One of our staff’s favorite ways to prepare for the next issue of Cafe Racer magazine is to pour over our voluminous photo files. During the past 18 years of publishing, we’ve amassed a library of images numbering in the hundreds of thousands, many contributed by readers and their families and friends. At this point, there are so many digital and old school paper photos, that sorting them into categories would require a team of full-time research assistants working around the clock for several years.
Occasionally, we realize patterns in the amassed files, such as numerous depictions of certain makes and models of motorcycle or even bikes sharing similar modifications. One of these regularly occurring mods happens to be the mid-1960s craze for ever lower clip-on handlebars. This movement was inspired by the full-on competition machines that cafe racer riders witnessed buzzing around pro racing circuits: if mounting your bars down near the bottom triple clamps was good enough for Dave Croxford and Gary Nixon, riders figured, it’s good enough for my street machine.
Looking at these pavement-scraping controls today, it proves there’s no alteration a rider wouldn’t make to enhance performance- or give the illusion of same. Sure, making a bike more aerodynamic was good for a couple of extra em pee aitches on the road, but the back-breaking limitations of riding a motorcycle that stretched lumbar muscles, wrists and low-speed steering to their respective limits much have been sheer hell in the long run.
We spoke with the late British motorcycle parts manufacturer Mick Hemmings about this wild and mercifully short-lived trend a few years back at the annual Ace Cafe Reunion in London, and he laughed heartily at the thought of he and his mates ripping around the country backroads of Southern England on motorcycles outfitted like pure paddock refugees. “Once a few blokes took to dropping their clip-ons down to heavens-knows-where, it felt as if everyone wanted extra-low clip-ons. It didn’t matter if they were one of the fast lads or not- you just had to have that look,” he said.
Today, whenever classic cafe racers and their equally vintage riders gather, many of these same machines sport above-the-top-clamp tubular handlebars. What few bikes are still rockin’ genuine clip-ons are equipped with taller, so-called “swan neck” versions that spare riders the indignity of having to pop painkillers the way mods once dropped pep pills. Come Cafe Racer magazine’s April/May issue, we’ll share a trove of images of these kidney-crushing road warriors and their low-barred rides. In the meantime, feel free to shar your own shots of you and your pals stretching the limits of aerodynamics and wrist strength- we’d love to see them.
