Café racer
Encyclopedia
A café racer is a type of motorcycle
as well as a type of motorcyclist. Both meanings have their roots in the 1960s British counterculture group the Rockers
, or the Ton-up boys, although they were also common in Italy
, Germany
, and other European countries. In Italy, the term refers to the specific motorcycles that were and are used for short, sharp speed trips from one coffee bar to another.
Rockers were a young and rebellious Rock and Roll
counterculture that wanted a fast, personalized and distinctive bike to travel between transport cafés along the newly built arterial motorways in and around British towns and cities. The goal of many was to be able to reach 100 miles per hour (44.7 m/s)—called simply "the ton"—along such a route where the rider would leave from a café, race to a predetermined point and back to the café before a single song could play on the jukebox, called record-racing. They are remembered as being especially fond of Rockabilly
music and their image is now embedded in today's rockabilly culture.
A classic example of this was to race from the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Road in northwest London to the Hanger Lane
junction as it then was—it is now the more famous Hanger Lane gyratory—and back again. The aim was to get back to the Ace Cafe before the record on the jukebox had finished. Given that some of the Eddie Cochran
tunes that were in vogue at this time were less than two minutes long, the racers had to make the three-mile round trip at extremely high speed.
, featuring an elongated fuel tank and small, rearward mounted, humped seat. A signature trait were low, narrow handlebars that allowed the rider to "tuck in" to reduce wind resistance and offered better control when in that posture. These are referred to as either "clip-ons" (two-piece bars that bolt directly to each fork tube) or "clubmans" or "ace bars" (one piece bars that attach to the stock mounting location but drop down and forward). The ergonomics resulting from low bars and the rearward seat often required "rearsets", or rear-set footrests and foot controls, again typical of racing motorcycles of the era. Distinctive half or full race-style fairings were sometimes mounted to the forks or frame.
The bikes had a raw, utilitarian and stripped-down appearance while the engines were tuned for maximum speed. These motorcycles were lean, light and handled road surfaces well. The most defining machine of its heyday was the homemade Norton Featherbed frame
d and Triumph Bonneville
engined machine called "The Triton
". It used the most common and fastest racing engine combined with the best handling frame of its day, the Featherbed frame by Norton Motorcycles. Those with less money could opt for a "Tribsa
" - the Triumph engine in a BSA
frame.
or bobber
scene in the USA and both have their roots with post-World War II veterans. Riders rejected the large transportation-oriented motorcycles of the time by taking these motorcycles and removing parts deemed unnecessary. While American GIs would take military-spec Harley Davidsons and "chop" off anything unnecessary to improve performance, European veterans took similar measures with their motorcycles. Both looked to make the standard factory motorcycles faster and lighter, although the difference between the nature of the US and European road systems led to somewhat different results. While the Americans favored a low heavy cruiser style of motorcycle for straight line comfort, the Europeans preferred a higher, more nimble motorcycle better suited to the more twisting roads of their nations. In Britain, many roads can be traced to Roman origin and even older roads following terrain. There were no interstates/autobahn type roads until late 1950s. 'A' roads were and still are better surfaced and wider with multiple travel lanes in built-up areas or between urban areas but may be only two lane undivided highway in low traffic areas. It must be remembered that it was also a style born largely out of the poverty of Post-War Europe and so not given to the excesses of later Harley-Davidson billet barge style customization.
tanks. More and more, three- and four-cylinder Hondas and Kawasakis were the basis for café racer conversions. By 1977, a number of manufacturers had taken notice of the café racer boom and were producing factory café racers, most notably the Harley-Davidson
XLCR, the Ducati SuperSport
models and the Kawasaki Z1
R. In 1979, Suzuki
offered the café-style GS1000S.
While the first café racer conversions amounted to a nearly complete re-engineering of the motorcycle, by the mid-1970s riders began modifying standard production motorcycles into so-called "café racers" by simply equipping them with clubman bars and a small "bubble" quarter fairing around the headlight. A number of European manufacturers, including Aspes, Benelli
, BMW
, Bultaco
& Derbi
produced factory "café" variants of their standard motorcycles in this manner, without any modifications made to make them faster or more powerful. Eventually the café racer style became just a styling exercise that served no functional purpose and simply made the bike less comfortable to ride; so the trend quickly waned in popularity. Soon afterward, most new sport bikes began featuring integral bodywork from the factory, negating the need or ability to retrofit an aftermarket café fairing.
