Bumping my own thread again just to talk about the aesthetics, engineering, and philosophy of girders.
I'm still in the planning phase for my 550, but did buy that P&P pictured above. It'll need some work to make everything fit, but it was a good deal and should serve as a good starting point. I'll be replacing the shock with a unit custom-made for my application, and will do some tuning to the geometry to get it as close as possible to stock.
One thing I'm surprised at, though, is that people seem to assume that running a girder automatically makes the bike a chopper or a bobber. I am planning to have the girder up front and a monoshock conversion on the rear (with a triangular brace on the swingarm and a linkless shock setup running to the frame's backbone - Vincent or 900SS style). I expect that in addition to looking good, the girder should be stiffer and possibly lighter than the stock setup, and will definitely have better damping due to the modern shock sprung and valved for the bike.
In my mind, this will be a cafe build, and I don't see anything about going girder that makes the bike any less of a cafe racer... One guy I was talking to said something about the front end being old-fashioned and a mono conversion being modern seems like an odd combo. To me, the girder isn't particularly old-fashioned (Britten, Foale, and Cramp have amply demonstrated), and the linkless rear suspension I have planned isn't particularly modern.
The combo seems to have worked pretty well here:
So... Thoughts? Can a girder setup work with the minimalist cafe look if it's done right?
