Certain shows like Daytona’s Boardwalk Show where this bike was shot have a policy of having absolutely nothing near the bike identifying who the owner/builder of a bike is apparently so as not to affect the judging. As an avid showgoer, let me be right up front and say this is a stupid, stupid rule that may have had good intentions, but stupid is stupid and this is stupid. Personally, I like to know who or what company built a bike for better or worse and I’m kinda sure I’m not the only one who feels that way. If Jack can’t find a name, he will always discretely and very carefully try and leave a business card to have them get in touch with us, but unfortunately many people are just too fancy to deal with the press. Hell we even ran this on many Facebook pages more than once looking for the owner to no avail so damn it, we’re just going to run it anyway as it’s interesting and Jack took some great photos as usual so why waste them.

   What makes this bike kind neat is that it’s a highly-personalized bike that was probably owner-built for not a ton of money for the results. Yeah it’s a Honda and if you hate Hondas or Japanese bikes in general, I don’t know why you’re still reading this diatribe unless you’re a sucker for your own torture. For the rest of us who just like motorcycles, this is a fine effort at building a custom on a budget that’s not only show worthy, but you could still hop on and ride the pee out of whenever and wherever you felt like it.

  Obviously what somebody did was find an old CB 750, strip it down to the frame, and go from there. After rebuilding the suspension front and rear, they upgraded the brakes with a second disc up front with both rotors now drilled out for looks, performance (less weight and better wet weather use) and drilled out the rear drum’s highly polished backing plate like all the old vintage race bikes did for cooling and coolness (Anytime you make something twice as cool the cool factor is quadrupled, not doubled. Ask anybody). Then in a smart move they re-laced the wheels getting rid of the stock CB’s rubber spokes with a set of modern stainless laced to black powder coated rims. After canning the heavy stock chromed steel fenders for a single lightweight one up front, things were starting to look different.

  Rebuilding the interior and refurbishing the exterior of the tried and true inline four engine until it looked minty fresh was next along with adding a bit of performance. Next, bolting on a set of racy Keihin CR smoothbore carbs with velocity stacks replacing the big stock plastic air box added sound, power, and opened up the space under the seat. A four-into-one Yoshimura pipe with the guts removed certainly dropped quite a few pounds to say the least, but you’ll never make the neighbors happy this way and you’ll lose some horsepower and rideability along the way. Looks nice and it’s definitely lighter, but it’s got to be droningly annoying at a steady speed.   

   A long café-style tank and tail section (probably found on eBay for a good price) along with a set of clubman bars and rearsets gives it the attitude the owner was looking for. The paintjob could be a neat twist on a stock gold CB750 where the frame was black and the bodywork was gold. Now, colors have just changed places with the frame now gold and the bodywork black. I have absolutely no idea why the owner felt obliged to paint “Café” on the tank, though, as obviously that’s what it is. Sweet Jeebers, I hope this is one thing that doesn’t catch on as I’d hate to see “Bagger” or “Chopper” or “Bobber” or whatever painted on tanks. Nice quality paint work though.

   All in all, this is a pretty damn decent build for relatively short dough and that’s why this bike gets a Board of Wealth “A” rating. Finding an old Japanese bike and redoing it is a great way to work on your skill sets while not breaking the bank. And, you get something to knock around on like when you were a wee lad without all the lard.

  So to you unnamed and unknown owner of a CB750 café, not a bad job at all. A lot of hard work and thought went into this build and just because it’s not an American V-twin doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of being featured in Barnett’s Magazine Online. My only wish, besides knowing whose bike this is, is that the hood, visor, or whatever anybody calls those godawful things over the headlight be canned from any bike, anywhere, anytime. Ugly, ugly, ugly things that just look stupid and you already know how I feel about stupid. Those hoods, visors, whatever, are just plain stupid and ungainly, but ungainly will have to wait for another day.