Yamaha XT500 - “Single Naked Chick”

Some people dream of a day when time travel becomes a reality. Of course, for those who spend their time fiddling with bikes in garages, it's obvious that the ability to warp time and space already exists. It's what happens when you "just pop out the back for 5 minutes," and wander back into the house three hours later with dirty hands and a shirty partner. Now, if only we could somehow reverse the process so that those three hours becomes the five minutes that we originally had to spare. If we could do something like that, then we'd all be able to build a bike in no time at all, just like Doug "Hawkins" Devine and his three week wonder - “Single Naked Chick.”

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Yamaha XT 500 Café Racer

As you all now realise, Pipeburn strives to bring you the best custom bikes from all around the world. And bring we do; on an regular basis you can check in and get a piping hot serve of sweet motorbicycling goodness. Why, anybody would think these things beautiful things grow on trees! Well we've got some potentially shocking news for you; they don't. They are actually bloody hard work to create. Even if you have yourself a bunch of spare time and decent garage to get down and dirty in, chances are that for every sweet bike like the one you see here there are another three rusty, half-finished wrecks that never cross the line.

With that thought in mind, I'd like you now to put yourself in the shoes of one Simon Taylor, a photographer from Kings Cross in Sydney's inner east. After 5 years of riding Simon thought an Yamaha XT 500 café racer would be a great little project to undertake, despite his complete lack of mechanical knowledge. And a garage. Or indeed any kind of useable space at all. See, the bike you are looking at here was built entirely in Simon's one room, third floor studio apartment in a building that was sadly never blessed with an elevator.

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