OT - not more bike stuff!!

[Doc B]

My year long project bike is getting close to completion. So naturally since I am not quite done I decided to start another one. Colin has been intrigued by my project and I thought it would be cool to do a bike with him. He wanted to go old school. After watching CL for months and not really finding that magic ride, this popped up in the neighborhood that have jogged in the past 27 years.

It's a 1962 Honda CB77 Super Hawk. Was missing the gas tank, but did come with a spare motor and is pretty much complete otherwise. And today I lucked out again and found a matching tank in decent restorable shape that the ebay seller had mis-listed as belonging to another model. And it was discounted 10% - meant to happen.

BTW Col took that shot and I just shopped it. His angle was much better than the ones I took.
We're kicking around different restoration ideas. I am leaning towards an homage to the racing version called the CYB77 that one could build in the 60's by adding hot rod parts that came right from the Honda dealer. Kinda like this -

 

[johnsonad]

Sweet looking ride!!

 

[2wo]

I love the Cafe Racer, just keep in mind the limitations of the brakes...John 

 

[Natural Sound]

I love the Cafe Racer, just keep in mind the limitations of the brakes...John

Agreed. I had a Kawasaki H2 that could do a quarter mile in 12 seconds. Getting it stopped however was a different story.

 

[SailorMac]

Check out some of the projects here http://www.dotheton.com for ideas. The guys on do the ton love the Honda twins. Very cool find.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

I love the Cafe Racer, just keep in mind the limitations of the brakes...John

I'll have to see if I can talk Doc B. into swapping in a modern front end with a disc brake, looks like something like the Yamaha TW-200 forks/wheel would at least fit the fork tube clamps, but the fork spacing is always the big question mark. 

 

[Doc B]

Yeah, that's a great site. The cafe racer craze kinda cracks me up, because I was very into it the first time it was happening back in the 60s to 70s. Cafe racers back then were mostly Triumphs, Nortons, big Hondas and Kawis - big meaning 750cc. You would see an occasional Beemer, RD 400 or CB400F. But no respectable cafe racer rode some tiddly little sub 350cc bike.

Except me. I bought a beat up Suzuki TS 185 from a guy who worked for me, for $50. I fixed the burned up primary gear, re-ringed it, ported it, repainted it, put on street tires, clipons, cut the seat down and commuted on the back roads to school once or twice a week. Got it all the way up to 80 once. Riding at 55 was like flying on a weed whacker.

Nowadays there are tiddly little cafe racers all over the web. Col really loves the "modern" cafe racer thing, but seeing as we have a pretty original bike I am kinda digging the more faithful restoration idea. I think we can meet somewhere in the middle with more of a vintage racer replica.