Handlebars and risers

When I bought the ZRX, it came with the stock handlebars, the stock slanted risers, with aftermarket one inch spacers and top clamps. The risers angled back and the spacers put me into the standard "sit-up-and-beg" riding position. It's a very comfortable position, but cafe racers aren't supposed to be comfortable. If I wanted to be comfortable, I would drive my car. I did the cheap mod to begin with. I removed the 1" spacer and spun the slanted risers around 180 degrees and angled them away from me. This put me into a slightly more angled forward position, that felt much better. But it was going to take a change of handlebars to put me into a more "aggressive" position.
It's amazing how many different motorcycle handlebars are out there to choose from. While old school ace/clubman bars would be period correct for a proper cafe` racer. I had a pair on my Honda Ascot. They look really cool, however they were originally designed for bikes that had cable operated clutches and front drum brakes. So you don't have worry about keeping master cylinders covered in fluid when mounting them. They can also be tough on the wrists having no adjustable. Drag bars were a viable option, as were clip-ons. While clip-ons would also be very period correct for a cafe racer, today they are more associated with modern sportbikes. Drag bars are always cool, but I just didn't jive with the look I was going for.
I don't remember exactly where I heard about them, perhaps in a classic motorcycle magazine or on some other website, but I believe Italian motorcycle manufacturer Laverda made a factory cafe racer in the 1970's that had adjustable clubmans that worked great and looked pretty cool, although they're heavier than other handlebars. On an old bike shedding dead weight was the best way to gain speed, but weight isn't an issue with the ZRX. It makes more than enough horsepower and torque, and more weight on the front end wouldn't exactly be a bad thing. Finding these bars wasn't exactly an easy thing, after a good week of searching for them, I found them on two websites. One was in Europe, while one was in the USA. So for simplicity's sake I ordered a set of black ones from the US distributor. It took a little time to get them but they were worth it.
Next time I'll drone about mounting them.

Cafe "Bling"

If you've ever looked at some pictures of motorcycles in the UK, you've probably seen a tax disc holder. It's usually a 3 to 3 1/2 inch circular metal bracket to hold a three inch paper disc that proves you've paid your road tax and can legally operate your bike on British roads. They kind of serve the same purpose as the registration stickers on US license plates, but are rather similar in appearance to our motorcycle safety inspection stickers and are pretty much hated across the pond like our safety stickers are here. Personally, I don't hate our safety inspection stickers. Alot, if not all, of the "cruiser" riders attach a metal plate to put the safety sticker on. It's supposed to be put onto the front left fork, like on mine (because I like the way it looks), however the metal plate is a legal option so the cruiser guys don't mess up their chrome. As long as it's attached to the left side of the bike so it can be seen from the street. The rule for the tax disc is the same, except that it must be attached to the left side of the bike so it can be seen from the curb, (they really do drive on the left over there you know). Well, I found an old school one on eBay, and I really wanted to use it and put it on my bike, but our safety sticker won't fit inside it and be legible. So I had to find something cool to put in it so I could use it. Alot of cafe style bikes put a 59 club patch or sticker in one, I'm not a member and I don't plan to be one either. So putting a 59 club logo on my bike ain't gonna happen. Another cool item to put in a tax disc holder would be an Ace Cafe logo. However, I've never been there and my chances of riding there are pretty much null. (I did make it to Portsmouth, England once, but that's another story). In my mind, it would be similar to a harley guy with Sturgis stuff who's never been there. Too poser-ish, not gonna do that. Maybe if I ever do get to the Ace Cafe I'll get a pin or patch, but if the bike never gets there, it's not going on it. So I let in languish in my tool box until I found something I really liked.


On my one of my web surfing safaris, I ran into Steve "Carpy" Carpenter's http://www.cb750cafe.com/ a totally cool cafe racer site. He has alot of really awesome stuff, mostly for '70s CB750's, but he's also got some cool shirts and decals. I got a decal from him for my tax disc holder and mounted it on the right (curb side) of my bike. I dig the look. Thanks Carpy.