These café racers do not follow the fashion/music subculture of the Rockers
, old or new, but dress in a more modern and comfortable appearance with only a hint of likeness to the Rockers style. Common Levi jeans, generic motorcycle jackets, boots and/or shoes with modern helmets being the norm, instead of the very specific brand names, styles and look established by the Rockers. These café racers have taken elements of the American Greaser, British Rocker and modern motorcycle rider look to create a style all their own.
A new generation of motorcycle designers and builders are using the style as a fresh alternative to the custom chopper scene. Furthermore, in many parts of the United States, there are large numbers of stock 1970s and 1980s era Japanese motorcycles available for relatively small amounts of money – in many areas a running motorcycle can be had for well under US$1,000 USD. There is a strong appeal to younger and less wealthy motorcyclists to build a café racer from one of these bikes and end up with a stylish personalized motorcycle at a fraction of the cost of a newer bike.
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
as well as a type of motorcyclist. Both meanings have their roots in the 1960s British counterculture group the Rockers
Rocker (subculture)
Rockers, leather boys or ton-up boys are a biker subculture that originated in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. It was mainly centered around British cafe racer motorcycles and rock and roll music....
, or the Ton-up boys, although they were also common in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and other European countries. In Italy, the term refers to the specific motorcycles that were and are used for short, sharp speed trips from one coffee bar to another.
Rockers were a young and rebellious Rock and Roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
counterculture that wanted a fast, personalized and distinctive bike to travel between transport cafés along the newly built arterial motorways in and around British towns and cities. The goal of many was to be able to reach 100 miles per hour (44.7 m/s)—called simply "the ton"—along such a route where the rider would leave from a café, race to a predetermined point and back to the café before a single song could play on the jukebox, called record-racing. They are remembered as being especially fond of Rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
music and their image is now embedded in today's rockabilly culture.
A classic example of this was to race from the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Road in northwest London to the Hanger Lane
Hanger Lane
Hanger Lane is a major road in the Ealing and Park Royal areas of London. It forms the westernmost part of the A406 North Circular as it runs north from Gunnersbury Avenue as it crosses the A4020 Uxbridge Road at Ealing Common to meet the A40 Western Avenue at the Hanger Lane Gyratory System...
junction as it then was—it is now the more famous Hanger Lane gyratory—and back again. The aim was to get back to the Ace Cafe before the record on the jukebox had finished. Given that some of the Eddie Cochran
Eddie Cochran
Eddie Cochran , was an American rock and roll pioneer who in his brief career had a small but lasting influence on rock music through his guitar playing. Cochran's rockabilly songs, such as "C'mon Everybody", "Somethin' Else", and "Summertime Blues", captured teenage frustration and desire in the...
tunes that were in vogue at this time were less than two minutes long, the racers had to make the three-mile round trip at extremely high speed.
Typical configuration
The café racer is a motorcycle that has been modified for speed and handling rather than comfort. Café racers' bodywork and control layout typically mimicked the style of contemporary Grand Prix roadracersGrand Prix motorcycle racing
Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix is the premier championship of motorcycle road racing currently divided into three distinct classes: 125cc, Moto2 and MotoGP. The 125cc class uses a two-stroke engine while Moto2 and MotoGP use four-stroke engines. In 2010 the 250cc two-stroke was replaced...
, featuring an elongated fuel tank and small, rearward mounted, humped seat. A signature trait were low, narrow handlebars that allowed the rider to "tuck in" to reduce wind resistance and offered better control when in that posture. These are referred to as either "clip-ons" (two-piece bars that bolt directly to each fork tube) or "clubmans" or "ace bars" (one piece bars that attach to the stock mounting location but drop down and forward). The ergonomics resulting from low bars and the rearward seat often required "rearsets", or rear-set footrests and foot controls, again typical of racing motorcycles of the era. Distinctive half or full race-style fairings were sometimes mounted to the forks or frame.
