OUTSIDERS MC BARELY LEGAL

The title barely legal should get a few new search engines pointing our way, but it is pretty appropriate for this latest build by Bert & Jene in the Netherlands, AKA Outsiders Motorcycles, as the bike has very little in the way of street-legal lighting and the pipes a L O U D. Loud.

The bike is built around a Honda CB250, but this one punches above it’s weight in stance and attitude. It started out as a modest build through Ab who came to them via Facebook. “He wanted a simple tune-up and some small mods. We met in Utrecht and talked about the bike and his vision with it.”

Ab had bought the bike and had originally planned to do all the work himself, but ‘life got in the way’ – as it does – so he went to Bert & Jene to finish the work. The initial instructions were very simple. It had to be a cafe, black with chrome, and fast. Ab’s idea was to get the guys to change a few things and then add new parts later, but after spending some time chewing it over he changed his mind; “fuck it, go all out”. A proper build was on.

“We started by tearing the bike down to the frame and began to modify it. The rear was chopped and looped. Chambers were inserted and welded to make the new shocks fit snugly. The battery tray was welded on to the frame and it was de-tabbed, and a bracket for the rear fender was welded on.”

The first thing we noticed about the bike were the chunky upside down forks. Spindly forks are not the most attractive feature of small capacity custom builds, and changing them out for something more meaty makes a big difference. In this case the donor tubes came from a Aprilia RS125. “The tripleclamp had to be modded and new needle bearings were placed. The top-clamp (which had “Aprilia” engraved) was welded flat and a hoop was welded on for the speedo.”

The front hub had to be modified to make the 320mm disk work with the speedo, and a bracket was fabbed-up to hold the shortie front fender. The tank remains the stock item, as early CB tanks were always pretty, and the seat is in the usual custom flat bench style. New tyres were joined by new chain & sprockets, grips and a simplified loom and switchgear.

Builds like this sound so easy, but things don’t always go as smoothly as you might hope. “The engine ran, so we took a quick scan (compression test, valve checkup etc) and found it was ok. When placing the engine back and doing final check-ups we couldn’t get the timing right. The camchain was half a tooth off either way. We took the engine apart a bit further and found out the previous owner had placed an non 250 camshaft and welded the 250 camsprocket on half-assed. We had to grind the cam in little chunks to get it out of there because the cam could not go out the normal way.” It had to be replaced.

The bike was delivered and Ab was overjoyed. “Hugs all round” apparently. Sounds like our kind of build-service. Thanks to Bert, Jene and Ab for sharing. This is the third Outsiders Motorcycles build to feature on these pages, and you can see more from Bert & Jene here on The Bike Shed and on their Facebook pages.