Start the week cont...

[guest18]

In some ways a classic "chop", everything not neccessary has been removed (or not fitted), lovely engineering and very single minded. Art object or practical, if extreme, bike? Bearing in mind many cyclists manage quite well without lights or rear suspension(!) Good, bad, pointless, inspired...?
Discuss 

(Diesel engine & BSA gearbox btw, "classic" roadtax( ) and the tanks probably not too small given the likely fuel consumption)

[Andy M]

I'm not struck with the bike, but the idea I like and the engineering looks well done. Give me a few weeks to play with the seat, bars and pegs and I'd bet I'd really like it.

I'll add another question. If I'd taken a 1947 Indian and removed the excess bits so it handled better it'd be a chopper? If I take a 2003 XT600E and do the same, I'm betting a lot of people wouldn't call it that? Hasn't the name chopper been taken over by the arty people? While I like this bike as far as it goes, something from the Orange County blokes you see on the telly really does nothing for me. They aren't removing what you don't need, they are adding impractical stuff (murials etc.) that I don't need.

Andy

[guest27]

The mutation of meaning from form following function - chop off the bits you don't need = chopper, to function following form = "Orange County" type chopper.

Raked out front end for easier highway cruising to raked out front ends because that is what you do.

The US chopper and the UK cafe racer are essentially the same thing, taking a post war stodgy production bike, throwing away the bits you do not need, adapting it for local conditions, and adding a bit of your own for that personal touch.  The different environments - long smooth California highways, nadgery home counties lanes, caused the evolution of the two to digress in form, whilst systemically the function is the same.

So it is interesting (is it?) that the 'chopper' has become the lifestyle bike of choice the world over - the American dream I suppose - where as the cafe racer is still a real niche, unless you consider the Supersports 600's and 1000's to be factory cafe-racers.

As to Smudges pic - I like the execution but not sure I would want the bike.  CLassic tax - guess that is a BSA frame under there somehow?  (headstock?)

R

[squirrelciv]

Hang on Rog, Street fighter bikes are the new cafe racers aren't they, and that side of customising is very much alive and well. Just flick through an M&P catalogue and look at the bits you can buy nowadays to 'customise' lighten and improve your GSXR.

Must admit I'm no great fan of the Orange County type 'chopper'. Individual they maybe, but I can't get my head around the style over content side of things. I reckon they start out with a crappy handling bike and make it worse but prettier. Customising to improve is great and if you get it to look pretty then that's a bonus. But starting out to get a style and hoping the bike is still rideable at the end of it just seems wrong to me.

[guest7]

I love that diesel chop... made my show finally getting to see it in the flesh

GC

[guest27]

Streetfighters the new cafe-racer.  I had considered that, but I am not convinced they are.  Not sure why - possibly just being difficult (who me?!?)

Guess they are hooligan tackle, but just dont quite fit the bill.  Tell me why I am wrong (in less than 3000 words)

R

[guest18]

You're wrong because we have a rose tinted view of cafe racers... 
Say "cafe racer" and most people imagine glittering tritons and suchlike, whereas the truth 90% of the time was a leaking bodged up clunker that had been dropped (probably more than once) and had a variety of aftermarket parts fitted to look (in the eyes of the owner) "cool".

Same thing now, there are a few glittering beautifully engineered "streetfighters" and lots and lots of shoddy lashups. Just like the original cafe racers...

Getting back to the diesel chop, I deliberately didn't put my take on it to see what others thought.. I thought the riding position would be terrible until I saw the guy ride it and it actually looked quite reasonable. For me, apart from a play with the seat/bar mixture, I'd want to add a set of nice light mudguards which would work a bit, and the lightest lighting set I could lay hands on, but otherwise I thinl it makes more sense than putting the yanmar into a big heavy enfield chassis, make it as light as possible and as small as possible and make the most of the 10hp - ish(iirc?!) it produces.
As it sits I don't think I could practically use it other than as a toy, but as an engineering project I think it's glorious and was delighted to get a proper look at it. I think it brings a refreshing new take to both diesel bikes and to customs. Long live originality!! 

(and it "thumps"  )

[squirrelciv]

Streetfighters the new cafe-racer.  I had considered that, but I am not convinced they are.  Not sure why - possibly just being difficult (who me?!?)

Guess they are hooligan tackle, but just dont quite fit the bill.  Tell me why I am wrong (in less than 3000 words)

R

Think a lot of parents back in the 60's would have thought the cafe racers their sons rode were hooligan tackle too (as would the residents of Margate) Take the rose coloured specks off matey, real cafe racers were made for one purpose and that was to beat the 'ton' mark. Pretty really didn't feature for most, though was achieved by virtue of the asthetics of speed!

[guest27]

I was agreeing that streetfighters were hooligan tackle and thus ticked off that box on current evolution of cafe-racers.  As I said I was ot sure why I felt - note felt - they were not.  I love ratty cafe-racers - lucky really considering the rubbish I have built over the years  and some of the really shiny 'modern' tritons leave me pretty cold - each to their own but I thought the idea of a cafe was to wring its neck etc, to talk to guys who have never taken an 'Umph engine above 4k because it is 30 years old - seems odd - but at least they have one running (ahem).

R

[squirrelciv]

The idea behind Abigail is to build a 60's cafe racer and judging by my mechanical ineptitude I fully expect to suceed in producing a really ratty example I imagine many will cast an eye in her direction and think she'd been in quite a few 'offs' when in fact I would have just wheeled her out of the garage

[guest27]

SO you are looking at the 'distressed' look. Call the dings on my bikes - love bites - the Triton did not so much have love bites as totally ravaged 

R

[squirrelciv]

LOL!

[guest24]

The idea behind Abigail is to build a 60's cafe racer and judging by my mechanical ineptitude I fully expect to suceed in producing a really ratty example I imagine many will cast an eye in her direction and think she'd been in quite a few 'offs' when in fact I would have just wheeled her out of the garage

Ah but Pat, you will have made it all by your fair hand which will be a fantastic achievement; something that us lesser mortals can only read about.