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Gentlemen, may we have your votes please?
In 2021 the BikeBrewers team got invited by the Café Racer Club Bulgaria to act as judges for the 2nd edition of the Caféracerfest in Kyustendil – Bulgaria. We didn’t know what to expect, since this was the first time we were asked to perform this serious duty, and all we had seen so far were (lovely) pictures of the first edition. Now, we may not know much about the Eurovision Song contest, however, we do know a thing or two about caféracers, so we grabbed our motorcycle gear and headed East.

Throwback 2021
As you may recall, we were blown away by the quality of the event, which we clearly communicated in our September 24th report. A major factor in the success of the first two editions is the undaunted organizer of the event, Ivan Mushev. That name may ring a bell, and it should; we’ve featured some of Ivan’s masterpieces under the name of his outfit Bull Moto custom. But that’s not what we are here for now.

We must have done something right as we have been invited to judge again at the 2022 edition of the Caféracerfest which is coming up on June 11th, and we couldn’t be more excited! Looking back at last year’s event did raise the question if this year’s contenders have any idea of the high level of last year’s participants? If we go by what we saw last year, we have some pretty high expectations.

…and the winner is..!
This story is about Borislav Aleksov and his dream to build the ultimate café racer. Before the Bulgarian builder got his hands on this 1992 Yamaha XV1100, he had already built a Honda CX500 café racer. Borislav was fascinated by the air-cooled Yamaha v-twin, so when one of his friends was selling his, Borislav knew that it was now or never. We’re glad he took that chance.

It’s safe to say that we have yet to see a boring Yamaha XV caféracer here at BikeBrewers. This one seems to be the latest addition to that list, keeping the standard yet again, very high. It’s hard to imagine that Borislav had a budget of a mere 7500 euro; that kind of money you’d expect a shed-built bike to cost, definitely not a show-winning unit like this.

Torches out
Borislav started with chopping the rear sub-frame, and building a new one from scratch. At the front a set of Suzuki GSX-R1000 forks were adopted, held firmly in place by a set of Aprilia RSV4 triple clamps. The forks allow for radial brake callipers to be mounted, which is exactly what the master craftsman did, courtesy of Tokico. At the rear, a Yamaha FZ6 mono-shock keeps the bike on track. The new forks brought a new dilemma; the ground clearance was now compromised. The solution: raising the engine up in the frame. That’s not an easy task, so countless hours were spent trying to get it right.

The engine didn’t go back in the frame before being completely overhauled and got covered with a fresh coat of paint. The carbs were cleaned and rebuild, so that took care of the intake side of things. On the exhaust side, a new custom-made exhaust system was build from the ground up. We really liked the lines and angles of the exhaust system, and it’s one of the key features that attracted us to this bike on the day of the event. When we asked Borislav what his intentions were when he built this bike, he said that, at first he wanted to build a classic looking café racer, but that he changed his mind half-way through the project after being inspired by some builds he saw on Facebook.

Wheels
A friend of Borislav took care of lacing the hubs to a new set of aluminium rims, which were also in black. Yes, black is the theme with this build, and we like it! Do you know what’s also black? The modified Benelli fuel tank, the epitome of café racer fuel tanks. Everything was painted in-house by Borislav himself. A custom leather seat keeps the rider firmly in place, and a Daytona Velona 80 gives all the necessary rider info whilst maintaining a contemporary look.

It is clear to see why this particular café racer took the 1st prize during the 2021 Caferacerfest.
This is what Borislav had to say about his build:
“I like the paint scheme and the general profile of the motorcycle that is the exact opposite of a chopper. The riding experience is unexplainable after 3 years of working on this project to be able to finally ride it is a dream come true. Thanks also for the Felix helmet that I received as a prize. It really enhances the look of the ride” he smiles.

Previous life
Below are some shots of the bike before Borislave opened his toolbox and the build in progress.

The post Winner 2021 Café Racer Fest Bulgaria – Yamaha XV by Borislav Aleksov appeared first on BikeBrewers.com.