Turn Signal Relocation and Gold Delete

I'm not a fan of gold. While I suppose it looks good on some bikes, I certainly don't want it on mine. Sadly, the ZRX comes with alot of gold on it. I have my work cut out for me in getting rid of it all. First off, the tank emblem is gold, and there is a pinstrip of gold separating the white and violet stripes on the tail and tank. A quick search on eBay yielded a set of OEM Kawasaki tank decals in black and trip to my local auto parts store netted a roll of 1/4" black pin stripe tape. I removed the gold emblem and replaced it with the black Kawasaki decal. The gold pinstripe took a little more work. It went fairly easily, I placed a small piece of masking tape at the beginning and end of the gold stripes and carefully laid the black 1/4" pinstripe over top the gold. When finished I trimmed the excess black pinstripe at the edge of the masking tape and VOILA! I think it came out great and looks almost stock. I also removed the passenger grab rails leaving two big holes in the tail. I pushed the rear turnsignal stays through the rear holes and remounted the lights there for now. I found some automotive intake manifold plugs in my toolbox left over from some other project. They were the perfect size to fit in the front holes. Again stop gap measures, but good enough for now. I turned my attention to the rear shock reservoirs with more gold to get rid of. Another trip to the auto parts store, and I picked up a roll of stainless steel rocker panel tape. I measured, cut the tape to fit, wrapped it around the reservoir and no more gold. I'm not totally pleased with how it came out. It looks better that the gold, just not exactly what I wanted. For good measure I wrapped some checkered tape around it too. Gotta have some checkers on a cafe bike.

My Guide Books

Before I write any more I'd like to tip my helmet to the two books that have provided me some invaluable source material. The first is Mick Walker's "CAFE RACERS of the 1960s" This book is chock full of black & white pictures of motorcycles from the UK. Although it is full of mostly British made bikes, all the pictures accurately protray the heyday of the rockers.







The next book is "Cafe' Racer: the motorcycle" by Mike Seate. Probably the most exhaustive tome on the subject covering the history of the cafe racer culture from it's roots in England all the way up to the modern street fighter movement. Full of b&w and tons of colour pictures of vintage and modern cafe racers.

Both books are still availible and are highly recommended for anyone interested in these style bikes.

Road Trip

I work six days a week. I don't really want to, but it's part of my job requirement. Atleast the bills get paid and I have some extra spending money. I lucked out in July 2009. Independence Day was on a Saturday giving me two days in a row off. My family had left a couple days before the weekend to visit family leaving me alone for about four days. After working Friday, I went home for a good nights sleep and woke up early. When riding, even long distance I believe in traveling light. I grabbed my motorcycle toolbag and my surplus army wool blanket. Inside my blanket I keep an 8'x12' plastic painting drop cloth and I tied the whole thing up a length of parachute cord (perfect for making a lean to or tent shelter). I also travel with a AM/FM/SW transistor radio which tucks into my tool bag. I didn't take anything else that wouldn't fit into my jeans or motorcycle jacket pockets.
I left around 6AM for a 400 mile round trip two day ride to my home town of Altoona, PA. I honestly haven't been back there in over 15 years. I only have distant relatives there who I'm not that close with them anyway. I really had no interest going there. My ride wasn't really about the destination, it was about riding. I rode up in the morning, rode around all day Saturday into the night visiting alot of the place I used to got and hang out as a kid. Hung out in a bar for the most of the night drinking diet cokes. I took a little nap and left for home around 4am. Stopped for breakfast in Breezewood and headed on home. I took these pictures behind an old abandoned next to mercy hospital on Saturday. I think a couple of them looked pretty good and wanted to throw them up here. Will I go back to Altoona? Eh, maybe in another 15 years. HaHaHa.

