Comments on: Yamaha XS650 cafe racer

By: SierraAir

SierraAir — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 04:46:54 +0000

Does anybody know what tank is on this bike?

By: Christopher Zylstra

Christopher Zylstra — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:50:52 +0000

wow Limey, points on the primo build, more points for the wiring diagram you’ve pdf’d for the rest of custom-motorcycledom to cheat off of and just points isn’t enough reward for your admission of not having any dyno figures when the article was making you into a demigod by telling us your XS was putting out 70 ponies. I am saving this page, having it PDF’d and sending to my mother, sister, girlfriend, and Aunt Doris as rebuttal for their, “only immature, irresponsible young hooligans ride motorcycles”, statements over the last few weeks. There’s no way a young hooligan would have done those three things and so we must assume that you are at least a middle-aged hooligan. Cheers mate. CZ in Canada.

By: Dick

Dick — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:49:27 +0000

Hey I love this bike – I m actually inspired to give one a crack myself – I look at yours and can’t think of anything i would change [apart from padding the seat of course] and that does not happen often if at all. I love its simplicity and the careful choice of components.

I am a rank amateur – but you have motivated me to risk a few bucks on something similar!

By: The Phantom

The Phantom — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 06:23:09 +0000

Back for another look : ) That machine is truly beautiful. OK, I’ll be honest, I needed to restore my faith in gorgeous motorcycles after that retina-burning ‘Sheene’ memorial bike that Chris posted today…

Now I’m off to trawl the classifieds for an XS650.

By: jnheath

jnheath — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:28:41 +0000

Eddie’s Muzzey-built Kawasaki race bike had a Kerker, so the factory replicas got them. Too heavy and sketchy handling compared to our Ducks, but somehow the aesthetic was good and inspired many builds.
I rode a Ducati 900SSD streetfighter back then, also a Metralla and TR6R and other now-classics, which were just old bikes then so I drove and modified and drove even harder.

Now about all I’ve got left is a W650 that needs 50lbs removed, plus all the wiring . . . gads, wires going in and out of the *carburetors*. I’ll keep the Hornet in mind as I work.

BTW the reference is to Sanskrit “Boddhisattva,” an enlightened being who continues to wallow about in the muck with the rest of us benighted knuckle-draggers just to help us find the way. I think it applies here.

By: The Limey

The Limey — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:50:09 +0000

Argh. I remember now, those KZ1000′s that always seemed to have a Kerker exhaust on them. Wow… that’s a flashback to the 80′s. I had an RD350LC back then… oh, and a BSA SS80.
I have never been referred to in Latin before… it’s quite an honor. Thank you.

I’m glad that people are downloading my wiring diagram… I spent ages in Illustrator trying to make it simple to read. Anyway, I have seen enough diagrams that simply don’t work on the web, that I had to make at least one that did. By the way, the switch I used on the bars was from a 1972 Yamaha CS3 I think… but all Yamaha switches follow the same color coding.

People keep asking me “where’s the battery?” Well, it’s in the tail hump, and yes, it’s a full size XS battery as I don’t have a kick start any more.

I was going to take it out again for more carb jetting runs, but it’s pissing with rain and my Mac widget has a picture of lightning today… so I will return to the garage and sit on it, pretend I’m riding it and make some appropriate ‘vroom vroom’ noises to give me a sense of actually riding it. Sigh… Texas in spring… it’s a tad unpredictable.

By: jnheath

jnheath — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:31:53 +0000

ELR = Eddie Lawson Replica, those noisy green superbikes that even Ducati riders thought were cool.

It would have been enough to restore my faith in humanity that a person somewhere on Earth dispensed with the mental and physical clutter and built this bike. But that he also had the decency and generosity to post a PDF of the minimalist wiring diagram makes me feel the burden of becoming a better person myself . . . Limeybike, the moto-sattva . . .