Image via Complex Original
There are several things to love about the cafe racer scene. For one, there’s no “right” way to do a cafe bike. Sure, certain styling cues are often in play -- except when they aren’t, but the design works anyway. For another, you can find builders in Argentina, Cyprus, Indonesia, India -- seriously, they’re everywhere, and none of them look alike. It’s a rolling art scene, and you’re invited; this scene is incredibly DIY, and many builders get their start just tinkering around in their home garages.
Cafe racers originated back in the day as simple, stripped down bikes that owners customized themselves using whatever was around. Function was the main goal; the slim, compact form that has come to define “cafe racer” in most minds was the natural result.
Some modern cafe racers are paens to the glorious designs of the past, using period-correct parts and rejecting all concessions to modernity. In our opinion, the better ones also make use of how far motorcycle technology has come in areas like suspension and braking. The best ones? The best ones are simply out of this world. Check out our list of 20 Cafe Racer Builders You Should Know.
RELATED: 25 Gorgeous Cafe Racers
Wrenchmonkees
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Monkeefist is a textbook case of taking something unexpected, like a Yamaha XJR 1300, and successfully turning it into a stunning cafe racer. It's also as good an example as we can give you of why we love Wrenchmonkees.
Walt Siegl
Location: Harrisville, N.H.
What do all the best artists have in common, no matter their chosen medium? Their art is what they live to do, and it shows. Sure, everyone likes to have the money to pay their bills, but money isn't the point. Walt Siegl is among the greats. Immigrating to NYC from his native Austria in 1985, Siegl found himself sculpting and building bikes for the hell of it in his studio. Soon, someone offered to pay him to restore an old Panhead, and Siegl began to see bike building as not just a passion, but a viable career option. Lucky for the bike world, we say. Siegl was commissioned by Puma to do a custom build for them in 2012 that also resulted in this great video.
Vicious Cycles Singapore
Location: Singapore
It would be simple enough to merely admire what Vicious Cycles Singapore builds, particularly when it looks as good as the FTW 200 pictured here. What's really impressive about VCSG is that this builder persists in customizing in an environment that's completely hostile toward customization -- to the point where it's actually illegal. We know and love rebel art when we see it. Here's video of the FTW 200 in action.
Valtorón
Location: Madrid, Spain
When you're this talented at working with raw metal, you want to show it off -- not cover it up. Valtoron's specialty is showing you how beautiful metal can be. Need further proof? Check out this video of La Latina 900 in action.
Radical Ducati
Location: Madrid, Spain
We kind of love it when a name tells you all you really need to know about something. Take "Radical Ducati," for instance. Now you know pretty much what it is that they do. The thing that really sets them apart from other cafe racer builders is that they aren't really exercises in retro styling -- at all. Radical Ducati is an evolution of the idea of what a cafe racer can be, as interpreted for the modern age. See more in this short film.
Mr. Martini
Location: Verona, Italy
In fair Verona, where we lay our giant rubber patch...wait, no, that's not how it goes. Italy is responsible for unleashing some of the most beautiful production cars and motorcycles on a grateful world. It's no wonder that it's also home to a top builder like Mr. Martini. We can't get over the seat on Jerolamo. We could stare at it for days. We love the super clean under-tail section, too.
Medaza Cycles
Location: Cork, Ireland
If all you ever wanted in life was for the Ducati Pantah to look a bit less '80s-tastic, Medaza built this Ducafe with you in mind. Apparently, this build came about as a way to keep from getting bored one winter. If only we were all this creative when we were bored.
Lossa Engineering
Location: Long Beach, Ca.
Lossa Engineering builds some tidy, tidy bikes. On some cafe builds, you can get really distracted by identifying all the different recognizable parts. You know, the game of, " hey, that's a Ducati swingarm!" Lossa's work just flows so well that it takes a few moments before you start breaking it down like that in your head. We like that very much. Here's Solus, a similarly tidy and entrancing short film featuring Lossa's SR 500.
Krugger Motorcycles
Location: Basse-Bodeux, Belgium
Fred Krugger's attention to the smallest of details is evident in every Krugger Motorcycles build -- and none moreso than this one. Don't believe us? Watch this video.
Kevil's Speed Shop
Location: Devon, U.K.