More Modifications

First off, I want to say that this bike is my daily ride. I have to fit my modifications in between riding, working more than full time, and spending time with my family. Also, I'm not a rich person either, I have to budget the money to do the mods I make as well. It's a work in progress. I honestly can't say I wasn't happy with how the real turn signals came out. I plan on changing the entire tail of the bike anyway, so bolting them into the stock location would have to do for now.
I did like the way the way the front of the bike looked. However I didn't like having to clean all the bugs off my gauges. The wind blast while riding that was hitting me square in my chest wasn't much fun either. So I decided that a flyscreen would look pretty good and cure both of those problems too. After doing some book research and digging around on the internet, I found a really nice screen, made by Dart, that looked really good and kind of like the ones they had back in the late '60s and 70s. Just one problem. The ZRX came with a bikini fairing, so Dart didn't make one for it. They do make them for the Triumph Bonnieville and Thruxton which has a 7 inch headlight same as what I installed on my Kawasaki. After looking at the pictures on Dart's website of the mounting brackets, I took a chance and ordered one for a Bonnieville. I figured if I had to, I could just make my own brackets. I didn't. It was a perfect fit and went on with any modifications and looked great!

Headlights and Turnsignals

I soon decided that it was time to turn my attention to the the rectangular headlight, turn signals, and bikini fairing. I have to say, that the bike in stock form is a very good looking motorcycle. Kawasaki designed a beautiful looking replica of a replica of an '80s superbike. I just didn't want a 1980's style bike and that rectangular headlight screams 1980's Japanese motorcycle. For a proper cafe racer, it had to have a round headlight and square turn signals would certainly look out of place. One other thing I wanted to do was I wanted to stay with Kawasaki parts. So I spent time doing some online research. I found from an online Kawasaki dealer that headlight bracket for a ZX-7 should fit with only minor modification. Next I was able to locate and order a NOS headlight bucket, NOS front and rear turn signals and turn signal stems for late 70s Kawasaki Z1000. Perfect! Actual parts from a 70s big Z would look great and give the ZRX an authentic look. So off came the whole headlight/turnsignal/fairing assembly and onto eBay it went. Installing the NOS headlight and turnsignal went pretty smoothly and really improved the look of the the bike immensely, however the rectangular mirrors just didn't look right. They looked very out of place with the round motif I was taking the bike in. So I did some more looking around and decided some round bar end mirrors would do the trick. Starting to get closer to that cafe look now.

Modification #2

So I started modifying cheaply first and my next modification was removing the pillion foot pegs. The left side wasn't a problem but the right side foot peg doubled as the exhaust hanger. So off it came anyway, and I began surgery with a cut off tool. I cut off the peg and ground down the hinge for it. I tried to smooth it out the best I could, but there was some casting voids and pits where the peg hinges were.
So I decided to continue with the round theme I had decided to used on the bike and got out my hole saw. I cut two lightening holes into the hanger, conveniently where the hinge for the peg was. Starting to look much better, but there was still a small void in the front of the hanger. While I'm sure it would have been hard to notice I knew it was there and it just wouldn't do. I tried to grind down the void and smooth it out as my
original plan was to polish the hanger to show it off for bling purposes. However the metal was not going to cooperate with me. I did toy with the idea of drilling a few more lightening holes into the hanger, but decided against it. For some reason, it just wouldn't look right, at least to me anyway. So I decided that I wasn't going to be able to polish it, bummer. Oh well, I decided to used the rat bikers secret weapon. Flat black spray paint. I think it still came out pretty good. It almost blends in perfect with the rest of the bike and gives the illusion that the muffler is just hanging there all by itself. I'm still considering polishing it as it's kinda hard to see, unless you know it's there. All that cool work, and nobody even notices it. I suppose that's just part of build up a bike, all the little details and such, most people see all the big bling stuff, but the little things nobody ever notices. Such is the way of things.













The gold on those shocks have got to go too. I'll figure out how to do that when the time comes.

