CAFÉ RACER 76

YAMAHA SR500 ‘MEZZOMILLE’

If you live on mainland Europe and have a penchant for Yamaha café racers, then you probably know Kedo. The German company is one of the largest SR500 specialists outside Japan, supplying everything from bodywork to engine parts.

Kedo’s Daniel Doritz has a history of hooking up with custom builders, most notably with Jens vom Brauck of JvB-Moto for the sublime D-Track. ‘Mezzomille’ (meaning ‘half-thousand’) is his latest dalliance, this time with Axel Budde—a fellow Hamburg native, and best known for his Kaffeesmaschine Moto Guzzis.

Budde and Doritz share an obsession with quality and a liking for understatement. And this lean, minimalist SR500 café racer has obvious DNA from both partners. “The SR500 has been well established for more than 35 years, so almost every imaginable conversion already exists,” Budde notes. “But there are few properly ‘coherent’ SR cafe racers.”

Budde started by designing a completely new aluminum tank/seat-combination, and slimmed down the frame. Nearly every major part has been lightened or replaced with a handcrafted original—or left out completely. The outcome is an elegant, almost delicate conversion in the style of the late 1970s.

With scarcely 130kg to haul around and almost 40hp on tap, the ‘Mezzo’ majors on agility and riding enjoyment: It has a power-to-weight ratio similar to a spritely middleweight dual-sport like the Suzuki DR-Z400.

Budde and Kedo will not be recreating this machine, given its uncompromising style and the 350 hours it took to develop and build. But the good news is that many of the parts that were designed for Mezzomille will be found in the new Kedo catalog, which comes out in mid-March 2014.

SR500 fans, rejoice.

Harmony overhead: The Concorde story

One of my best schoolfriends had a definite talent for inspiring jealousy in his fellow pupils. Usually, our eyes turned green thanks to such things as his impressive Omega Seamaster wristwatch, his hand-built racing bike or his petrol-powered, radio-controlled speedboat...

But the famously hot summer of 1976 saw us hit with a double whammy of enviable happenings: first, his gorgeous-looking nanny took to collecting him from school in a Jaguar XJ-S (one of the first), and then he calmly announced that he would be flying to Washington DC for a holiday - on Concorde!

Only when he returned with evidence in the form of a hand-written certificate and the contents of his Concorde goody bag did we actually believe him because, back then, the world's first supersonic passenger plane was the absolute, unrivalled epitome of glamour.

European harmony

The surprising product of an Anglo-French venture (concord(e) means 'agreement' or 'harmony' in both languages), it first flew in 1969 and entered service in '76 - soon after which 'Concorde spotting' became a widespread pastime as people looked skywards in search of the plane's distinctive, delta-wing silhouette and that famous 'drooping' nose designed to give pilots a better view during taxi, take-off and landing.

The ultimate way to travel

By 1977 the price of a single Concorde had soared to a cost of £23 million (£121 million today), so it's hardly surprising that just 14 went into service divided equally between British Airways and Air France - but right up until its demise in 2003 (by which time a return ticket to New York cost more than £8,000), it was still considered the ultimate way to travel.

120 passengers squeezed into an aluminium tube

For their money, a maximum of 120 passengers squeezed themselves into a 202-foot aluminium tube with seating that makes that of today's budget airlines seem generous. They also risked exposure to greater than usual doses of radiation due to the plane operating at unusually high altitude, and the view was somewhat limited, since the windows were made extra small to slow the loss of cabin pressure in the event of an emergency.

JFK to Heathrow in two hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds

On the plus side, Concorde's passengers were served with fine champagne and gourmet foods by the most glamorous hostesses - and, of course, those who jumped on a flight from London to New York could legitimately claim that they would arrive two hours before they took off. In 1996, thanks to a 175mph tailwind, the big white bird flew back from JFK to Heathrow in a record two hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds.

Still the most beautiful aircraft of all time

But by the turn of the century, the writing was on the wall for Concorde. The year 2000 saw the plane suffer its only crash, in which 100 passengers, nine crew and four ground staff were killed shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and, in 2003, low passenger numbers and outdated avionics were cited as reasons for its retirement. Now not a single, functioning Concorde remains - despite it still being regarded by many as the most beautiful aircraft of all time.

CB1100F. Quello che non ci si aspettava è che costui fosse Jeff Wright di The Church of Choppers.

It was a matter of time, soon or later someone would have modified the modern CB1100F. What you wouldn't expect is that the builder is Jeff Wrightof The Church of Choppers. Effectively, Jeff is a former road racer and enduro rider, so no wonder if his CB1100 features a lot of sophisticated Japanese aftermarket components, including a rare custom Yoshimura exhaust, as well as lots of hand-made details. Shot at the recent Mama Triedin Wisconsin.