Original caf\u00e9 racers were built on a limited budget, making ownership affordable to the working class. The 2014 Continental GT is also priced to sell<\/p>\n
Johnny pushes his bike flat out coming up North Circular Road. A handful of grip pins the throttle wide open, and the engine screams as he navigates around the last car in his path. A last-second manoeuvre to cut in front of an oncoming car lands him in the parking lot of the Ace Caf\u00e9. He brakes hard as he pulls up to the main door \u2013 time is of the essence. He runs into the Ace just in time to hear the end of Eddie Cochran\u2019s \u201cLive Fast, Love Hard, Die Young\u201d blaring out of the jukebox at the back of the Ace. His friends pat him on the back just as another five pence drops into the juke box and another rock \u2018n\u2019 roll song begins, and the ritual of record-racing starts again as another rider risks life and limb.<\/p>\n
It was a new age of motorcycle culture that created the caf\u00e9 racer, and equally important, the Rocker. Legend has it that if a rider could leave the Ace at the beginning of a song, ride around a prescribed network of roads and be back before the song ended, he will have reached the \u201cton\u201d \u2013 or 100 mph \u2013 at some point during the run.<\/p>\n
They say history repeats itself, and over the last few years, the caf\u00e9-racer craze of late-fifties England is now back in its prime \u2013 in North America. The caf\u00e9 racer could be described as a stripped-down, minimalist bike fashioned after race bikes of that era \u2013 nothing fancy or extravagant \u2013 just a bare-bones machine consisting of an engine, wheels and a frame, and the necessary ancillary components to get it on the road.<\/p>\n