The bikes had a raw, utilitarian and stripped-down appearance while the engines were tuned for maximum speed. These motorcycles were lean, light and handled road surfaces well. The most defining machine of its heyday was the homemade Norton Featherbed frame
Featherbed frame
The featherbed frame was a motorcycle frame developed by the British Norton motorcycle company to improve the performance of their racing motorcycles around the twisting and demanding Isle of Man TT course in 1950. It was considered revolutionary at the time, and the best handling frame that a...
d and Triumph Bonneville
Triumph Bonneville
The Bonneville is a range of British motorcycles, made in three different production runs from 1959 to 1983, and 1985 to 1988, by the now-defunct Triumph Engineering in Meriden; and since 2001, by Triumph Motorcycles in Hinckley. It is named after the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, where Triumph and...
engined machine called "The Triton
Triton motorcycle
The Triton was a modified café racer motorcycle of the 1960s-1970s. The name derives from a contraction of Triumph and Norton, the two brands of motorcycle combined.The intention was to combine the best elements of each to give a bike superior to both...
". It used the most common and fastest racing engine combined with the best handling frame of its day, the Featherbed frame by Norton Motorcycles. Those with less money could opt for a "Tribsa
Tribsa
The Tribsa, or Tri-B.S.A., was a custom built cafe racer or off road motorcycle of the 1960s and 1970s. Its name was an elision of "Triumph" and "BSA". The purpose was to combine the best elements of each marque to give a superior bike to either....
" - the Triumph engine in a BSA
Birmingham Small Arms Company
This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....
frame.
Café racers vs choppers
The café racer has a lot in common with the chopperChopper (motorcycle)
A chopper is a type of motorcycle that was either modified from an original motorcycle design or built from scratch to have a hand-crafted appearance. The main features of a chopper that make it stand out are its longer frame design accompanied by a stretch front end...
or bobber
Bobber (motorcycle)
A bobber is a custom motorcycle that usually has had the front fender removed, the rear fender "bobbed" or made smaller, and all superfluous parts removed to make it lighter.- History :...
scene in the USA and both have their roots with post-World War II veterans. Riders rejected the large transportation-oriented motorcycles of the time by taking these motorcycles and removing parts deemed unnecessary. While American GIs would take military-spec Harley Davidsons and "chop" off anything unnecessary to improve performance, European veterans took similar measures with their motorcycles. Both looked to make the standard factory motorcycles faster and lighter, although the difference between the nature of the US and European road systems led to somewhat different results. While the Americans favored a low heavy cruiser style of motorcycle for straight line comfort, the Europeans preferred a higher, more nimble motorcycle better suited to the more twisting roads of their nations. In Britain, many roads can be traced to Roman origin and even older roads following terrain. There were no interstates/autobahn type roads until late 1950s. 'A' roads were and still are better surfaced and wider with multiple travel lanes in built-up areas or between urban areas but may be only two lane undivided highway in low traffic areas. It must be remembered that it was also a style born largely out of the poverty of Post-War Europe and so not given to the excesses of later Harley-Davidson billet barge style customization.
Evolution
Café racer styling evolved throughout the time of their popularity. By the mid-1970s, Japanese bikes had overtaken British bikes in the marketplace, and the look of real Grand Prix racing bikes had changed. The hand-made, frequently unpainted aluminum racing petrol/gas tanks of the 1960s had evolved into square, narrow, fiberglassFiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
tanks. More and more, three- and four-cylinder Hondas and Kawasakis were the basis for café racer conversions. By 1977, a number of manufacturers had taken notice of the café racer boom and were producing factory café racers, most notably the Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson , often abbreviated H-D or Harley, is an American motorcycle manufacturer. Founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the first decade of the 20th century, it was one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression...
XLCR, the Ducati SuperSport
Ducati SuperSport
The Ducati SuperSport and SS are names applied to a series of Pantah based air-cooled four stroke desmodromic 2-valve 90-degree V-Twin motorcycles manufactured from 1988 onwards. A limited edition SuperSport called the SuperLight was sold in 1992. The name harked back to the round case 1973 Ducati...
models and the Kawasaki Z1
Kawasaki Z1
The Z1 Kawasaki was a motorcycle introduced in 1972 by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. It has sometimes been described as the world's first superbike. The Z1, along with Honda's CB750 from 1969, introduced the four-cylinder, across the frame, disc-braked layout to a wider public...
