If there?s a style of bike resistant to trends, it?s the classic Honda CB café racer. If you keep it simple, avoid the checkered stripes and the temptation to chrome everything, you can?t go wrong.
The flipside is that it?s also hard to make an impression with a build in this style?unless you get all the details absolutely perfect, with spot-on stance and not a nut or bolt out of place. Just like Thomas Lambert has done with this pristine CB550 F.

Thomas runs Elemental Custom Cycles from his workshop in the ancient Bavarian town of Neustadt an der Aisch. It?s one of those small towns in the middle of nowhere, with both Frankfurt and Stuttgart more than two hours away. But Thomas? reputation transcends distance.
The client for this CB café racer had a specific brief. ?He was bored by the mass of BMW builds around, and wanted something classic and reliable,? Thomas says.
After a little digging around, Thomas found a 1977 Honda CB550 F. In its day, it was probably the best balanced of all the CBs, but this one had fallen on hard times. It was in ?pretty poor condition,? but it didn?t matter?a ground-up rebuild was on the cards.
Thomas? goal was to make the CB550 look ?like Honda could have built it this way in the 70s.? So he stripped the Honda down, took the SOHC transverse four engine apart, and started returning everything to factory spec?or beyond.

The motor was rebored, equipped with new pistons and bearings, and given a head job to increase compression. To s...