Francesco and Paolo are cousins and business partners, co-owning Sartorie Meccaniche – Mechanical Tailors. To read more about their background have a look at a previous build featured in the Shed. Hailing from Bergamo in northern Italy one could jump to the conclusion that with the proximity to Lake Como and Moto Guzzi country, that the guys would be fettling shaft drive v-twins with a patriotic exhaust note. But no, this is the slightly less glamorous Japanese version.
A dear friend of Francesco and Pablo offered up his father’s CX500 for a makeover. The bike had already been treated to some mods but not ones that could make the best of the sublime roads around the lakes. Ape hangers bars, and some. You get the picture.
Naked, understated and more in keeping with current trends would be the brief, and sartorially elegant of course. A fair task for a Plastic Maggot. The obvious place to start was lighting, junking the cumbersome searchlight sized items and replacing with neat LEDs and a smarter headlight.
The front mudguard was removed, permanently and the rear replaced with a shortened, powder coated version. Whilst at it, the wheels, side panels, shock outers, forks and bars were given a coat of the black stuff.
Keeping things local, the paint colours were sourced form Fiat’s 1960’s range, the two-tone breaking up a fairly large tank. And Hondas always look good with a white stripe. Three layer, multi-density foam on a full length seat offers long range comfort for rider and passenger, and lets face it, with those roads to play on riding days will be long ones.
The CX isn’t known for retina dislodging acceleration so there isn’t a lot of point trying to find extra ponies in a field full of mules. A soundtrack though can make all the difference and a v-twin has an acoustic magic. Shorter more open megaphones reverberate nicely without upsetting anyone snoozing off a large lakeside pranzo,
Sensible bars replace the Peter Fonda specials with new controls and vintage grips completing the cockpit transformation.
A simple but well executed build that might not look dramatic by today’s custom standards but the guys had a task in undoing the aesthetically and ergonomically challenged efforts of the previous owner.
Francesco & Paulo post some pretty good stuff on their Facebook page so head there for updates and the website for photos of previous builds.
The Bike Shed
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