Honda CB750 K7 Café Racer

The value of a vintage bike is usually calculated by how common that bike is in that particular country. It's the basic laws of supply and demand. For instance, in America there's still quite a lot of Honda CB750's for sale - so they still offer pretty good value for money. However in a country like Greece, these Honda CB's are extremely rare. So when Aris Pavlidis from Adrenaline Junkies in Greece found one laying in the back yard of a carpenters workshop, he couldn't believe his luck. "It was in very bad shape but due to the rarity of this bike in Greece, I immediately went nuts about it, my mind started to make crazy plans for it" says Aris. So the next day, after a bit of haggling he bought it for $600 usd and got busy on his new found project.  

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1978 Honda CM 185T - Classified Moto

The saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure" couldn't apply more to what Classified Moto do. First they used old bike parts to make stupid cool lamps. Then they turned the undesirable Virago into a stripped back sexy beast even it's own mother wouldn't recognize. Now they have turned a 1978 CM185 into a piece of art. "Like a lot of the bikes we work on, it was not the coolest bike on the block," say Classified Moto owner John Ryland. The bike was built for ad agency producer Christina Cairo. Aparently she had never ridden a motorcycle before but loved what Classified Moto were doing and wanted one for herself. "We gave her the (unofficial) friends and family discount and she gave us free reign to do what we wanted," says John. Luckily she wasn't in a hurry because they have been working on the bike on and off for a year. It got back-burnered repeatedly as other bigger paid projects came in, but as you can see by the photos it's now finished. And how.

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Honda CB836CR "Sentoh" - AFT Customs

There's always an inherent problem being in a "scene" like the current boom for cafe racers, and that is that you are so bombarded with cool bikes that your eyes become a little shuttered to the possibilities you have when you set out to make a bike for yourself. In many ways the eyes of someone outside the "scene" are more fresh and therefore able to really create something new, like this all-original take on a cafe racer by Jim Guiffra and the guys girls at his AFT Customs shop in Jackson, CA. More used to a Californian chopper style of customising, it's really refreshing to see a racer with a new approach. Based on a 1976 CB750 Four, It's definitely channelling the spirit of cafe racers but with a healthy shot of west coast 'tood, a pinch of track gear and (seemingly) a few left-over parts from a giant Japanese robot. It's one of those rare bikes that makes you do a double-take with it's deft, effortless mix of genres yet coherent overall look.

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Honda CX500 Street Tracker - "Superfly"

When it comes to the ugliest production bikes ever made, we all have a few that come to mind. Now we're not talking about your usual "not my kind of thing" ugly - but honest to goodness, feel the vomit rising in the back of your throat, transparent plastic bag full of monkey genatalia ugly. Top of our 'designed with an ugly stick' list is the Honda Rune, then probably the nauseous Victory Vision and of course the repelling Bimota Mantra – we'd probably prefer to burn our retinas with a welder than see one again. Then there's the Honda CX500, which isn't on our personal 'ugly list' but it is on some peoples lists, like Graham Braids. "So I set myself a challenge, what is one of the ugliest bikes out there? The CX500!" says Graham. He tells us that in England, the nickname for the CX500 is the "plastic maggot", which is why he has named his modded version of the bike "Superfly". Here's how Graham transformed this bike from drab to rad. 

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1971 Honda CB350 - Ellaspede Customs

Ever found yourself in the midst of a stalled custom project due to a nasty case of procrastination? Whether it be a sudden and irrational dislike you develop towards your less-than-perfect tools, an aversion to spending too much time in that cold, damp box you call a garage, or the guilty realisation that yes, maybe your better half is right and that you should spend some "quality time" on relationship building. Whatever the case, the excuses are myriad but the results are the same - an unfinished bike. Consider then the design team of Steve and Leo at Brisbane's Heluva Pty Ltd who had their project put on hold by nothing less than Australia's worst ever floods invading their shop. All this and they still managed to turn out one of the most original and innovative CB Hondas we've seen in a month of blue moon Sundays. Feeling a little guilty now, are we?

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Honda CL 360 - 'Willow'

"So why did you name the bike Willow?" This is the first question we asked Troy Helmick, the builder of this amazing bike. "Willow trees are strong but fluid" he replied. Very zen, sensei Helmick. Troy is a retired photographer who now runs an Alpaca farm in West Virginia. "It is my attempt to evoke a picture in a person's head when they hear a name and then couple that name with the image they see before them in my machine" he explains. This bike was reborn on a farm in West Virginia. Willow started life as a 1974 Honda CL 360 before Troy found her on her side, rotting behind someone’s garage. The build was inspired by the era of the board track racers — they were brutal machines, elegant in their simplicity. The pictures you see before you are Troys redefined interpretations. Photographs and words by Troy...

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1969 Honda CB350 - Vintage Customs

Vintage Customs was started a couple of years ago when Jason Lajkov quit his graphic design job to pursue his dream of building custom motorcycles for a living. Since we featured one of his early builds just over a year ago, he hasn't looked back and his bikes seem to just keep on getting better. This stunning 1969 Honda CB350 which Jason named 'The Speedster' hasn't always been beautiful; when Jason bought it she was uglier than Ernest Borgnine in lipstick and a tutu. "I got the bike from a salvage yard - it was just going to be sold as parts" explains Jason. "The motor was seized and everything was really rotten and destroyed". Jason saw past all the rust and visualised what this old girl could look like in the right outfit. So he got to work.

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1997 Honda NX650 Dominator

The country of Wales is famous for producing two things, the singer Tom Jones and also for mining many precious metals. Ironically, precious metal was all that was left when Welshman Andrew Greenland stripped the plastic off his 1997 Honda Dominator and did a ground up rebuild. Andrew has a serious perchant for Honda Dominators and he does them impeccably. This isn't the first Dominator he has built, and by the sounds of things it won't be his last.

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1969 Honda S90 Café Racer

Most motorcycle shops start by building bikes for a living and then end up printing the odd tee with their logo on it to sell on the side. Not these guys. They started a clothing label that now builds bikes on the side. Uprising is label designed by two guys from Jakarta, Ariadi Poernomo and Pedi Tahir. "30 year old kids with motorcycles in our hearts," says Ariadi. "Our clothing is coming out later this year and we've always teamed up with local talented builders to make our rides; we've decided we wanted it to be part of the brand... which is why all our bikes are a collaboration. But sooner or later we are planning to have our own workshop. We do sell these bikes afterwards, so we can build more new stuff." They have many bikes on the go at the moment but their latest is this stunning 1969 honda s90 café racer.

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