A low-riding Sportster cafe racer from Andorra, an angular Royal Enfield Continental from India, a Honda RCB 1000 homage from France and a 162-horsepower Gixxer dirt bike from Finland. Motorcycling is indeed a broad church.
Harley-Davidson Sportster cafe racer by RC Dept It’s easy to ‘cafe’ a Sportster, but it’s even easier to totally screw up the lines. Enter Andorran custom shop, RC Dept—they’ve nailed the stance on this purposeful Sportster cafe racer, based on a 2005-model 1200 XL.
Up top, the Sportster’s silhouette’s been perfected with a low and long fuel tank, flowing into a typical cafe racer tailpiece. Lower down, it rides on upside down forks, new YSS shocks, and 16” spoked wheels wrapped in fat Avon Cobra tires. Lighting is kept low profile with tiny LED turn signals, and there’s a new license plate bracket that hugs the rear tire.
RC Dept treated the Sporty to a beefy Vance & Hines intake, and a stealthy twin exhaust system, with the mufflers tucked away low down. There’s a chain conversion in play too, with mesh-lined cutouts in the sprocket cover.
The controls consist of RSD rear sets and KBike clip-ons. There’s a smattering of parts from Brembo and Motogadget too, along with a small LED headlight up front. Between the tasty parts pick, the blacked out finishes and the slight hint of color in the bodywork, this broody Sportster hits the spot. [RC Dept]
Royal Enfield Continental GT 535 by J&D Custom Co. Indian builder Jay D. Patel has a soft spot for the single cylinder Royal Enfield Continental GT. This is his third Continental GT build, and since he usually works on smaller machines, the 535 cc motor is the biggest he’s worked with.
For this project, Jay wanted to push his aluminum shaping skills as hard as possible. He’d done fuel tanks before—but this time he set out to build all the bodywork from scratch, with an aesthetic that would ride the line between vintage and futuristic.
He started by trimming and redesigning much of the frame. Then he built wireframes to predict the final outline, fine tune the stance, and create a platform to start shaping on. The fairing was built out of three sections that were then welded together, and the tank includes a pair of small sight glasses.
Jay shortened the forks and built a new, longer swing arm, but decided to hold onto the Enfield’s twin, upside-down shocks. Then he fabricated a new stainless steel exhaust system, running the muffler up and through the frame. Some of the controls are stock, but there’s a new switch panel behind the windshield, knurled grips and a few other little touches. Oh, and the actual windshield is a repurposed Royal Enfield helmet visor. Neat! [J&D Custom Co.]
Three XSR155 customs from Yamaha Thailand In addition to handing a bike over to our friends at K-Speed, Yamaha Thailand debuted the XSR155 recently with three in-house customs that show the bike’s custom potential. All three are pretty rad, and have us wondering how far and wide Yamaha will be distributing the little XSR.
The first is a cafe racer [above] with flawless stance and proportions. Finished in silver, it features a new tank, bikini fairing, classic cafe tail section and slotted side covers. There’s a diamond stitch pattern on the brown seat, and some chromed and polished bits—like the wheels, brake calipers and shortened exhaust. Clip-ons, rear sets and a neat lower spoiler round out the package.
The second baby-XSR custom is a rather rowdy-looking scrambler. Like the cafe variant it features a custom fuel tank, matched up to a bench seat and new side covers. There’s a smaller headlight up front, MX-bars, a high fender, and a pair of spoked wheels that appear larger than stock. The pillion pegs are gone, which is just as well, because the exhaust now runs high up on the right side. With a sump guard and knobby tires, this XSR should do just fine in the dirt.
An XSR155 flat tracker rounds out the trio. The bodywork here is custom too, but it’s been stretched and flattened out with quintessential flat track shapes. We’re spotting wide bars, big hoops and high-mounted twin exhaust mufflers. We’re not seeing any lights or turn signals, so this little ripper is track-only, which sounds just fine. Naturally, this one’s wrapped in everyone’s favorite Yamaha livery: speed blocks. [More]
Honda CB750 Nighthawk by Le Motographe We need more retro endurance racers, please. We’ve got a hankering for wide fairings and chunky tail sections, and this Honda from Le Motographe is just making it worse.
The Montpellier-based shop customized the 1997 Honda CB750 Nighthawk for Kulte—a French clothing brand that’s been around since 1998. Since ‘Kulte’ means ‘cult,’ Le Motographe figured they should pull inspiration from a cult classic. So they took cues from the Honda RCB 1000 that raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the 80s.
It’s not a direct replica, but more of a loose homage. The stock Nighthawk tank’s matched up to a bulbous half fairing with a single offset headlight, and an appropriately bulky seat section. The exhaust is a four-into-two affair, with the twin mufflers exiting under the tail bump.
The CB also features more subtle tweaks, like new rear shocks, tiny LED turn signals, and revised controls and ergonomics. Rather than pick a throwback livery, Le Motographe designed a contemporary paint job using Kulte’s brand colors. Belle! [More]
Suzuki GSX-R1000 dirt bike The day motorcycles have to make sense is the day we hang up our keyboards. If you agree, this next bike should appeal to you—a 162 hp dirt bike, built from a Suzuki GSX-R1000.
There’s not much info on it out there, but we’ve heard it’s from Finland, and according to the video below, it absolutely rips. [Via]