In this month's newsletter, we have a special feature on one of our customers who designed and built a cafe racer.
A Wolf in Cafe Racer Clothing
One of the things that draws many of us to the sport of motorcycling is the desire to do something just a little bit different from everyone else. Whether piloting a head-turning machine like a Ural sidecar complete with your four-legged friend riding shotgun, or cruising the back roads on a modern retro Royal Enfield, we’re all seeking for a way to do our own thing.
For some, this desire leads to the need to customize our machines to make them a true expression of our personalities. The reality, however, is that for most riders, our fabrication ability is limited to adding a few bolt-on components. And then there are people like long-time oVc customer Dave Moore.
Dave has been riding and building café-styled machines for more than half a century so he knows a thing or two about customizing motorcycles. It was this experience that, when looking at an oVc ad for a new SYM Wolf, allowed him to immediately see the potential for taking a stock Wolf and making it his own unique creation.
“Inspiration for the project came from a hand-made café racer seat that had been sitting in my shop for the past twenty-five years,” explained Dave. “It struck me that this seat would perfectly match the little Wolf and once I had this initial vision, the rest of the project became clear in my mind.”
Having the vision is one thing, but executing on that vision is another matter altogether. To ensure the project stayed true to his initial concept, Dave evaluated each modification against a single guiding principle.
“Maintaining a sense of proportion is critical to the success of a project like this, and without ideal proportion, the project will never work. The Wolf in its stock form is beautifully proportioned so it was a matter of ensuring that any fabrication work maintained the scale.”
Still, form without function is quite useless and Dave had no intention of creating a “garage queen”. This bike was built to be ridden and for a café racer, function comes from divesting all unnecessary weight and the first area Dave concentrated on was the stock license plate holder and rear light assembly.
“I removed the rear fender tail light and license plate bracket and designed and installed a custom bracket under the seat,” explained Dave. “I then installed and rewired a small LED tail light and relocated the signal lights directly to the frame.” With the new rear solo seat, there was no need to keep the rear passenger pegs and this made it possible to also remove the rear sub frame for additional weight savings. Dave even drilled holes in the chain guard to shave off a few more ounces and help contribute to the café racer look and feel.
In the front, Dave changed the stock fender to model the front fender of a Ducati Scrambler. Other front end modifications including changing the grips and mirrors and removing the stripes from the fuel tank.
“All together, I probably reduced the weight of the Wolf by 25 lbs,” noted Dave. With the Wolf ringing in at just 266 lbs, realizing a near 10% weight savings will certainly make the bike faster, but Dave didn’t stop there. To boost engine performance, he installed a new free-flow exhaust system and also swapped out the primary sprocket to give the Wolf a higher top-end speed.
With all this work now completed, Dave has just one last task planned.
“I still need to paint the bike but I’m having a hard time deciding on a colour. Maybe some of the Newsletter readers can offer suggestions.”
