The builder, Ezikiel, was born in Yigo Guam, and at an age of 31 he is currently living in SF California. This is his Honda CB550 Cafe Racer story:
“When I first got on a bike I was 8 with my dad and directly fell in love with it.”
“When I was 15 years old, I finally got my license and got to ride my dads 1990 Yamaha FZR600. 15 Years under my belt and multiple bikes I’ve ridden and owned. This is the story of my last bike and built.”
“My first “custom cafe” was with my 97 Ducati 916 called Lily. The love for her came from all directions. And at the time Ducati cafes weren’t the hype like nowadays. Unfortunately I had laid her down and was hospitalized. Concussion broken finger, broken wrist and road rash. Not too bad, but was helicoptered out. Sad days that was. I got back on my feet with another Ducati.”
“A 749R a 25k bike and one of my dream bikes. Plan was to cafe her too, but I was so in love her look and couldn’t bear to do it. That brings us to Dirty Annie.”
“My love for custom work and tinkering with bikes is so deep that I needed to get my hands on her or any other bike. Days of looking maybe even months I finally saw her in a add. 1972 Honda cb550, non-op, non-start, take as is $700. I hopped in my truck with my wife and picked her up with still a healing wrist and casted finger. Didn’t stop me. The guy helped me load her up and my wife drove home. Called a friend up to help unload and his first words was “what did you buy” and when he got to my house his reaction was priceless. He hated it and was like “wtf did you buy, its ugly” I said don’t you worry I have a vision & you will see.”
“It was the second day and i got her fired up! On my own. Once I heard her voice I was on to the next. Tore her apart! Clean clean clean. I did everything I could with whatever tools I owned to get her the way she is now. 5am-7pm all day in my garage. You have to know that with my day job I did three 12hr days so I had two extra days off, a total of 4 days all to myself. And thats why I was able to get her up and running as fast as I did. About a month and a half she was done and my friend that helped unload came by and his first words were ” will I sell it to him” LOL!!! No I said. He loved it and so do many people who see her.”
“A list of mods-rebuild forks with custom spacer in it for stiffer front end, fork shield from a sv650 and steering danper, emgo rear shocks, and dropped about two inch in the yolk. Yolk was chopped and grinned down, clip-ons with R1 brembo master and crg levers, steel braided line (blue), rebuild caliper, refined stock rims and painted black spokes and hub, custom hammered tank strip to bare only to find a defect (bonded by PO) that didnt stop me. Volocity stacks, custom chain cover, new gold chain, brown seat, rewired, new mine tail light, oem headlight (yellow) with my number 37, idiot lights in headlight bucket as well as starter switch, low mount gauge, custom .45 & .40 cal bullet shells for valve stems, non existent rpm plug hole, cap for rear shocks and front brake resivor. Custom 4into1 pipe wrapped and custom tip and baffle. Home made coppering solutions to points cover and engine. Balistic 8cell batt, and all general maintance done by me. I pretty sure I left things out.”
“I’ve used everything and anything I could to build my bikes. A tool with one purpose in my hand had many. Most of my new parts oem or aftermarket came from a local shop in town, 4into1. Awesome guys, small but growing business. Perfect for San Francisco. CBs are everywhere here. With that being said and at this time im writing to you I am now an employee for 4into1. I am calling it quits on my career of Surgical Tech of 8years and now with the support from my loving wife and friends I am going to pursue my passion. Working in and around bikes and building more cafes to anyone who my love my work. I have bin told for many years from any people to “hey why dont you do that for a living” and the time has come to bite the bullet and try. Moto-Meditation, I love it.
Photos by: Michael Moore, Justin Kwong and Alyssa Brickman
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