By : John Cerilli
Over the past few years, I have noticed a rather dramatic increase in the café motorcycle movement around the globe. I don't really believe it ever went away...this historic 60's style from the days of the British “Rockers and Mods” and “The Ton-Up Boys” has just been quietly simmering underground.
Young, immortal teenagers (as we all were during those years) wanted not just stock, but personalized, stand-out motorcycles to ride. Less is more. Thus, clip-on handlebars, solo humped seats, rear-set foot-pegs, custom tanks, and louder-than-stock modified exhausts were the way to make you cool and FAST!
Wikipedia says this about the “Café Racer” movement:
“A classic example of this was to race from the Ace Cafe on The North Circular road in NW London to the Hanger Lane junction as it then was - it is now the more famous Hanger Lane Gyratory System - and back again.
The aim was to get back to the Ace Cafe before the record you'd put onto the jukebox had finished.
Given that some of the Eddie Cochran tunes that were in vogue at this time were less than two minutes long, the racers would have had to traverse the three miles round trip at extremely high speed - most of the time, over 100+ mph - and thus the term “Exceeding the Ton” (aka “The Ton-Up Boys”) ... Read more
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