And The Modifications Begin

The very first thing I did was install a set of frame sliders and swingarm spools to protect the engine cases and make lifting up the rear wheel easier. I spent the next couple of weeks just getting acquainted with the bike and doing research. It was late October and starting to get cold. I have a rule, I ride until the temperature drops below freezing at night or daylight savings time and we turn the back. There's just not enough daylight to ride, esspecially on the way home from work. I've almost been hit twice riding home from work in the rush hour traffic around here in the Washington, DC metro area. So it's just not worth it. Mercifully, we have rather short winters around here so actual down time is much shorter when compared to other areas of the country. The previous owner installed one inch handle bar riser spacers to lift the stock "sit up and beg" handlebars up and back. I promptly removed them and spun the risers around to move the bars forwards. That would have to do until I found the right clip-ons or ace bars to install. I turned my attention to the headlight and turn signals. The rectangular headlight and turn signals is very 1980s Japanese, as well as the fairing. Which is what Kawasaki was going for with the ZRX. It's supposed to be a replica of Eddie Lawson's superbike. While it looked great, it was not what I wanted.

The Search is Over

I was performing my search of the internet for a suitable bike for my project on the night of Saturday October 18th, 2008. While on my local Craig's list and perusing the motorcyle section, I found it. The bike I wanted, a 2001 Kawasaki ZRX1200R, with under 12,000 miles.
It was almost perfect for my project, sure it was only a five speed, it was carburated and not full injected, it had a rectangular headlight and bikini fairing, and was only technically made in the twenty-first century. Also what was the deal with all that fugly gold? However none of that was nothing I couldn't take care of. And check out that swingarm! That swingarm looks pretty trick and very late '70s. Those dual rear shocks with the remote reservoirs are pretty sweet looking too, but more gold, ugh!

There was only one problem, it was Saturday night, the next day was Sunday and Monday was Columbus Day, a holiday, and the banks were closed. There was no way I could get the $3,000 to buy the bike. So I wrote the guy an email to check and see if he still had the bike and if he got any offers. The guy was super nice and emailed me back with his phone number saying that he did have one offer but the guy was in Philadelphia and hasn't shown any effort in coming down for it yet. I explained my situation, I would not be able to get the money until Tuesday and wouldn't be able to pick the bike up until Tuesday night. I told the guy, "Hey, I don't expect you to hold the bike for me. If someone shows up with cash in hand, I snooze, I lose, but if it's not sold by Tuesday, I want it." He said "Don't worry, call me at my work Tuesday, and we'll set something up." Was this guy super cool or what? So I sweated the next couple of days until I got the money out of the bank and gave him a call Tuesday around lunchtime. He still had the bike, I said consider it sold. So around 6:30 that night, my partner, our son, and I all drove the 25 miles down to his house and made the deal. I used the license plate off of my Honda to get it home. I was totally blown away by the bike, it sure didn't need a sixth gear, and had a smooth, broad torque curve. It had instant power anywhere above 4,000 rpm and didn't redline until 11,000 rpm. It was a very easy bike to ride, but certainly not a beginners bike. I rode the bike home up I-95 and put it away dreaming about what modifications and changes I was going to make.

Finding the Right Bike

Once I made the decision on what style of bike I wanted to build, I had to find the right platform to build it on. I had a good idea of what I wanted, it was just finding it was no easy task. So I made a list of what features the bike had to have in no particular order.

1. It had to be a Japanese liquid cooled inline four.
2. It had to have a six speed transmission.
3. The engine had to be fuel injected.
4. It should have an old school double loop frame.
5. The forks should be on the right way, the way god intended motorcycle forks to be on a bike so that gaiters could be installed.
6. A nice looking double sided swing arm, not an unsightly barstock looking one that is usually installed on most Japanese bikes.
7. Two rear shocks, for that old school look.
8. A round headlight with no fairing.
9. A standard dual gauge cluster.
10. Dual disc brakes in the front, and a single disc on the rear.
11. Chain drive, no rubber band or shaft drive.
12. Be actually built in the 21st century and have been made for several years to ensure parts availability.
13. A standard style gas tank.