You might think that BMWs would make terrible cafe racers. Kevil's Speed Shop is proud to prove you wrong. Based in the land where cafe racer culture first began, KSS is the child of one Kevin Hill, who tidies up BMWs like nobody's business. Here's a short film about Kevil's Speed Shop.
Kaffeemaschine
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Kaffeemaschine specializes in Moto Guzzis. "But Complex," we hear you say, "Guzzis are already perfect! Why would you customize them?" Because what Kaffeemaschine really builds are UberGuzzis. Working from a philosophy that everything can be better than it starts out, Kaffeemaschine makes perfection even more perfect. Here's a test ride of a Kaffeemaschine bike for a German TV program.
Heiwa Motorcycles
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
Heiwa Motorcycles specializes in bringing a classic timelessness to every custom bike it produces. Every bike ends up slimmer, sleeker, cleaner -- like an alternate history that never happened, but you wish it did. Here's a video tour of the Heiwa workshop.
Gasser Customs
Location: North Hollywood, Ca.
We love symmetry. We love well-placed curves. We think "Blackjack" is as good a use of the exclamation, "DAT ASS" as there could ever be. We love brilliant use of matte black, and also when black and tan work together so well. Gasser has built many other beautiful bikes, but Blackjack will always have a special place in our hearts. Check out a video of this beautiful bike right here.
Ellaspede
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
One of the things we consistently enjoy about good cafe racer design is clean, beautiful lines that tell us everything we want to hear about the simple beauty of speed. This is Ellaspede's specialty. Owners Steve Barry and Leo Yip come from an industrial design background, and they incorporate that knowledge and skill set into Ellaspede every day. In addition to putting up beautiful photos and build information on completed builds on their website, Ellaspede also lists the music they're listening to in the shop while working on each specific build. Here's a video peek inside the Ellaspede workshop.
Dime City Cycles
Location: Largo, Fla.
If you watch Cafe Racer on Velocity, you may have already seen some of DCC's excellent work. Honda CB 750s are staple bikes for cafe racer builds, but not everyone puts one together with the panache of Mabel, a bike assembled for an Iron and Air giveaway. Although DCC builds, their primary business is selling parts to those who want to build their own bikes themselves. Check out their extremely easy-to-navigate online shop here. You can also check out this great video about DCC.
Deus Ex Machina
Location: Australia, U.S., Indonesia, Italy
Running on the philosophy that "the way forward is one down, four up," Deus Ex Machina started as a custom shop in Australia, then branched out to bring "internally combustible postmodernism" to the world. The more people that get to experience their work, the better. Here's a video tour of their Milan location.
Deranged Motorworks
Location: Larnaca, Cyprus
Just because Alexandros Hadjicostas lives on the tiny island of Cyprus doesn't mean he lets his cafe racer dreams be limited. Local parts availability for rebuilding the old, disused 1969 Honda CB750 that he found wasn't good, to put it mildly. That's where the global cafe racer scene comes into play: Hadjicostas diligently sourced parts for El Gato from about 10 different countries. It takes a global village to build a bike this beautiful. Here's video highlights of the full build.
Classified Moto
Location: Richmond, Va.
There's nothing like watching talented builders constantly and consistently improving their game, and Classified Moto doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon. They just posted this bike, which apparently utilizes bits of a 1992 Honda Nighthawk 750 along with a Ducati swingarm and a front end from a Yamaha R6R. We love bikes that make good use of that burnished look. It's like they want you to ride them.
Shinya Kimura and Chabott Engineering
Location: Azusa, Ca.
Shinya Kimura describes himself as "a motorcycle mechanic," and he's not wrong. But he's also an artist, and one of those people who is so good at his job, he had to uproot from Tokyo and move to LA to try to maintain some semblance of privacy so he could just do what he loves. His rolling sculptures speak for themselves. Check out this excellent short documentary (seriously, it's only 2 minutes and 45 seconds) about Kimura here on Vimeo.
Bandit9
Location: Beijing, China
Designer and builder Daryl Villanueva is an artistic renegade and world traveler with roots in the advertising world. Like so many of the best, he started building the kind of bikes that he wanted to see, and his reputation took off from there. Bikes like Hephaestus -- a Honda Bros 400 (the Bros was called the Hawk GT when it was released in the U.S.; we never got the 400cc version) that looks like it came from another dimension -- are why. Villanueva says he wants to make people rethink the idea that "made in China" is a bad thing.