come to chicago sometime, its terrible how these rich white kids go on craigslist find a running Honda and throw some clubmans and a seat on it and ride it repping this cafe racer status. personally i don't think a cafe racer should be a phrase that is tossed around when properly identifying a bike. a cafe racer to me means; a vintage race bike without a fairing that is street legal. not something with "the look". I've gotten tons of looks while on my CB (painted/clubmans/exhaust/no fenders) and when asked "isn't that a cafe racer?" i always say no. I've spend over 50 hours and 200 bones on my head and carb setup, but by no means has my engine been "raced out". the hipster kids will find their niche someplace else, but as for now via driving up prices/seeing complete basket case jap bikes on ebay with "cafe racer" tag or in the title. i must say it burns me up a bit. i dont feel like my bike or anything close to stock could ever be a cafe racer. no one likes a poseur.
Cafe racers back in the day had nothing to do with "motor" go fast mods and were simply done by getting rid of as much extra wieght as you could, and riding the balls outta ur bike from point "A" to point "B". You picked up a surplus bike and stripped off all the crap you didn't need and put on low bars to get into the "tuck" position and rode the snot outta ur bike you built, usually for a bull#$%* bet over a beer or whatever.
Props to all the guys bringing anything old outta the junkyards and barns and making them anything. Its all about the ride not the style.
My 1st cafe was a 1978 CB 750F SS,(wich in its own right was past the CAFE time pieriod) as far as I cared It was fast enough (Was it as fast as my 2000 CBR 600 F4, HELL NO!!) But it didnt matter, it just needed to go on a diet to loose unneeded pounds. So I stripped all the #$%* off and put on a solo seat and clubmans and I had a blast ripping around on it. And most of the time could take most of the modern day naked bikes that pulled up next to me. Then at the next stop light to be asked what the hell I was riding,where I just simply said "MY BIKE".