M&M CUSTOMS HONDA CB550

It’s getting harder and harder to impress with a Honda CB custom these days. But this very sharp 1974 CB550, from the Kentucky shop M&M Customs, proves there’s still life in the old dog.

M&M (not to be confused with the Japanese shop with a similar name) is run by Mike McFadden. Like all the best custom builders, Mike is a detail freak—and his cafe racer, nicknamed ‘El Dora,’ is a fine showcase for his skills.

Mike spotted the Honda in his local classifieds, offered for sale by a teenager who’d been using the machine as a vintage motocrosser. The bike checked out fine, so Mike handed over the cash and started work.

The first step was a complete tear-down. Mike does everything himself, from engine rebuilding to paint work, and he decided to make this custom a “vintage racer with a cafe influence.” To boost power, Mike installed Keihin CR carburetors and coils and ignition from Dyna. The pipes were also made in his shop, by blending the stock head pipes together to form a 2-into-1 setup on both sides.

Mike replaced the worn-out rear shocks with Hagons, and fitted Loaded Gun rearsets to custom mounts. Then he cut off the entire rear subframe, and changed the lines of the bottom tubes to give a more modern-looking aesthetic.

A Dunstall-style tank adds a retro vibe, matched to a seat and tail section from Dime City Cycles that also hides the battery and a lot of the wiring. Some fettling was required to line up the tail section with the new tank, so Mike modified the tail to his liking.

“The whole thing was flowing well and I just couldn’t bring myself to muck up the lines with a bolt on tail lamp,” he says. “Thus the ‘Urinal Trap’ brake lamp was born. If you look at it (below) you can see where the idea came from…”

And the #18? It’s in support of Mike’s relative Nick McFadden, an up-and-coming 15-year-old who has just won the 2012 WERA 600cc Superstock National Challenge Championship. I have a feeling that we’ll be hearing more of the McFadden family in the years to come.

Head over to the M&M Customs website to see more of Mike’s super-stylish builds.

from BIKEEXIF

Boneyard Customs' '74 Yamaha TD250

Adelaide gets a bit of a bum rap as far as Australian states go. Ever since a really disturbing sequence of events took place there in the '90s, it's been referred to by fellow countrymen as Australia's ‘mass murder capital’. And the label isn't without warrant, as the stats show that South Australians are much more likely to end up becoming a bunch of bones buried in a backyard than the rest of the country. Enter a guy called Heath, someone who is, we're glad to say, quite the opposite. He's called his shop ‘Boneyard Customs’ as he likes to resurrect old, scrap bikes from the dead and turn them back into living, breathing, roaring rides. Which is just what's happened to the bike you see here. We're sure you'll agree when we say it's a killer too, just not in the serial sort of way.

Here's Heath "Twigz" Twigden. “I am from Adelaide, South Australia, I run an after-hours workshop called Boneyard Kustoms which resurrects bikes and other bits from the boneyard. I customise anything I can get my hands on, but mainly 70's Japanese stuff. From a young age I remember Dad taking me to the Speedway, and this has influenced my style of bike building. I like the Speedway bikes for their real lack of clutter.”

“When I first started working on motorcycles, I could only ever get my hands on the small capacity bikes - but I still love working on them to this day because they are small, light and relatively easy to work on, and there are literally endless options for customising. I got my first bike at the age of 12, and have rarely been without one since. ”

“Like many custom bike guys, I started mucking around with push bikes from a young age. Mainly just stripping and painting, swapping out parts and adding fatter rubber. Years later this grew into full custom pushies, and welding up bikes pulled from hard rubbish. The longer and lower the better - although they are barely ride-able, they look so damn cool!
The natural progression from this was custom motorcycles. I built my first bike in 2007, a '72 Honda CB350 in a bobber style, which was completed with a lot of hand-made, one-off parts and spares from two separate donor bikes.”

