Honda CB550 - Bridge City Cycles

Portland, Oregon is not only one of the 'craft beer' capitals of America, but it's also one of the 'craft motorcycle' capitals as well. There seems to be so many great custom shops, motorcycles and events coming out of Portland – there must be something in the Portland water beer. One such shop that we've been keeping our blurry eye on is Bridge City Cycles. Started by Anthony Mautemps and his wife 2 years ago, their business is going from strength to strength. "We'll be moving to 5,000 square foot facility in May" says Anthony. "Fortunately, the move is just across the street." Bridge City Cycles specialize in vintage and classic motorcycles from Europe, America and of course Japan. Their latest build is this super lean and clean Honda CB550 café racer...

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1978 Honda CB550k

The Honda CB550 is like the steak on the menu at the most pretentious restaurant you can think of – you know the one that has Salmon foam and Quail eggs cooked "three ways". The steak is usually the banker though. The one meal you can easily pronounce and the one that is really hard to screw up. Plus, with the right cooking methods and sauces you can stamp your individuality on it. So when the Head Chef of "some new restaurant" David Jeffers wanted to buy a motorcycle, he started sourcing ebay for some prime steak... I mean some prime examples of the Honda CB550.  

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1975 Honda CB550K - "Le Mans Special"

Want to freak out a graphic designer? Make him pray to a higher power and start rocking back and forth on his fancy bent-wood chair. Then give him a job where he can only use two colours - safety orange and turquoise, and then watch him squirm. All the rules of colour theory say "no, this absolutely cannot work." And yet behold the beauty that is the Gulf Oil livery. Is that angels I hear? Beautiful retro motor racing angels playing heavenly engine music through trumpets that look remarkably like velocity stacks? Chris Trotter from Bozeman, Montana heard that music too. And that music said unto him "build the world's sweetest Honda cafe racer and paint it like the world's coolest race car, then send it over to those incredibly great guys at Pipeburn so that they may show it to the world." And beholdeth, he did. And it was good.

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Filipino Bobber

Noli Coronado is not only a silversmith for Lucky Monkey in Manilla but is also a passionate bike builder. He likes to build sculptures that have wheels and engines. Like this one-of-a-kind board tracker cross bobber he built for Ron Poe of P&P tattoo. Ron is the son of legendary Filipino actor Fernando Poe Jr. Fernando Poe’s most famous role was of Panday (blacksmith in Filipino) in the movie Ang Panday. He played a blacksmith named flavio who made his own swords and fought evil foes. Dante from Lucky Monkey tells us "The build started out as a CB550f from the 70’s complete with raked out neck and flamed tank. The bike features a girder front end, rigid frame painted in rust inspired by pandays costume. Flourishes using brass and other found objects such as wrenches were integrated into the build. The bike also contains Agimats which are Filipino brass amulets which hold magical properties that protect the rider". This is one of the most unique and original builds we have seen in a while, almost as crazy as Noli's previous Kawasaki KZ750 project. 

CB550 Cafe Racer

This CB550 has been lighting up the switchboard on the SOHC4 forum for the past month. The bike was fastidiously built by a guy from Portland who goes by the forum name Paulages. Paul said on the forum that "When i originally built my CB550, the engine was simply cleaned up and painted, and all bearings and bushings replaced, etc. then, I eventually built the 718cc powerplant, and found that the rest of the bike wasn't quite what the engine needed". He not only did the big bore himself, turning the stock 550cc engine into a 718cc but he also did all the welding - strengthening the old Honda frame. Paul has done an outstanding job restoring this beautiful CB550 and we particularly love the bare metal tank and pin striping. Here's just a taste of some of the specs: 1979 ducati 900SS tank and half fairing, K&N intake filters, tarrozzi rearsets, 14" progressive rear suspension, race tech cartridge emulators in forks and loads more. He goes into amazing detail on all aspects of the build so make sure you read his SOHC4 thread.
[Thanks Coop for the tip]

Honda CB550F

This beautifully restored 1976 Honda CB550F Super Sport sat unfinished, perfectly stored in a garage for 12 years before Larry Pearson convinced the owner to part with it. The previous owner, a very talented machinist had already done some work on the vintage road racer. Like a perfect era-correct Kerker exhaust, laid down rear shocks and made almost all of the beautiful aluminum engine covers, the rear sets, the ventilated rear brake hub, the fork brace, clip-ons, muffler hanger and more. Then Larry built the tail section from scratch using the gas tank's rear half as a mold (genius). He also made the seat, built all the mounts for the fairing and then painted it to his picture perfect standard. It appeared in Cycle World as the "American Flyer" (Aug. '04) and more recently it took second place in it's class at the '08 Legend of the Motorcycle (1/2 point out of first place). We love this Honda CB Cafe Racer and we look forward to sharing Larry's next project with you. [If you have a project for Larry contact us and we will give you his details]

CB550 Cafe Racer

One of our favourite forums is the SOHC4 forum. They always have the most amazing Cafe Racers being posted by their members. Like this spectacular yellow 1976 Honda CB550 by Chris from New Jersey. He purchased the original bike for only $600 and has turned it into one of the sweetest cafe racers we have seen this year. We are definitely bias to the Benjies style of cafe racer. The tank, seat and paint job are absolutely perfect. Hit the jump to see Chris's build pics and more details about this beast.