I was willing to work with that list some as I knew I wouldn't be able to find the exact bike that would fit everything on my list. However I was very firm on #12. I also own a 1984 Honda VT500FT Ascot.
Which I fixed up, rode for about two years and converted it into a rat bike.

I learned a valuable lesson with that that bike. It's next to impossible to find parts for a twenty-five year old bike made for only two years. What parts you can find on eBay aren't going to be much better than the parts your trying to replace.
So I began to do research. I started buying all the motorcycle magazine buyer's guides and surfing the web looking at reviews. When I learned another interesting fact, motorcycle manufacturers believe that Americans only like three kinds of bikes. Dirt bikes, V-twin cruisers, and plastic clad track missiles. I really couldn't find much in the way of a UJM standard here.
I did narrow it down to three bikes. The discontinued Honda 919 (also called the Hornet), The Kawasaki Z1000, or the Suzuki Bandit. I wasn't crazy about the 919's underseat exhaust, the Z1000 had a weird funky tail end and fairing, and I just didn't like the Suzuki at all. Also, all three of them were next to impossible to find. No dealers with a 75 mile radius of my house had one. So I spent the next nine months searching the cycle traders and online adds looking for a suitable motorcycle.

Introduction

When I was a kid growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, there were two guys in my neighborhood who had the coolest motorcycles. Sure there were several V-twin Harleys, a BMW boxer, an old guy up the street had a Gold Wing, and my dad had a BSA/Triumph styled Yamaha 400cc standard. My dad had several British bikes in the '60s and early "70s, but when they started going out of business, he switched to Yamaha and never looked back.
They all were nice bikes I guess, but none of them appealed to me. I've always thought that V-twins and boxers looked rather ugly and sounded horrible. I did like the look of the parallel twins, the lines and the style looked beautiful, but the sound left something to be desired.
But these two guys had the most beautiful, coolest looking and sounding bike around in my eyes. I Don't remember their names, but I remember their bikes. One was a Honda CB750 and the other was a Suzuki GS1000. While in stock form, they were pretty tame and standard looking Japanese in line fours, but these guys had extensively modified their bikes into entirely different animals. They had ditched their "sit-up and beg" style handlebars for a set of clip-ons for the Suzuki and a set of dropped chromed clubman's on the Honda and moved the foot pegs and controls farther back and up putting themselves into a more aggressive racing riding position. Using the racers mantra, "If it doesn't make it go, it's dead weight." They stripped off such useless items as passenger foot pegs, side panels, air boxes, turn signals, fenders and mudguards. The stock seats were modified too, foam was removed to lower themselves closer to the tank to lower the center of gravity of the bike and improve the handling. Passengers were dead weight as well, and with the passenger pegs removed there wasn't much point in having a seat for a pillion. So they cut down the back of the seat and replacing it with a hump that raised above their butts, to possibly improve aerodynamics but, more likely, it was there to provide a stop for themselves to keep from falling off the back off the bike at high speeds or when doing wheelies.
I wasn't even ten years old when I would stand at the end of our front yard leaning against the split rail fence and watched them race each other up and down the streets. They only raced each other, none of the other motorcycles around could keep up with them. I used to say to myself, "When I grow up, I'm gonna get me a bike just like them."
Well, I did grow up and moved on with my life. I had forgotten all about those guys as I went on with my life. School, establishing a career, and starting a family became more important things. Perhaps it was middle age, when I found myself comfortably set in the world, surfing the net, I ran into several of the cafe racer sites out there and I remembered those two guys and that promise to myself. I didn't want to recreate their old bikes, although the thought did cross my mind. I wanted a modern bike, with modern handling, reliability, and technology with those old school 1970s UJM looks. I wanted to build a modern cafe racer with those retro looks of my youth. So with money in my bank account I began searching for a suitable candidate for my build.