Regular guests
It may look as if UNIKAT have a subscription on our platform. Nothing of the sort, but the Polish team just keeps on churning out pure art that we simply cannot ingnore.
This time it is a 2001 Moto Guzzi California 1100, which was transformed from a nice bike to a ‘living room worthy’ object of desire.

Take apart and rebuild
The motorcycle has been completely restored and rebuilt, with nothing more than the wheels, the beautiful engine and part of the frame remaining from the original design. According to our Eastern European friends “such a dramatic rebuild requires a massive amount of time and UNIQUE skills”. We second that motion, after all ‘UNIKAT’ is Polish for unique and you have to live up to that promise.

Director’s chair
The owner, Pawel, was very much involved in the project. It is not very often that BikeBrewers get such elaborate insights from the clients themselves. Here’s what he has to say: “My adventure with motorcycles began when my grandfather gave me a light green mini motorbike. It was a life-turning moment for me and something that made me feel special. Already then, I was very much drawn to personalize this small moped, of course everything was done using whatever materials were available to me, so I applied stickers, wraps, painted lettering on the tires, trimmed the fenders.

In the following years the passion developed with more motorcycles, i.e., Simson, Yamaha and Honda the crowning moment of which being when I finally parked a Harley Davidson in my garage.

For a few years I’ve been watching how motorcycles are customized all over the world, and already then, I knew that I would like to build such a motorcycle, but the possibilities and number of available places in Poland were limited. I could not make up my mind, and I wanted this project to be unique, stunning design-wise but also in terms of technical solutions. I wanted it to be professionally executed by a team of professionals.

I once read that there is a place in Wrocław that is quickly gaining recognition because of the projects it puts out of its garage.
When I arrived at their doorstep, I met the team, Grzegorz, Michał and I knew that this is a place full of passion, professionalism — and this is how we’ll build a brilliant project.”

Teamwork
The modifications were done under the watchful eyes of Tomasz (mechanic) and Grzegorz (designer) with the bike’s charismatic owner Paweł in his Director’s Chair.

Grzegorz: “In order to achieve the perfect look and beautiful lines of the café racer, we completely changed the geometry and design of the original frame. This required us to shorten the front suspension and use new rear shocks from Bitubo, for which we made new mounts. To complete the look, two fairings (front and rear) were made from scratch by our mate Tomasz.”

Continuing: “The use of a new accessory fuel tank was also linked to the modification of the frame by making new mounts. Since this Moto Guzzi model features a fuel injection system, we had to use an external pressure regulator and redo the whole fuel system.”
As the team were using a custom pressure regulator as mentioned above, they were able to modify the intake and exhaust system. The factory air-box was ditched in favor of a pair of K&N performance cone fitters. Out went the original exhaust to make room for minimalist slash cut tail pipes, which combined with the Guzzi V-twin, produce a unique sound!

Café racer in true style
As befits a true flesh-and-blood café racer, clip-on handlebars were mounted. These new handlebars, along with the changed frame geometry forced the Polish outfit to relocate the rider’s footpegs. As the original ones were completely unusable, a decision was made to use a set from a sports bike with a racing pedigree.

All switches on the handlebars were replaced to go for a clean and minimalistic design. Buttons and turn signals in the handlebars are from Motogadget. A new Motoscope Tiny speedometer, a LED headlamp concealed in the fairing, and a full LED rear lamp dictated creating nearly a full new wiring harness, powered by a battery that currently sits under the swingarm in a box which was custom made for this purpose.

The engine, including the transmission, did not require a complete overhaul and tuning. A proper paint job to make it shine was enough.
Wheels are from the legendary Borrani company, completed with thicker stainless-steel spokes. With such magnificent objects you obviously need a new set of tires .

Most of the parts have been polished or mirror-finished, including the wheels, front and rear suspension, valve covers, exhaust system, handlebars, triple clamps and swingarm, as well as a number of other small components. All bolts were re-galvanized or were replaced with new ones.

