It looks like a new generation of Cafe Racers, and we love it! Frank Marcus, a sports teacher in the Netherlands, led this project. He wanted get students interested in learning to build. They just presented bike at the Interclassic Show in Maastricht. This school project not only got these 16 and 17 year olds interested in the technical part but they fell in love with the nostalgia (and loved all the attention) they got showing off this Cafe Racer. They had 7 offers on the bike. But, since it wasn’t built with money in mind, they turned down the offers and preferred to enjoy it. “In short, we achieved more goals then we had in mind,” said Frank.
Below is an excerpt in Frank’s words about why they wanted to do this and why he led the project. There are so many great builders and bikes but it all starts in a shack or garage ones. I find the whole Caféracer and Scramblerscene to be very sympathetic. Here it’s not about the money but about making cool bikes, as it should be… We can not compete with a professional builder but with the funding we had (max 2000 euro all-in) we were able to make a cool bike that is worth wile showing.
I selected 5 students who were motivated to be in this project. For the built we used the knowledge of Marcel Schepers, who is owner of Schepers Motor Design. He is known for building very nice bikes and currently has some Kawasaki w800’s in his shop that he rebuild into
cool scramblers. His latest project is a flat tracker that he is building for the Glemseck meating in 2016 in Germany. For the saddle and bag we could rely on Jowi Paulissen. He is a local magician with leather, makes saddles, baggs and all kinds of upholstery. For the paint job we can thank local garage Beckers who painted our tank for free.
This project is meant to show kids that working in the technical sector can be fun. We are losing a lot of interest from our youth in thisstudy and line of work and with this project we try to show that it can be a great education and that there are a lot of jobs to be found. The two students that worked on the bike André and Floyd, have been busy grinding, measuring, bending, making brackets, painting (exhaust), brake revision and more. Fenders, metal plates on the side, saddle plate and several brackets have been hand made by these guys.
The engine itself we left untouched, we found this 34 year old XJ650 with only 8000 miles on the counter. If its reliable we don’t temper with it. Thanks Frank, keep up the good work!
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