THE BIRTH OF THE CAFE RACER
Motorcycling in England began as a pastime of the upper class around the turn of the 19th century. It enjoyed a fair amount of prestige and fame as well as a fairly positive image in British society. But during the 1950′s and 60′s, when availability of credit brought the more expensive purchases within reach of the working class, motorcycles became available to more than just the rich and famous and that positive image began to slide. ”Cafe racing” was started, as always it seems, with a group of disenfranchised youth called Rockers or Ton-up Boys, the UK version of Greasers. The Rockers spent their time building and modifying motorcycles, cafe racers, to race between the transport cafes that were often used as starting and/or finishing points. The story goes like this: The leather clad Rockers would be hanging out at a cafe. Someone would put a nickel in the jukebox, the needle would drop and the racers would scramble for their machines. The destination would be a roundabout, a statue, a mile marker and then return before the needle lifted at the end of the song. Since the average song lasted less than three minutes these races were completed at very high rates of speed. The goal was to achieve 100 mph the slang for which was “ton”.
The “caffs” were definitely built more for speed than comfort and were often a combination of the best and lightest parts of different British-made motorcycles. The holy grail, if you will, of cafe racers was the Triton. The Norton, famed for it’s lightweight, road hugging ridged chassis nicknamed the “Featherbed”, unfortunately possessed a seriously unreliable and under powered motor. To solve that problem racers removed it and replaced it with the twin-cylinder, twin carburettor motor from a Triumph Bonneville. Thus the Triton was born. Similar to the American “bobbers” and “choppers” that were evolving at the same time, every unnecessary bit was chopped off to improve handling and performance. But the similarities ended there. Where as the American choppers were built for distance and open highways, the caffs were built to handle short, fast trips and the narrow, twisting “A” roads that were the nations main transport network before the modern multilane highways were constructed. The handlebars were modified to sit forward and low on the the fork tubes or attached to the stock mounting points and allowed the rider to tuck in and reduce wind resistance. Fuel tanks were elongated and often stripped of their paint, and foot pegs and controls were moved back to accommodate the laid-out position of the rider.
Recently the cafe racer has been making a bit of a comeback. Of course, caffs have been constructed in workshops all over Europe and North America for years but recently they have been seen in various movies and tv commercials such as the Honda CL350 in the American version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the Ducati Sport Classic in Tron Legacy and Keira Knightly rides a Ducati 750 Sport in a commercial for Chanel. Manufactures like Triumph, Norton, Royal Enfield, Ducati and Moto Guzzi are now making production model cafe racers, all reflective of their hand built ancestors. The resurgence of the vintage motorcycle has created a whole new appreciation for that Rocker style.
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Check out this other post on a hand built cafe racer here.
For more on cafe racers and culture check out here and here.
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