Say goodbye to this sort of cheap knock-off sportbike bodywork from overseas. To date, I believe myself to be one of the few remaining Americans who choose to receive his daily news in print form. No big fan of electronic media and having worked as a newspaper columnist for 20 years, print newspapers still –…

The custom motorcycle market is indeed a fickle mistress. Bikes that were under-loved cast-offs a few years back now command wallet-flattening prices while some makes and models that were recently considered the pinnacle of perfection, become also-rans. In the wake of such a topsy-turvy marketplace, the specials builders have to ride each of these unpredictable…

For a mode of transportation, motorcycling generates a great deal of unique creativity. In our current, October/November issue, Cafe Racer profiles once such two-wheeled visionary, the artist Makoto Endo. The Japanese painter spent much of his career in design and advertising before realizing he’d rather express his love of motorbikes on canvas. That decision has…

      Just back from San Jose in foggy Northern California for the four-day global launch of Royal Enfield’s new twins. The much-anticipated bikes have been in the pipeline for several years and to say they’re an important step in the Indian manufacturer’s program is an understatement. We always dug the Continental GT 535…

Come our huge, 100-page October/November issue, we take a look at one of the unsung bargains of the retro custom world, Suzuki’s fabulous GS750. released in 1978, the Gs was Suzuki’s first big four-stroke machine. The very modern double overhead cam engine is still a peach to unleash as it’s smoother, quicker and more tractable…

This year marked the 21st year that I’ve been visiting London’s annual Ace Cafe Reunion. The fabled transport cafe, built in 1938, was the home of a tire depot when the first reunion was held in 1994 and after re-opening in 2001, the crowds that gather for the ride from North London down to the…

Thanks to the assistance of you, our readers, we managed to locate the winner of the 2nd Place Best Japanese Cafe Racer trophy at our August 12 Custom Bike Show. We couldn’t have completed our special, 12-page photo essay on the amazing entries at this year’s event without you, so a tip o’ the pint…

In the weekend-long hustle, bustle and confusion of staging this year’s Reader’s Ride-In Custom Bike Show, a few things inevitably go wrong. In this instance, we mistakenly handed off the crucial information allowing us to contact the Second Place winner in the Best Japanese Cafe Racer category. His bike was a stunner of a silver…

Though we’re being careful not to release any images of the various trophy class winner’s from this months Reader’s Ride-In Custom Show, we decided to share one of the more memorable- and unexpected – entries. Sidecar rigs may not, in fact, qualify as pure cafe racers, but the popularity of the three-wheelers has proven consistent…