Topic: Cutting up Classics

[Magpie]

What a great thread and discussion! Everything from "how dare you change that classic!" to "it's my bike dammit and I'll do what I want!". It just shows we all care for the SOHC4 in our own way. Love it!
Cliff.

[73nancy]

+1 from the above comment... having a thread talking about things of this nature is good every once in awhile. i didnt see any one insult someones mother either so that was nice.

[cbr-eric]

I can appreciate both sides. I love seeing a nice original, and I also love seeing a well thought out cafe.  what I really hate to see is people messing up perfectly nice things. its why I cant stand it when people will take a brand new cbr 600rr and make it into an ugly old "streetfighter", but it is their bike. I dont have to like it and I guess they dont have to care weather I do or not

[xfactor]

So what color do you guys think I should paint by bike? Should I stick with the original Antaris red or go with a little bit darker of a color.



I ask because I really cant make up my mind. I like the antaris red but I feel like it might be hard to find!


Also I thought this was the best thread to post this in

[Nikkisixx]

It is those darn kids with their flash dancing and wrapping music, get off my lawn 

So is it ironic that those darn kids want to make a cafe' bike out of the machines that put the nail in the cafe' bike coffin?   Now THAT is disrespect 

[scottly]

clip, you really should post the video, so we might all mourn the wanton destruction of a perfectly good motorcycle. May she rest in peace....

[Magpie]

Just to stir it up..................more.................these were side by side at a recent swap meet/show 'n shine and they both looked fabulous and marvelous.
Cliff.

[seaweb11]

Hey, where's mine?  Wrong meet

Oh yeah, you couldn't get past the crowds  

My Tracy is an aberration

[Magpie]

Oops! Sorry Seaweb! You had a great pic of it. Post it. It's another great example of an interpretation of  a 4.
Cliff.

[moham]

And to clarify a point, 400,000 between 69 and 76, not millions.

good lord, I was exaggerating slightly to make a point. And I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that, compared with production numbers of other motorcycle models of the era, there might as well have been millions...

and why only count until 76?

sohc 750 production continued until 78. I wonder what the production numbers were for ALL sohc4's produced from 69-82...over 500,000 just for the 750s...

[Stev-o]

I'm sure there were over a million CB's made, if you add up all models.

And I like 'em all!  Well, except for that Gator bike on the ugly CB thread!!

[Simpson]

I really enjoy getting a good look at all stockers, cafe and choppers. Bikes in general are fascinating to me. Mostly I love the stockers but can appreciate all forms. Got to hand it to some of these guys who cafe their bikes in the project threads, they have real skills. Plus the cafe bikes in these threads are dead sexy. I do have one aspect that troubles me. While I admire the custom bike guys, I can't help shake my head. Perhaps its all because I make an assumption. Yes, I know what happens when I assume.

A large amount a sport bike riders I see in town to date, you know the guys, modern GXSR, Busa or R1 bikes will have a weekend warrior riding them. Its the guy who wears shorts, novelty helmet, loud color schemes, poor foot wear selections,  with a t-shirt and maybe a leather vest. The vest usually has some gay club name on it intended to sound rough and tough. These guys are fast in a straight line and slow in the corners. Commonly referred to as squids or posers. These guys love to mod their bikes with chrome/polish, extended swing arms, lights, and teams theme paint jobs, large size rear tires and more bling bling bling farkles. They spend big money on their bikes. These riders appear to have large egos and are probably the worst riders on the road.

Now sometimes I wonder if the cafe rider is like this guy, just "vintage". Do the cafe guys here really ride your bike all that much? Does putting some clip-ons and pods make you faster than me in my stock bike with saddlebags? Do they realize it's still a slow bike compared to just about any modern bike? How can you enjoy the bike for more than an hour laying on the tank cruising with 1 inch foam seats around town? Sure it looks bling like the Busa with the 300 tire in the back but I bet he has trouble taking a corner very fast. Just seems like more style than substance.

A lot of thought was put forth to create the stock form motorcycle, but different strokes for different folks...
Having said that, I'm still glad these guys do what they do.
It would be a boring world without them. Kudos to you custom motorcycle artists.
Long life creativity.

[seaweb11]

Now sometimes I wonder if the cafe rider is like this guy, just "vintage". Do the cafe guys here really ride your bike all that much? Does putting some clip-ons and pods make you faster than me in my stock bike with saddlebags? Do they realize it's still a slow bike compared to just about any modern bike? How can you enjoy the bike for more than an hour laying on the tank cruising with 1 inch foam seats around town? Sure it looks bling like the Busa with the 300 tire in the back but I bet he has trouble taking a corner very fast. Just seems like more style than substance.

