A Royal Enfield becomes a cafe racer the old fashioned way

Ace handlebars started this Royal Enfield Bullet's transition to cafe racer.

John Beesley of "Sunny South Yorkshire" claims a wife, three kids, two hamsters, one cat, one kitten and an Enfield cafe racer.

Dubbed "Harry the Enfield," the 1995 Royal Enfield Bullet is making a "slow metamorphosis into a caff," he writes on his Tumblr blog.

For the full story go to Tumblr, but John OK'd an excerpt here:

"For my 40th I was gifted a 1995 Enfield India Bullet. The 500cc thumper as well! The previous owner, my father-in-law, had just up graded to a Meteor and, as a result, this old girl became surplus to requirements 'round about the same time as my birthday came along.

Vincent bars and single seat added. The looks OK, but...

"I rode her as I’d got her for a while, but didn’t really like the ‘sit up and beg’ position so I fitted flat ace bars. The more I rode her, the easier the right-hand gear shift became and the dream of a Triton from my youth reemerged.

"Let's be honest here, the chances of getting one now are the same as when I first started to ride — nil! But I had been given the next best thing to an old Brit bike: an Indian built old Brit bike.

"To me, building a caff is about two things. 1. Do as much as possible yourself and as a result, 2. do the ton!"

...a shiny tank with knee indents looks the part.

To that end (and to get "the look") John invested in a bright tank, Vincent straight bars, and a single seat. He polished some metal, worked on the inlet/outlet ports and researched how to tune a big single.

Since these pictures were taken he has "binned the back end and built a new subframe."

Harry the Enfield as work continues.

"I’m not building her to win prizes, I’m building her to make me smile," John writes. "She’s an old bike, even older in design, and I want her to show her years. None of us get any younger and if she really was a '60s caff, she’d have some wear and tear if she’d been used most days."

With bits fitted together to see how they'll look.