Hi all,
Wow, what an amazing corner of the internets! So glad I found this site. A little bit about me and my cafe racer... I sold my brand new Honda CBR600RR to get my brand new '09 tornado red Thruxton (my first ever cafe bike), and even though everything (brakes, performance, handling etc) on my Honda was technically better (and I loved riding it), I have a lot more fun... actually fun isn't the right thing (although it is a blast)... I get a lot more overall enjoyment/satisfaction/feel-goodness from riding, and even just the fact that I own, my Thruxton. It perfectly suits how I like to ride (i.e. none of the pulling up at the lights on a sports bike drama, riding like a jerk, etc), I love how it looks, the retro/modern of it, etc. Right now it's stock, but I do have a few parts ordered and on the way (e.g. predators for a start, 'cause stock is just too damn quiet), and I'm heat wrapping the headers tomorrow (I love that beat up look you get with wrapped headers), and I've got a list of fairly tame things I'd like to do to it (suspension, better rubber, a bit less chrome and a bit more black, smaller gauges etc).
I'm really interested in building my own bike though, from the frame up. I'm aiming for somewhere between brat and cafe racer. From the brat side I'm hoping to get the roughness, attitude and rawness of the beat up, DIY, compact Japanese bikes. From the cafe side, the sleekness, performance and whatever it is that I can't really describe when I see a beautifully turned out cafe racer. I can visualise the meeting point between the two, I just have to be able to build it. It'll be a big job for me, and I've not wrenched much, so there'll probably be lots of taking stuff apart, working out what I just put on backwards and then reassembling, lots of cussing, asking questions, but I'm so looking forward to it. And I gotta say, some of the custom bikes posted on this site have absolutely floored me. There's so much inspiration here. I've already got a couple of very noobish questions I need to post, but I think I might go check out the big arse projects section some more and drool for a bit.
Pat
Wow, what an amazing corner of the internets! So glad I found this site. A little bit about me and my cafe racer... I sold my brand new Honda CBR600RR to get my brand new '09 tornado red Thruxton (my first ever cafe bike), and even though everything (brakes, performance, handling etc) on my Honda was technically better (and I loved riding it), I have a lot more fun... actually fun isn't the right thing (although it is a blast)... I get a lot more overall enjoyment/satisfaction/feel-goodness from riding, and even just the fact that I own, my Thruxton. It perfectly suits how I like to ride (i.e. none of the pulling up at the lights on a sports bike drama, riding like a jerk, etc), I love how it looks, the retro/modern of it, etc. Right now it's stock, but I do have a few parts ordered and on the way (e.g. predators for a start, 'cause stock is just too damn quiet), and I'm heat wrapping the headers tomorrow (I love that beat up look you get with wrapped headers), and I've got a list of fairly tame things I'd like to do to it (suspension, better rubber, a bit less chrome and a bit more black, smaller gauges etc).
I'm really interested in building my own bike though, from the frame up. I'm aiming for somewhere between brat and cafe racer. From the brat side I'm hoping to get the roughness, attitude and rawness of the beat up, DIY, compact Japanese bikes. From the cafe side, the sleekness, performance and whatever it is that I can't really describe when I see a beautifully turned out cafe racer. I can visualise the meeting point between the two, I just have to be able to build it. It'll be a big job for me, and I've not wrenched much, so there'll probably be lots of taking stuff apart, working out what I just put on backwards and then reassembling, lots of cussing, asking questions, but I'm so looking forward to it. And I gotta say, some of the custom bikes posted on this site have absolutely floored me. There's so much inspiration here. I've already got a couple of very noobish questions I need to post, but I think I might go check out the big arse projects section some more and drool for a bit.
Pat
