Saw this today at Matlock Bath. Spoke to the owner and he tells me it's by 'Down & Out Cafe Racers' from Rotherham. It was really well done and the finish was beautiful. It was based on a Speed Twin. Oldfart
Respect for the work put in but if I saw that in a car park I would walk on. If it was the standard bike with a few embellishments I could drool at it all day.
Sorry I think its Ugly they have ruined a fairly good handling bike. Why put knobbly tyres on a 200 KG bike? My opion only of course.
Just screams fashion victim, why would you want to ride around on the road on those ridiculous tyres?
Well I actually quite like it..except for that bloody awful pipe wrap (why?) and I wouldn't have chosen that brown seat either (why can't some people see that black & brown together don't work?). D&O make some good bikes (IMO), including a beaut metallic orange Street Twin a couple of years ago, that's currently residing at Triumph headquarters. I like the look of the tyres but yes they are a bit ridiculous from a handling point of view, and would be a bit tricky (even dangerous) on tight bends but I'm sure the owner knew that before agreeing to the swop. They've also fitted replacement yokes to accommodate the fat tyre. If I want to see a standard Speed Twin I can go to my local dealer, have a butchers, then walk away after 5 minutes coz I've looked at a dozen by now. This one just makes a change. One of the best bits is that lovely ally front guard of course. Now where have I seen one before? Oh yes, on my bike!
Each to his own and if the owner is happy then that's great. Personally I can't get enough of looking at my bike which is pretty stock, I fell in love with it without having to even test ride it!
Why, why would anyone put tires like that on any kind of street bike. In no way can it be classified as a "Cafe" bike. I have seen more cafe bikes with tires like that, placing off-road or block tires makes it automatically anti-cafe. Note give it better handling and sportier appearance. End of rant. A Cafe Racer motorcycle is a customized motorcycle based on an existing model or one that has been specifically built from scratch to mirror the style and feel. The goal is to make the bike more lightweight, stripping the bike down to its bare essentials, to give it better handling and a sportier appearance.
I don't think anyone would call that bike a cafe racer. As you pointed out, the tyres are the opposite to what you would fit to a CR and it's general style isn't CR, and we invented the cafe racer in the UK so we should know . D&O started off building CR's, if you check out some of their earlier builds you'll see, but have extended their range and style because that's what customers want.
I was there too! I stopped because of this bike, very nice in the flesh. So glad you got these photos cos my phone was dead