The bodywork, front and rear fairing were perfectly painted by Marcin, creating a coherent whole with polished and chrome-plated elements.
The entire project was finished off with a warm touch of leather elements, such as the upholstery on the seat, the construction of which was made by us from scratch, and hand-wrapped handles.

The owners perspective
Being heavily involved with the project the BikeBrewers team was interested to hear his reaction to the end result.
Pawel: “We talked a lot about the technical possibilities, aspects of working with older motorcycles, what should be included in such a project and where it needs to be included to make it unique in every way possible.
We agreed that we want to choose a motorcycle that would be an excellent base and the potential to be unique, and here it is — the Moto Guzzi California 1100.

Was it worth it? For all intents and purposes, the design was great, but it was the execution that knocked me off my feet. Perfection and pure design in every element. The motorcycle impresses with its light, simple, yet detailed design, as well as with the technical solutions.

If we can call anyone artists in the custom scene it is undoubtedly the crew of Unikat Motorworks. I am incredibly happy with the end result and the roads in Poland have just gotten a bit more beautiful with this Moto Guzzi gracing them with its presence.”

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From the Czech Republic with love
We told you to remember his name back in November!
At the time we published a post on his BMW K100RT and warned you that Marcel Galuszka would be back with more.
Well, here he is. In just a couple of months he has yet again created a very nice piece of machinery.

Suzuki GSF600 Brat BCD
Marcel gave us a call last week to announce that he would be sending us material on his latest build. He told us: “I named this motorcycle Brat Cafe, but the final form deviated a bit from the original idea and it’s more of a Brat Tracker. But you know what, the boxing is not so important, the final decision of the owner was important here, so in the end the handlebars in the style of cafe racer exchanged for more comfortable heights, which allow for a smoother ride.”

Continuing: “This is a 2002 Suzuki GSF600 Bandit, which the proprietor had left outside for a couple of years, covered up but still left to battle all kinds of weather. It was very clear that the bike had been struggling to survive many seasons of rain, snow and trying not to melt when the sun was burning mercilessly. Your can say it really scarred the Suzuki.”

Worst case scenario
As you might have suspected our courageous Czech was challenged beyond his worst nightmare when he set out to rescue the Suzuki.
The motorcycle had really suffered from the lack of TLC. The tank was perforated on the left side and it was repaired very poorly. The frame was beaten on the same side also, crooked, which resulted in work on the motorcycle lasting way longer than anticipated. Unfortunately for the owner it began to affect the investment that he was ready to make to keep it at a reasonable level without having to face the wrath of his wife.

‘Make me a café please’
When work began Marcel had no idea about the condition of the bike. The owner bought this motorcycle as his first ride with the intent to learn to ride properly.
Once he had the hang of it and he had been riding the bike for years and left it outside as described, he thought it to be a good idea to convert to the Suzuki into a caféracer. When he briefed the builder he actually wanted just minor modifications to do the trick. On his wish list was the overall caféracer look, but still have room for a pillion passenger.

From caféracer to brat
Once the work began and the concept turned into a real bike, thoughts and ideas began to shift. And so from the classic concept of caféracer, concessions gradually emerged to this final form. It had become quite a bit of a struggle for Marcel. Apart from not being very please with the state that this bike was in to begin with, he commented: “It should also be mentioned here that this Bandit is not exactly a great donor for the transformation to a cafe racer! I have grown some extra grey hairs during work on this project hahaha!”

From tank to bottom
The whole tank is completely overhauled and painted with beautifully pearl paint. The frame is completely repaired and entire rear part is redesigned to accommodate two passengers. It is sandblasted and powder-coated to stand the test of time and weather.

LED light in front, miniature Kellerman lights in the rear combining rear light and brake, but it also comes with integrated turn signals.

Nice little touches are:
– Motogadget MO.Blaze Disc turn signals in the handlebars
– Motogadget grips
– Motogadget Tiny speedometer
– Custom seat
– All electricity hidden in the space under the seat.

In short, everything that needed to be mended and taken care of was done and some nice modifications were added.
The result is a city motorcycle, which should be fun to take out on longer rides.
When compared to its original state it looks diametrically different and is very pleasing to the eye.

