An Order Of Magnitude Badder Than The Beast

This bike is an order of magnitude badder than The Beast. At least my odometer rolling to 6666 thinks that is the case.

Some years ago I had a hankering for a particular sort of motorcycle. I was enamored of the cafe bike style but did not want an antique. I loved Honda's GB500 but hated the price. I mentioned it to Bill W. at Motorcycle Performance and he suggested I peek at their 500 cc single-cylinder road racer. I did, and was smitten. He suggested that I could have a similar bike built for the paltry sum of $5k. I hemmed and hawed and cleared it with Reena (mind you, I was not getting rid of any bikes, just adding another) then gave him the go ahead to start. Build time was about 5 months. It is badged as a "Rogue".


Pocket Rocket

What I ended up with was a really good back road scratcher with a very unique style. The chassis is (mostly) a 1990 Suzuki GS500. The engine is a worked 1979 Yamaha SR500 (making 52 42 RWHP versus a stock motor's 29), which also means it is kick-start only. These days that is probably the best anti-theft device around!

The bike has had its problems - mostly due to vibration from a solid-mounted big single - but it seems to be mostly sorted out this year and has been pretty reliable as a toy. It needs a new weld on the exhaust bracket (safety wire is doing the job now) and a new rear tire come spring.



What a beauty, eh? This is my idea of what a cafe racer would look like if people were not still focused on old school examples. Well, at this point I have to say it is my vision of what a mid-90's cafe racer would look like.

A few other details:
- tail section is from Airtech
- fairing is from a Yamaha YSR50 and highly modified
- forks and inner workings came from some GSX-R model and was in fact the original front end from the very road racer I looked at as an example.
- custom exhaust pipe with Jet Hot coating
- Vance and Hines SS2R muffler
- House of Kolor "Sherwood Forest Green" paint.

UPDATE
I made this faux advertisement out of the above road shot. What do you think?


Faux Rogue Ad
Better if Viewed LARGE On Black