CX500 has always been thought of as an ugly bike and to be honest it is. But we don't all like the same type of beer and are attracted to very different shapes of women, so if you like it, that's all good.
They were never a great performance bike either and have some design constraints that make them more of a challenge, but like most old bikes they can be improved.
That one is such a time capsule that I would be tempted to clean it up and either ride the wheels off it for a year or two or flip it. If I wanted a bike to ride long miles on cheaply that one could be a good start. If I had no interest in riding far, I'd flip it.
So that takes us back to what a cafe racer is all about. It's not really about cafes or racing but it is about emulating teh style of a race bike and that means going back to basics. Race bikes at the level that most of us race, are not all that fast compared to any modern production bike and they don't handle very well either - or stop.
So the idea is to make the most of the bike we have. We are trying to improve brakes and handling and performance and if we do those things it will probably also end up looking right. Form follows function as they say. Unfortunately most of the bikes we see on pipeburn and so on are less effective as motorcycles than stock. We don't see a lot of well thought out bikes that work well. Lots of pretty and shiny and trendy, but not a lot of good bikes. To be fair though, no one here uses all the performance of their bike. Even those of us that race don't often take our bikes to the limit but we do like them to look good. So there is always a balance between form and function and we all find different equilibrium points and those points change over time.
What you decide to do is up to you. Enjoy what you do and be safe and try to get input form people who understand how motorcycles actually work. There are people on here and in the real world that are worth listening to and lots of decent books as sources of inspiration.
