With publication of Cafe Racer magazine’s 15th Anniversary Issue just around the bend, we took a long, wistful look back at some of the incredibly creative and mechanically gifted people who’ve helped fill our pages with their custom motorbikes over the years. This issue, our June/July, 2023 will be the 87th though with the addition of three annual editions (two of which are now out of print) we’ve brought readers some 400 custom bike photo spreads, representing just about every imaginable iteration of the stripped-down cafe racer genre. Things started off in issue #1 with an exploration of the beloved and revered Vincent V-twin, a machine that has endured a staple of custom cafe shows, museums and rider’s dreams despite the last new Vincent rolling off the Stevenage, England assembly line in 1955. Though we received favorable response to our fist few issues and their Brit-biased bike coverage, we quickly delved into having our photographers head out to cover bikes of Japanese, American and European manufacture, resulting in our collective minds being blown by some of the ideas being turned into rolling, high-speed reality.
In the new magazine, we brought back a feature that exemplified the new school bike modifiers, namely Midwesterner Atom Pechman’s way-out Yamaha RD 350. The venerable, lightweight two-stroke twin was, in 2009, already emerging as a staple of a younger set of cafe fans who favored its low purchase price and ease of maintenance, especially compared to British classics. A\tom’s take on the stroker bore hints of what as soon to become known as Steam Punk styling, a weird creative mash-up that incorporates elements of Edwardian and industrial art and architecture, science fiction aesthetic, thrift store kitsch and just plain visual fun into the game.
The green and cream-colored Yamaha deserves a second look, as the issue it appeared in, #5 from Summer, 2009, quickly sold out, leaving many readers unable to see the images before being lost to history. We did a little research on the bike’s clearly talented designer and builder and were pleasantly surprised to learn that Mr. Pechman has since become a prominent architectural engineer who designs some of the Midwest’s more engaging and popular restaurants. Check out the wild, unorthodox metalwork on the Yamaha and look up his current work and it’s eye-pleasing to recognize style elements that transferred over from Atom’s motorcycle to his industrial design work. Good stuff and be sure to take a look come June 10 when our 15th Anniversary magazine hits the streets.