"Cafe Racer"--- Chinese internals?

[Davidf]

I've been drooling my way thru the cafe racer thread, there's some simply stunning efforts in there, and I'm thinking hard about something for myself, bit of a project when back from the duties at the minesite.

I like all sorts but the little engine versions seem enticing, early CB hondas and the like, real simple and clean looking, and it occured to me that a Chinese bike may be a good starting point [ don't laugh!].

I figure for a couple of grand your going to get a brand new everything, usually a blatant copy of something Japanese anyway, which you can easily tear down to it's simplest components, and then go from there. I KNOW it's not going to reek of cool, but for the money involved, and the enormous variety available, maybe it might be a good starting point. It seems like people have started to ask ridiculous sums for anything old these days[ I troll Ebay a lot ]

Anybody seen such a thing? Or just thoughts in general.....

[vbroom]

coupla grand should get you an old cb or similar. sure you'd have to do done work to it but that's part of the fun. also try quokka or gumtree.

out of curiosity what brand/model bikes were you thinking of?

[Rex Havoc]

I ride with a guy who is a mechanic and works on chinese bikes. He reckons they are absolute rubbish and wouldn't touch them if he didn't have to.

I'm with vbroom, for the same money you could pick up a beautiful and under appreciated piece of engineering and turn it into art that will be enjoyed by yourself and looked at with envious eyes by others. Not something that could be done with the bikes coming out of China at the moment.

[XS650]

another point against this is as soon as you 'tear it down' you'll void any new bike warranty that came with it.

[Davidf]

Didn't really think that one thru....

I looked at a couple of prospects, yes they really are as badly built as they say[ I'm a fitter, I have a reasonable idea of "build quality"], have to look again at older established stuff methinks.

[Vosy]

I got a pair of 1980 CB's out of gumtree for $100 ea (both running), both times I was the first caller.

There are bargains to be had, if you can watch gumtree pretty regularly & buy the quokka first thing thursday (I think?) morning when it comes out you will find your project eventually.