I did months of illustrations developing my ideas, bought a decent running Virago and started stripping it down and mocking up components of that “Cafe racer” look in my garage. I then contacted John Craddock of Cafe Racer Ypsilanti (Mi.), to provide motorcycle expertise on this build. He directed me to a local fabricator, Seth Elkins who I contracted to execute my design. After months of back and forth development we finished up a fine physical property of my design that then went back to John’s shop for extensive mechanical mods and rebuild. Once the bike was all squared away and preassembled, we stripped it down and sent the frame, rear swing arm and wheels off for powder coating.
Final assembly and painting of the tank and fabricated steel rear nacelle, and John test riding and final tune and set up, I had my first ride on a cool Cafe Racer! Always get lots of thumbs up whenever I take her out for some exercise.
BTW, I have extensive photos and documentation of all stages of this project. Plus I have much higher resolution copies of the images submitted.