Well check out my Sturgis thread below
P.S. I added a gel seat insert

and no, I don't go any faster with my bags on than you do with yours.

[754]

Re the comment"the bike that put the nail in the cafe bike coffin"

  ???To which bike do you refer.

 I can see a cafe owner wanting a CB 750 to look like a back in the day bike.. ie, Seeley, Rickmam, Yoshi.. just to mention a few..

[my78k]

Would it help if people stopped calling them "Cafes or Bobbers" and we started referring to them as Restomods?!?!? You don't hear people talking like this about classic cars when they ditch the beaten slant 6 and drop in a 440 Hemi do ya?

Besides, if EVERYONE restored their bikes to original how incredibly boring would that be??? Been to a classic bike show lately? Once you've looked at one bone stock 750 from any particular year you've seen them all (concours resto's excepted). Also, if the market was flooded with all original bikes they would be less valuable not to mention virtually no spare parts to keep them alive!

Dennis

[Anarchy78]

I bought a 750/4 because I wanted a motorcycle that was reliable and affordable. My motorcycle might have been a good candidate for restoration. I don't intend to take a cutting torch to the frame, but I'm also not parked on ebay looking for the correct left foot peg rubber either. It has clubman bars on it, but it's no faithful vintage cafe whatever...it IS the motorcycle I like to ride, on the budget I can currently assign to it.

If I could afford a newer bike that I could work on just as efficiently and affordably, I might have bought one (I love the look of Honda's '08 liter.) That said, I've been around the country on my K1; Gonna ride another 2K miles in about a week, and I couldn't be happier with it. Never had a problem with it that I didn't cause myself. 

All of that to say, I bought a motorcycle to ride a motorcycle. Do I appreciate the amazing engineering and design? Absolutely, but mostly in so much as the engineering and design allow me to ride the d@mn thing from A to B. Not interested in a motorcycle too original or too pretty or too expensive to put my @ss on and ride.

Couldnt agree with this post anymore.

[Slonomo]

Insighful thread. I just posted my first post this morning regarding this issue not realizing that this was a heated subject or that there was a recent thread about it. It`s funny cause  this is my first foray into classic bikes (bought a cb350 two days ago as a project of some type )and therefore know virtually nothing about them but intuitively I felt that hacking an old bike up is somehow sad. I`ll do it as respectfully as possible and promise to sell any good parts on fleebay. LOL

[andy750]

Lets not confuse the issue here:

It dosent take a genius to understand that cutting up a classic bike (or car) that looks like "new" is a waste of a good stock original bike (or car). It has only survived 35+ years looking like "new" until it meets its unfortunate end due to the "builders" creative "vision".....plenty of examples of nightmare visions out there.  If I want a modified bike I wouldnt cut up a good looking stock one. I dont have that kind of money to throw away.  But they thats just my opinion.

Creating a modified bike (whatever you want to call it) from a non-original bike, or beat-up bike or abused stock bike is another story. If done well it can look great and very creative (plenty of good looking choppers and other bikes on here). If done wrong it can look like sh*t. Not everyone is an "artist" no matter how creative you think you are. And worse still if you spend all your money on making it look good and nothing on improving performance. That said at the end of the day its a motorcycle and if it cant be used a motorcycle and used for a long time or for very far then not only have you destroyed a good looking bike you have also made it into something less useful. Now that would be pretty stupid.

[MickeyX]

Yeah, you know, like a guy who takes a pretty darn decent 750 specimen that many would love to start with, tears it apart because he can and welds an effed up rear end on it, puts a huge fat tire on the back, puts crotch rocket forks on the front, doesn't bother to make it fit the neck, cuts the seat in 1/2 and then props it on a curb at daytona for a few days just to have people sit on it and make him feel good that he has created a paper weight out of a once ride-able motorcycle. It doesn't move once, not an inch, it just sits there on it's pipes and frame looking sad. The same kind of guy who doesn't even bother to look up how much oil goes in the engine, just dumps it in.

Yeah, I have to admit, I can't stand those either. But, it's their bike and their $$ to do with what they want. I don't have to like it or encourage them to do it and faun over them when they post a few staged pics with drunk chicks who sit on every bike in the street. I just move on and go to the threads where people try to build a bike they can actually ride some day. No matter if it's cafe, stock, bobber or chopper, etc. The point is, they build a bike to ride it. That is the destination right? To ride? 

[Freaky1]

While I don't fall easily into either age category being thrown around here, I'll offer this, age has nothing to do with it. I have seen "old geezers" take beautiful cars and bikes and turn them into rolling piles of #$%*. On the other hand I've seen "young pricks" do a nice job of bringing back a beauty.

