8 January 2015 - The Strip Begins... and ends! (Cape Town Cafe Racer)

The holidays are over! After a couple of beautiful summery rides through Cape Town we finally started the strip on Tuesday this week, and finished it last night (save for the swing arm which we didn't have the right tool for - apparently a 27mm thin-wall socket). The ride was great, besides the brakes which were pretty terrible. Hopefully they'll be cool after a service, otherwise we'll consider adding a second disk.

(Almost there)

(Voila!)

We were quite surprised at how smooth the strip went. We managed to get pretty much the whole thing done in just two evening sessions.

Next we'll be taking an angle grinder to the frame/sub-frame to shorten the the seat and remove all of the fittings we don't want/need before sending it off for bead blasting.

As far as the engine goes we've just removed and are servicing the carbs for now, and are considering our options with respect to the bead blasting. We'll probably take it in to be serviced rather than do it ourselves - it's just a matter of whether we're going to do this before or after the bead blasting.

(One down, one to go)

There's a lot of stuff going on in the background - Oscar's been missioning around meeting suppliers and fellow enthusiasts, he's bought quite a few minor parts (clutch and break levers, indicators, etc) and ordered some of the more unique/specific parts, the exhaust is in for modification - things are happening! While I sit on my ass at work daydreaming.

I'm off to a wedding for the weekend, so no more physical work for now. There will be lots more constructive daydreaming going on in the meantime though!

Here are two cool links we came across this week:

http://thebikeshed.cc/2013/12/13/eriks-alaskan-r90/
Erik's R90 cafe conversion is definitely one of the most beautiful cafe racers we've come across so far and it's given us lots to think about.

http://www.bikeexif.com/build-cafe-racer
This article by car designer Charlie Trelogan is all about his interpretation of a classic cafe racer design and he explains it really well with great diagrams (and a beautiful example bike).

Cheers.

Please drop us a line if you have any questions, comments, advice, or just to say howzit!
Cape Town Cafe Racer Conversion.