Says the builder: ‘Most important of all, the owner is satisfied and is riding around town with a big smile on his face. (The opening picture of this post is featuring Marcel Galuszka, not the owner – ed.) What else can I say? I’m very excited about the way the Suzuki turned out and I like it a lot!”

Builder details:
Builder: Blackout Custom Design
email: blackout@blackoutcustom.cz
Website
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
YouTube

Above: the Suzuki GSF 600 Bandit before and after

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Back in 2020, BikeBrewers were invited to join the first edition of the Café Racer Fest in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. Unfortunately COVID had paralyzed the world and travel restrictions caused us to miss out on that event.

We followed the happening on social media while the enthusiasm of participants, visitors and bike builders vibrated through our screens. We knew we missed out on something special! We made a promise there and then, that we would do everything to make it to the 2021 edition. As we are always true to our word, there was no reason not to make the trip this time.

To team members Ron and Adnane it felt nearly as good as going on a road trip even though two flights, three cars but no bikes were involved in getting from Amsterdam to Kyustendil.

Arriving close to midnight, the organizer of the Café Racer Fest and spiritual father of the event, Ivan Mushev of Bull Moto Custom, had kindly arranged transportation from Sofia airport to the ski resort up in the mountains about half an hour up from town up a dark and twisty country road with al sort of wildlife crossing our headlights.

Early start
In order to make the most of the day breakfast was served early and we took off to the centre of town. The empty square would soon be the stage of an extraordinary event, attracting an sizable crowd of both participants and spectators. On the plaza of this nearly 40.000 inhabitant’s rich city, volunteers were busy setting the stage for things to come.

The Café Racer Fest harbours not only custom bikes but also offers a stage for vintage motorcycles and cars from all makes and years. There was quite a collection of incredibly beautiful Pre-Perestroika MZ’s, Jawa’s and Ural sidecars. Truly as if time stood still.

Talking about time, it is funny what the years do with your sense of beauty. Bikes that were considered hideous in the 60’s and 70’s Western Europeans are now considered attractive by the same crowd. Thanks to younger demographics, discovering the fun in riding, Eastern Bloc classic icons such as the 60’s MZ have now grown from being more hideous than the word itself to ultra-cool! We bet there will be quite some young urban riders who would not mind to be spotted on one of those former ‘monstrosities’, were it not that in most large European cities, those two-strokes will never be seen spewing their distinguishable blue exhaust plumes again.

Ride out
Prior to the start of the event, a number of bikers and bike builders met at the local gas station for a ride out to the venue. Little over 150 bikers, nearly of which were modified in one way or another, joined in this brotherly gathering. The atmosphere was incredible; there is something quite special about seeing cafe racers being used for they were built.

Choices, choices
There were three contemporary categories; Modern Classics, Scrambler & Brat, and Café Racers. BikeBrewers were given the task of selecting the Top 3 in the “Café Racer” category. We were given about twenty projects to choose from and had about an hour to finalize our task.

As we always do when judging bikes, we put together a matrix awarding points on a scale of 1-10 for elements such as the ‘Wow!’ factor, originality, quality of work & amp; paint, and craftsmanship and set out separately to do our first independent judging.

You’d expect this to be easy and give clear comparable results. No such thing! We had quite a hefty discussion and with the clock ticking away it required a final walk around to re-evaluate our choices. At the ‘strike of twelve’ we managed to come up with a Top 3 we could both fully subscribe to.

And the winner is…
A 1994 Yamaha XV1100 had scored high points on both our lists and was chosen ‘Best of show’ in this year’s Café Racer category. Its owner, Borislav Alexsov, has put quite a lot of hours in building this machine and is rightfully proud of the result. 2nd place went to Vencislav Angelov with his stunning 1984 Honda CBX 750, and 3rd place went to Kaloian Ivanchev Chekelev with his very cool BMW R75 which saw daylight in 1982.

