Culture Café

‘Building your own retro racer just got easy’

uilty secret time: for years now, like many of us, I’ve secretly fancied building my own modern-day café racer.

You know the sort of thing – old BMW boxers turned into scramblers; Honda CX500s chopped into café racers; Hinckley Triumphs adorned with knobblies and exhaust bandages.

The trouble is, it’s not actually as easy as it might look to make one – until now.

Enter Café Racer Kits (CRK), the pet project of lifelong biker and professional draughtsman Ian Saxcoburg. Formed in 2011 and operating out of his well-kitted garage and workshop near Ryde on the Isle of Wight, his is a classic British tale of a one-man, home-brewed, cottage industry.

After deciding to build his own café racer, while at the same time noticing the huge number of unfinished projects on eBay, Ian realised that if he designed his conversion properly, using his draughtsman skills, it would be effortlessly repeatable, manufacturable and commercially saleable.

“The initial spark was watching Café Racer on TV and seeing a CX500 build. I just thought I’ve got to build one, purely for myself. But as I was building it I thought I’d do a few drawings and while doing that I realised I could do more than just a one off,” says Ian.

His first kit – for Honda’s venerable CX500 Plastic Maggot – was the result, and went on public display at the Classic Bike show at Shepton Mallet in early 2012, and drew plenty of admiring attention. Since then Ian has set up a very professional website (www.caferacerkits.co.uk), developed two further models, a CB250/400 variant and the brand new Hinckley Triumph café racer tested here, given up his day job and sold well over 100 kits (mostly for the CX) so far, worldwide. As Ian himself says: “I started it off as a hobby and here I am now working full time!”

Hitting the road

As it’s the newest kit, and the most modern and useable platform, we’re focusing on the Triumph package here, although the CX and CB kits are also overleaf.

It’s built around the early Hinckley triples so applies to not just the Trident 750/900, but also the Trophy 900 and Daytona 750 – however doesn’t yet accommodate the 900 Thunderbird due to frame differences. This bike was based on a donor Trident Sprint.

The modification principles are essentially the same as with the CX and CB versions. The buyer sources their own donor bike and CRK offer kit parts in a variety of different modules according to the buyer’s requirements.

The basics comprise a replacement, shortened, tubular steel rear subframe, accompanying fibreglass seat unit along with seat and bum pad (various types are available); footrest mounts; modified instrument housing complete with new idiot lights; clip-ons, chrome headlamp and brackets, front mudguard, plus alloy rad cover, rear hugger and chainguard.

The new Triumph kit, however, also includes a special 11-litre fuel tank (comprising impressively crafted, hand-built alloy ‘inner’ and fibreglass shell complete with Monza-style fuel cap), which explains its higher £1865 price. Ian says the idea was to reduce the profile of the donor bike, which is renowned for being top heavy.

Like his other kits, the Triumph one comes with an impressively detailed and thorough instruction manual stretching to 80 pages long, while the simpler CX and CB conversions only require 50 pages each. As with all Saxcoberg’s kits, paint finish and final spec is up to the buyer. Ian advises that buyers will need to inform their insurers about the modifications and that this is usually easier with specialist bike insurers such as Carole Nash. Otherwise, that’s it – find a donor bike, buy a kit, and build your café racer.

Ian’s demo bike is finished in eye-catching X75 Hurricane-alike orange and yellow and is truly impressive in the flesh. The tank is a glossy, quality item, the seat and seat pads neatly upholstered, the rear subframe (which on the Triumph is bolt-on but on the CX and CB requires a minimal amount of welding) looks factory-built. Only the slightly DIY-looking clock console and full knowledge this bike didn’t start out like this, unmasks it as a special.

Spiritual Speed Triple

Better still is how it goes, sounds and feels. With the Triumph engine and rolling chassis completely unchanged, the dynamics are familiarly reassuring. Yet there’s a whole new posture and attitude thanks to the revised riding position, styling, and the sound!

On board it reminds, perhaps naturally, of Hinckley’s own original Speed Triple – but the CRK seat is firmer, probably slightly higher, but it’s all still natural – while Ian’s aftermarket silencers amplify the Hinckley triple into a simply addictive roar. Other than that there are no quirks, no restricted steering lock, none of the faults, foibles and plain worries of so many one-off specials, only pleasure.

On board you feel different, envied – all the things true customs and café racers deliver – and yet this is one nearly all of us really can build in our own garage – and at a pretty reasonable price, too.

So if you ever fancied a café racer but were wary of pricey one-off builds, or were tempted by a winter project but doubted your ability, maybe this is the answer. It’s a glorious Airfix kit for grown men that delivers a unique, affordable, trustworthy and individual bike at the end of it. You can get donor Triumphs for around £1000. That makes this a dream winter project and one that results in a personalised Speed Triple on steroids that’s also bang on trend or under £3000. And if that’s too much money, the CX and CB versions can be done for almost half that.
Brilliant or what?

Café swapping take your pick

CRK also make kits to suit Honda’s CX500 and Superdream

CRK currently offer three different café racer kits – the Triumph CRK900 we took for a test ride, plus the original CX500-based CRK500, and CB250/400 Superdream-based CRK250/400.

CRK’s original kit was for the CX500 in 2012 and, priced at £795, has proved hugely successful. Two versions are available – Café Racer or Roadster – with a variety of parts modules offered to covert your donor CX to whatever spec or style you prefer, although the basics are: new rear subframe including battery box, fibreglass seat unit, upholstered seat pad and bum stop, instrument bracket, clip-ons, front mudguard, stainless exhaust headers etc. Unlike the Triumph kit, the standard CX fuel tank is retained but CRK also offer kits that convert the CX’s Comstar wheels into wires costing around £1100.

The ride and performance is, of course, unchanged, so you need to remember this is a nearly 40-year-old 500cc twin, complete with old-school metal switchgear, fuel tap, choke, fairly basic brakes, grip and so on – a cosmetic revolution, however nice it is, can’t change any of that.

What has changed hugely, however, is its attitude and style – what it lacks in kapow it more than makes up for in character. The sense of riding something special – surely even better still with the knowledge that you’ve made it yourself – is priceless, however pedestrian the performance. After all, you’re not buying a CX or CB kit for outright performance.

And, with donor CXs still to be had for around £700 meaning you can put one together for under £2000, that’s suddenly very tempting indeed.

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Words: Phil West Photos: Paul Bryant