Written by Andrew Jones
Losing your virginity is usually a train wreck of cheap alcohol, strange bedrooms, extreme awkwardness and instant regret. But unlike real life, Hollywood movies ? and Slovakia’s Marek Ba?a ? encountered exactly the opposite situation when bustin? their cherries. Like a teenager?s wet dream, his first customising outing didn’t crash and burn, either figuratively or literally. Instead it went so well, some director in Burbank is probably looking to turn it into a teen comedy screenplay. And here’s the result – a Honda CX500 cafe that gets us more than a little hot under the collar.

Located a few hour’s drive west of Vienna, Slovakia is about as far East as you can get in Europe without waking up and finding Russian tanks in your driveway. Infested with beautiful castles and picture postcard mountains, all signs point to a killer country for hitting the twisties. But not for 31-year-old local Marek Ba?a. Instead, he prefers to chase urban caffeine hits on his freshly minted Honda CX500 when he’s not keeping the plastics factory he works at ticking over.
So with a cafe racer ticking all his boxes, Marek began the search for a suitable donor bike. It probably won’t surprise you that decent CXs don’t exactly grow on trees in downtown Bratislava. Instead he had to venture all the way to Prague, a mere 500 kilometres away, to find his dream bike. That’s a hell of a way to go on a stranger’s pro...