All top 3 finalists were showered with gifts from local sponsors. To top it off BikeBrewers’ came bearing gifts from our partners Felix Auto Moto and SA1NT! adding a helmet and a sought after twill trucker cap to the basket of each of the category winners!

Come rain come shine
Bulgarians have been spoiled with loads of sunshine over the past couple of months. Unfortunately, rain was predicted during the hours of the event. The start of the award ceremony for the café racer category was launched with a clap of thunder followed by a slight drizzle. That made us feel like home instantly.

Luckily the audience was not scared away that easily, and there was quite a cheer from the several hundred people on the square. According to the organizers, the total attendance during this year’s edition the audience grew with 20% to around 2.500 visitors who meandered amongst all the beauty displayed on the town square this morning.

The next edition
Writing this post just before the party organized by the Cafe Racer Club Bulgaria, we are already spoiled by the kindness of the Bulgarians we met on the way, especially by the members of the café racer community.

As much as we love attending established events in Western European countries, we are always on the lookout for new, exciting and more grass roots experiences. This scene is way bigger and vibrant than you would ever dare to imagine. Everyone we met was proud of the results of their labour and insights are shared freely among this close-knit society.

We will be back for sure and hope the organizers can look forward to an even bigger crowd in 2022. Being the only international visitors this year, we share our experience with the knowledge that this is likely to be the last time we enjoyed this exclusivity.

Given the fact that there is a very lively local scene and magnificent twisty country roads and awesome virgin off road tracks to be travelled freely, it is likely many adventurous bikers from the West will be heading East next year.

Photos by:
Georgi Georgiev Photography
Kalina Kalcheva
BikeBrewers

The post REPORT: Café Racer Fest 2021 by Café Racer Club Bulgaria appeared first on BikeBrewers.com.

In a shed far far away
We get requests from all over the world to write posts about builds.
Never ever before did we get an email all the way from Siberia though!

Nikita (no not the one from Elton John!), the owner of KrikMoto reached out to us via Instagram and presented us with the Honda he had produced as a first project.
The idea had been maturing in the brain of our new Russian friend during the last four years. It was about two years ago he decided to just go for it and got himself the 1993 Honda CB400 Super Four.

Step 1: buy a bike
Acquiring the bike set him back $ 1.000 to start with.
Hm, whilst on the subject of starting, the bike proved to be in pretty poor condition when he got it. This meant major work had to be done before he could even start working on the customization of his caféracer.

If you live in a part of the world which has a climate as harsh as in his homeland you are not easily scared by minor setbacks. You just roll up your sleeves and get to it.
The only thing Nikita was working from was the clear picture in his mind of how the bike should turn out in the end. But even that picture became slightly blurry at times, as he was struggling to get to grips with technical issues along the way.

Built not bought
He did not even steer away from creating many elements from scratch including the seat. For this particular part he had to call in some outside help as his mother had forgotten to teach him how to work the sewing machine.

Some of the other chores he sank his teeth into were exercises such as modifying the intake system by replacing the airbox with four K&N air filters with zero resistance, changing the subframe, replacing the dashboard, side shields and rear suspension.
As his father did not forget to initiate him into the secrets of welding, Nikita also took it upon him to produce a new exhaust system. Not bad for a first project.

First love
In answer to our question what he likes most about the bike he smilingly answers: “Everything”. Continuing: “Perhaps this is because it is the firstborn”.
Fortunately for him the managed to sell the bike quickly and is sure its new owner is now a happy man riding around the Tundra’s in far away Siberia. Unfortunately for us there was not enough time to provide a decent set of pictures, so we have to do with the few which were sent to us.

To make up for the minimal selection he did send us a tasteful video though.

Onwards and upwards!
Still we feel this is enough to anxiously await news of a next project. We have seen some snapshots of interesting things to come.
Closing off with the Russian builder’s famous last words about his motivation to start building:
“When riding a bike, you should savour the feeling of the ride. If you are fortunate enough to be riding a custom bike the feeling multiplies!”

