This will probably upset some of the members here, so I apologise in advance, but Cafe Racers suck! Well, the riding position does suck when you're a fat broken almost 54 year old anyways. After riding mine for shorter and shorter distances in recent years, I decided to swap sleek and sheik, for comfy and practical.
I wanted to swap the front end over to a GL1000 setup anyway, so while I was at it, I took the opportunity to swap the Laverda Jota bars for a pair of Superbike bars, and ditched the Cafe seat for a nice new K0 repro that's actually comfortable.
The forks already had nice progressive springs fitted, so I just added a NOS S&W air kit with remote gauge, and of course, new seals. Surprisingly, after 2 weeks since I installed them, they're still holding air!
I couldn't use my K2 gauges (no "Rhino Horn" on the Goldwing top triple) so I used some K4 gauges, but of course they're not a bolt on, so I chopped up the K4 bracket and the GL1000 bracket and welded them together, and am happy with the result.
And similarly, I mated my K6 (?) fender to the GL1000 fender bracket and riveted them together. There's a little more clearance than I'd like as the GL1000 bracket is a tad taller, but it'll do to get the bike thru the roadworthy inspection.
I've still gotta get some spokes to lace the matching Borrani rear rim to another hub, but the guys at Buchanan's aren't being all that helpful, I sent them an email asking what heavy duty stainless spoke kit I needed to lace my Borrani WM5 18" rim to a K1-K6 rear hub, and they came back to say that it depended what the inside diameter of my rim is? I thought that they'd know all that stuff? Oh well, I guess I'll have to do their job for them.......... Cheers, Terry.