I don't care what you do to YOUR bike, I did what I did because I wanted to. I get burned when someone takes a nice piece that just needs a nudge to get back to original and hacks it up. There are plenty of these bikes and others out there rotting in someone's backyard, experiment on those. I don't prefer the original looks but if someone restores one I can appreciate the work and see the beauty.

As for the materials used back in the day, there are still plenty of poorly made parts out there. I've talked to some people who have put ungodly amounts of miles on stock equipment without any problem. New or old, crap is crap, you can destroy modern equipment just like old equipment, and dip#$%*s will continue to exist.

In the end let me say, I don't care where it comes from, who built it, or why. I my eye hot is hot, restoring an old bike or car to the way it was may not be my cup of tea but I'm damn glad there are people who do it, shows where we came from. As for guys chopping things up and pushing the envelope, great, shows us where we can go. It doesn't matter what you did to it, original or custom, you can do a crappy job either way, and we can tell.   

[Magpie]

"It doesn't matter what you did to it, original or custom, you can do a crappy job either way, and we can tell. "    

And, we'll let you know what we think about it too.  or 
Cliff.

[scrapvalue]

Hate to say it, built the classic CB750's are the 1969 to 1972. After that, they lost some soul.
The later they were made the more soul they lost.
They were great bikes, but still, they were just bikes.
Let people do what they want. Why do you have to be judge, jury and executioner.
If you don't like what you see happing, then quit looking.
Maybe you can get Obama to make a law or ruling that all stock bikes must remain stock.
Or maybe you can get on your bike and go for a ride.

[hoodellyhoo]

Yeah, you know, like a guy who takes a pretty darn decent 750 specimen that many would love to start with, tears it apart because he can and welds an effed up rear end on it, puts a huge fat tire on the back, puts crotch rocket forks on the front, doesn't bother to make it fit the neck, cuts the seat in 1/2 and then props it on a curb at daytona for a few days just to have people sit on it and make him feel good that he has created a paper weight out of a once ride-able motorcycle. It doesn't move once, not an inch, it just sits there on it's pipes and frame looking sad. The same kind of guy who doesn't even bother to look up how much oil goes in the engine, just dumps it in.

Yeah, I have to admit, I can't stand those either. But, it's their bike and their $$ to do with what they want. I don't have to like it or encourage them to do it and faun over them when they post a few staged pics with drunk chicks who sit on every bike in the street. I just move on and go to the threads where people try to build a bike they can actually ride some day. No matter if it's cafe, stock, bobber or chopper, etc. The point is, they build a bike to ride it. That is the destination right? To ride?  

  I tried my best not to comment in that particular thread. Thanks for saying it for me.

And as long as I'm at it I might as well throw my two cents in as well.

I have an almost completely stock 350f that has survived the years in great condition. I am willing to make a few deviations from stock on it (tires, exhaust, ignition) but only those that either keep the stock appearance of the bike or those that will improve rideability. IF I ever sell this bike I will gladly sell it to a person for less money if I know it is going to a good home, than to someone for more money but with sketchy intentions. With this bike, I feel more like a caretaker than an owner.

But my other bike is a slightly customized 750. I bought it because it has many good stock parts on it but it is also missing quite a few. I am trying to sell the bike and I really don't care too much what the next owner's intentions are. In my opinion, it is just beyond the cusp of making a good candidate for restoration. It would be possible, but would be costly and there are similar bikes out there with more original parts left that would be better. Because of this, I think this bike would make a great candidate for a cafe racer. It's a perfectly functional motorcycle just waiting for the next owner to personalize it. My only care is that the bike gets ridden. Period. The more old bikes I see getting ridden, stock or otherwise, the happier I am.

[Little_Horse]

All the bikes I have chopped so far, were dead... and still would be had I done nothing with them. Now they are back on the road, I build them they way I want them to be, and the way I want them to ride. I give them a character I want them to have. To me stock bike while beautiful is boring. It says nothing about the owner more then that they are meticulous, also translating to a perfectionist often found cleaning their bike more then they ride it. Everyone is different yes and I can appreciate that I also don't think chopping a perfectly good stock bike is a good thing. I find it great that these old classics can have such a widespread appeal in all age groups, sure the trend is younger riders chop, but that is because we are rebellious in nature, you old guys were never like that right?

[birdy]

Just to add (?) to the issue, here in the UK due to low interest rates and lack of attractive investments elsewhere - property in particular - people are buying classic bikes like the older Hondas just to keep and speculate. Some have no interest in the bike for itself.