“Fast forward to now - and the '74 Yamaha DT250. The idea behind the bike was a flat track-style, street legal machine. I actually ride one of these bikes in Vintage Motorcross, and I thought it would be an awesome street bike. From an Ebay buy that was in very original and sad condition, to a nut and bolt restoration in house, the only thing I didn't do was true the wheels.
The gearbox would not go past second, so the motor was stripped and rebuilt top to bottom. I blasted and 2pac'd the frame, put 9" struts on the rear and some shortened forks from a Suzuki TS185 to get the bike much closer to the ground. I took the good chrome rims from the same Suzuki and laced them to the original hubs, which were blasted and 2pac'd cleared for a nice, raw finish.”

“Nothing like blasting down the road
sounding like a swarm of bees!”

“The paint is DNA Candy Orange which is very close to the original colour. The seat is the original, with the foam re-shaped with an angle grinder, and the cover re-streched. The rear guard was also cut down and re-shaped. The pipe is the original with an old junk pile muffler to keep it quiet-ish. Although not a highly modified custom, it was a very time consuming project. It is a light, fast, and scary bone rattler that is so much fun to ride. Nothing like blasting down the road sounding like a swarm of bees!”
 
from PIPEBURN

Wakan back to life as Avinton Motorcycles

Seven years ago diminutive French manufacturer Wakan Motorcycles introduced its own Wakan 1640, a gritty naked sportsbike designed around a S&S-sourced 1640 cc V-Twin encrusted in a deliberately minimal frame. The idea behind this model was to emulate whatAC Cobra did with its cars, which was installing a muscular American engine in a small and light chassis typical of the European school.

The resulting bike, the Wakan 1640, had a look that was definitely appealing, but then the years went by and - after a short sequence of prototypes - the news about Wakan became less and less frequent, with the latest updates reporting of a desperate search for investors which, unfortunately, did not generate great interest. For a while we believed that Wakan was yet another case of newborn motorcycle manufacturer doomed to fade into obscurity, but luckily the end of the story is different from what we had imagined.

Wakan in fact is with us again with a new name, Avinton Motorcycles, and a new model called ‘Collector’, which is more or less the same bike that we had the pleasure to meet a few years back. The engine is the once again the 1640 cc air cooled S&S 45-degrees V-Twin, with the current specifications claiming a power of 120 hp at 5,750 rpm, 163 Nm of torque at 4,250 rpm and a weight in running order of 195 kg. The air intake on the fake fuel tank is still there, with the fuel that finds its place under the saddle.

The Avinton Collector is available in three variants: ‘GT’, ‘Race’ and ‘Roadster’, plus the Avinton Collector Cult, for which buyers can choose more or less any sort customization (to get an idea of what they are capable of, just take a look at the special ‘Italia’ version presented at the 2012 EICMA exhibition in Milan, featured in our photo gallery).

Avinton Motorcycles is currently looking for distributors all over the world: and only time will tell if this new incarnation of Wakan will be successful or not, but we certainly hope so because the bike is as fascinating today as it was seven years ago and we would like it to be made available to those who will fall in love with it. Check out the official website of the French manufacturer for more info.

Photo | Avinton Motorcycles Facebook Page via TWOWHEELSBLOG

1983 BMW R80G/S Dakar

A GS as an investment? This 1983 R80G/S is a good candidate. One owner for 20 years, it was then snapped up by a classic BMW restorer who's rebuilt the engine and fitted a few modern Siebnerock parts including new barrels and pistons.
Did you know the G/S comes from Gelände/Strasse which means offroad/street. A pub fact for you there, if ever I saw one. G'wan take it, it's yours.
You're welcome.
However, 500,000 of this model were produced between 1980 and 1987 and that surely stacks up the odds of this becoming a classic, unless a good 499,000 of the other are no longer in existence.
BMW won the Paris/Dakar on 1981, 93, 94 and 85. What motorsport success has the 1150 or 1200 ever had?
It's way cooler than any GS1200 could ever be. If any GS is set to be a classic, surely this is it?
 by Ben Cope from visordown

Read more: http://www.visordown.com/cool-motorcycles/1983-bmw-r80g-s-dakar/22007.html#ixzz2JNbN4Kky