Builder details:
Builder: KrikMoto – Nikita
email: krikunov_n@mail.ru
Instagram
Facebook

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Long runner
The Harley-Davidson Motorcycle company is one of the world’s oldest motorcycle manufacturers. One of the company’s most successful models has got to be the Sportster, which has been produced continuously since 1957. There have been countless different Sportster models, however, all of them had a 45-degree air-cooled V-twin engine and a softail. The long production run makes the Sportster one of the most popular motorcycles out there that are being modified by owners. And why not? Aftermarket parts are sold in abundance and in a wide variety of prices. People that own a Harley Sportster really love their bike. For a very long time, it was also the most affordable Harley-Davidsons on the price list. It is the VW Beetle of motorcycles.

Minimalistic
Daniel Nyland is an Arizona based engineer that loves to work on motorcycles in his spare time. He grew up riding dirt bikes and ATVs, and this particular Harley-Davidson was his first street motorcycle. The 1991 Sportster was sourced fairly cheap, which was great because that meant money could be spent on modifying it. Daniel feels that people often talk a lot of smack about Sportster, which is a load of nonsense because they are a blast to ride. We wholeheartedly agree with him on that point.

Inspiration for this build cannot be pinpointed to one specific moment or event, but rather a combination of various ideas. Daniel likes café racers and bobbers, so some influence was drawn from those. Many hours were spent on the internet looking at bikes and trying to figure out what would look badass. Going minimalistic was on the table, and it didn’t take long before all non-essential parts were removed, and the bike was stripped down to its bare bones. The engine had to be the centerpiece and everything else had to flow from there on.

Flow
Daniel believes that there are three major aspects to a well build motorcycle: the engine, the frame, and the bodywork. Each has to flow well with itself, but they all have to work with each other as well.  The look of bare metal and seeing the grains and imperfections that are normally covered up by a traditional paint job, are what make Daniel’s heart pump faster. So, he wanted all the tins to be bare and add some hand drawn sketches to break it up as well as add some unique character to the bike. He knew he wanted the engine-case to be a semi-gloss black, with the covers and starter being raw metal grey, accompanied by a bitchin’ stainless steel 2-2 exhaust.

As with most builds, there were some challenges during the process. Assembling and disassembling the bike multiple times, making sure that everything was the way Daniel wanted it was one of those pains. All to make sure that in the end, he would realize that he should have done it differently. “When you look at the gorgeous creations from the pro builders you don’t understand the amount of foresight that goes into building a quality bike until you’re doing it yourself.”

Serious upgrades
Some of the work was done by a local shop called “Bloody Knuckle”. They helped out with some of the welding on the frame as well as creating the rear fender. Hammer Performance supplied the motor kit as well as reworking a set of 2007 heads. Everything else was done by Daniel himself.

What modifications are made and what parts were used?

• Bare Knuckle Choppers hardtail kit
• Black powder coat spoked wheels
• Custom speedo mount
• Vertical oil tank
• Blackbird fuel tank w/ integrated fuel sight
• Custom rear fender
• V-rod style headlight cowl
• Chainsikle rearsets
• 1275 kit from Hammer Perf w/ reworked 2007 heads
• HP560 cams
• CV40 performance upgrades
• RXC velocity stack
• EMD primary cover
• Custom SS exhaust w/ internal ceramic coat
• Dyna 2ki ignition w/ Dyna coils
• Trimmed cam cover
• Cognito Moto GPS Speedo
• Custom coil mount
• Antigravity battery
• Tokico front caliper conversion
• Progressive Suspension lowering springs
• Custom electrical box hidden underneath battery tray

Results
It is incredible to see that everything flows perfectly together, especially the subtle brass accents that help tie everything together.  The Sportster rides like a beast, with the Hammer Performance kit hitting hard and pulling long. It’s loud, low, and without a doubt terrorizes the quiet suburban street of Arizona. If there is one thing that Daniel learned from this experience, it is that anyone can do this. Building a motorcycle is an amazing experience and everyone’s motorcycle should be an extension of themselves. Hear, hear!

Builder details:
Daniel Nyland
Instagram

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