This is a well done cafe racer conversion, however I shudder to think what the price tag would have been I think they sacrificed the turning circle with the forks striking the tank, but otherwise the front end conversion looks good http://racingcafe.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/suzuki-gsx-250-metal-scorpion-by-studio.html
Aesthetics take precedence over practicality and speed... which was what the original Cafe Racers were all about.. strip them down of everything that is not necessary... a set of clipons and go road racing with your buddies... These days it is more about how nice the bike looks rather than anything else.. Personally I dont find that bike to be anything other than butchered.. but maybe that is just me...
No, I don't think it is just you Andy, but I bite my tongue all the time. "Must not comment, must not comment".
Oh wait a minute, here are some 'cafes'. Oops wrong again just a pair of bog stock bikes from the seventies with a few earlier and and later models to boot. Why don't they have huge fat moron tyres on the front?
Yeah I would never ride it with those tyres, but I normally do not find myself liking conversions, tyres aside I reckon it looked pretty good and not overly blinged
Heres some real cafe racers ... and one of the original purposes was to ride your bike from the cafe to a designated point and back before a certain record had finished on the juke box .... in other words ... bloody fast As Andy mentioned ... a British bike of the era with drop bars
In '69 I had a '69 Bonneville. There is a lake close by that is approximately 7 miles long as the crow flies. The roads around the lake were fresh asphalt, and with the twisties was excellent for speed trials. I still get goosebumps whenever I hear a British twin fire up...nice pictures, nice memories.
That Suzuki is not a GSX, it's a GN250 single with two mufflers, but is better made (converted?) than most of the rubbish you see on the net. A 'cafe racer' was made to go fast and handle good, and that thing with the big balloon dirt tyres wouldn't. Andy and Maelstrom, your not alone with your thinking.
I had no idea so many of you guys were so cranky about cafe conversions I liked the front forks - reminded me of this - I got a lot of high scores on a lot of machines, I got a lot of high scores on this machine, it was one of my all time favourites
It is not that I'm against good cafe conversions, but I am against badly done bikes that make them unsafe to ride on the road. Most of the 'bikes' I see on the net have a bunch of miss matched components slapped onto a butchered frame and fitted with stupid pod filters, no mufflers and car tyres. These types give the whole 'cafe' bike scene a bad rap and as soon as somebody gets killed on one the RMS/police will start getting heavy with bikes again like they did in the '70s with modified bikes like the chopper craze. A well done 'cafe modified' bike is a step up from a standard bike with more power and better handling, and that was always the goals of any cafe racer.
Out of interest, where are they getting the balloon tyres for the front, are they running rears on the front?
Probably, but those 'Coker' brand tyres are the same front or rear. I'm sure Trax is watching this discussion with interest, but the message is to do whatever you do with your bike safely and well.
Haha well I think cafe racers look awesome (when done rite), and as you've pointed out your never going to get much more power the stock out of an older 250 anyway. So if you cant have a fast bike may aswell have one that looks good.
For a bike of that age you may gain a boost from a full service and just checking and adjusting everything to your liking, which means drive chain tension, rear wheel alignment, tyre pressures, cable lubrication and free play adjustments, turning brake and clutch levers to where they suit your hands etc, all the way through to the air filter, checking carb fuel levels and valve adjustment. I know whenever I get a bike it takes a while to sort those things out with short rides concentrating on one element at a time