R. In 1979, Suzuki
Suzuki
is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Hamamatsu, Japan that specializes in manufacturing compact automobiles and 4x4 vehicles, a full range of motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles , outboard marine engines, wheelchairs and a variety of other small internal combustion engines...
offered the café-style GS1000S.
While the first café racer conversions amounted to a nearly complete re-engineering of the motorcycle, by the mid-1970s riders began modifying standard production motorcycles into so-called "café racers" by simply equipping them with clubman bars and a small "bubble" quarter fairing around the headlight. A number of European manufacturers, including Aspes, Benelli
Benelli (motorcycles)
Benelli is an Italian Motorcycle manufacturer owned by Chinese company Qianjiang Group. It once manufactured shotguns, although this part of the business is now a separate company.-Early history:...
, BMW
BMW Motorrad
BMW Motorrad is the motorcycle brand of the German company BMW, part of its Corporate and Brand Development division. The current General Director of the unit is Hendrik von Kuenheim....
, Bultaco
Bultaco
Bultaco was a Spanish manufacturer of two-stroke motorcycles from 1958 to 1983.-Origins:The origin of the Bultaco motorcycle company dates back to May 1958. Francisco "Paco" Bultó was a director of the Montesa motorcycle company founded in 1944. After several years of steady growth and road racing...
& Derbi
Derbi
Derbi is a brand of motorcycles, scooters, and recreational ATVs produced by Nacional Motor S.A.U., a Spanish subsidiary of Piaggio & Co...
produced factory "café" variants of their standard motorcycles in this manner, without any modifications made to make them faster or more powerful. Eventually the café racer style became just a styling exercise that served no functional purpose and simply made the bike less comfortable to ride; so the trend quickly waned in popularity. Soon afterward, most new sport bikes began featuring integral bodywork from the factory, negating the need or ability to retrofit an aftermarket café fairing.
Subculture
The term café racer is still used to describe motorcycles of a certain style and some motorcyclists still use this term in self-description. Worthy of mentioning here is that an entire new sub-culture has evolved since the heyday of the Rockers. The 'café racers', a term that existed in the 1950s and 1960s to refer to bike riders of the race track, but is used now to describe motorcycle riders who choose classic/vintage British, German, Italian, or Japanese motorbikes from the 1950s-to late 1970s as their bike of choice, over other styles of bikes.These café racers do not follow the fashion/music subculture of the Rockers
Rocker (subculture)
Rockers, leather boys or ton-up boys are a biker subculture that originated in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. It was mainly centered around British cafe racer motorcycles and rock and roll music....
, old or new, but dress in a more modern and comfortable appearance with only a hint of likeness to the Rockers style. Common Levi jeans, generic motorcycle jackets, boots and/or shoes with modern helmets being the norm, instead of the very specific brand names, styles and look established by the Rockers. These café racers have taken elements of the American Greaser, British Rocker and modern motorcycle rider look to create a style all their own.
Present day
Classic café racer style has made a comeback recently, thanks largely to the increased interest in vintage motorcycles in general. The baby boomers were responsible for a surge in motorcycle sales in the late 1960s and 1970s, and many of this generation now find themselves with the time and discretionary income to recreate the bikes they had—or wished to have—in their younger years.A new generation of motorcycle designers and builders are using the style as a fresh alternative to the custom chopper scene. Furthermore, in many parts of the United States, there are large numbers of stock 1970s and 1980s era Japanese motorcycles available for relatively small amounts of money – in many areas a running motorcycle can be had for well under US$1,000 USD. There is a strong appeal to younger and less wealthy motorcyclists to build a café racer from one of these bikes and end up with a stylish personalized motorcycle at a fraction of the cost of a newer bike.
External links
- Café racer at the Open Directory ProjectOpen Directory ProjectThe Open Directory Project , also known as Dmoz , is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links. It is owned by Netscape but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings...