A café racer is a genre of sport motorcycles that originated among British motorcycle enthusiasts of the early 1960s in London. Café racers were standard production bikes that were modified by their owners and optimized for speed and handling for quick rides over short distances. Café racers have since become popular around the world, and some manufacturers produce factory-made models that are available in the showrooms. Noted for its visual minimalism, a 1960s café racer would typically be an English parallel twin motorcycle with low-mounted clip-on or "Ace" handlebars with rear-set footrests. Items considered "non-essential" such as side panels, rear chain enclosures and voluminous mudguards (aka "fenders") were replaced by lighter items, or dispensed with altogether. Café racers were particularly associated with the urban Rocker or "Ton-Up Boys" youth subculture, where the bikes were used for short, quick rides between popular cafés, such as London's Ace Café on the North Circular ring road, and Watford's Busy Bee café.[3][4][2][5][6] In post-war Britain, car ownership was still uncommon, but as rationing and austerity diminished, by the late 1950s young men could for the first time afford a motorcycle.[7] Previously, motorcyles (often with voluminous sidecars) provided family transport, but the growing economy enabled such families to afford a car and dispense with a motorcycle at last. Young men were eager to buy such cast-off motorcycles and modify them into café racers, which for them represented speed, status and rebellion, rather than mere inability to afford a car.[8] The café racer idea caught on in the US, which was already a major market for British motorcycles. In 2014, journalist Ben Stewart recognised the café racer as a European style that would be appreciated in America. Writing in 1973, Wallace Wyss claimed that the term café racer was originally used in Europe to describe a "motorcyclist who played at being an Isle of Man road racer". "Rockers" were a young and rebellious rock and roll subculture who wanted to escape the crushing convention of dreary 1950s UK culture. Owning a fast, personalised and distinctive café racer gave them status and allowed them to ride between transport cafés in and around British towns and cities.[12][13][14] Biker lore has it that one goal was to reach "the ton", (100 miles per hour (160 km/h)), along a route where the rider would leave from a café, race to a predetermined point and return to the café before a single song could play on the jukebox, called record-racing. However, author Mike Seate contends that record-racing is a myth, the story having originated in an episode of the BBC Dixon of Dock Green television show.[15] Café racers are remembered as being especially fond of rockabilly music and their image is now embedded in today's rockabilly culture.[16][17] The Café Racer sub-culture has created a separate look and identity with modern café racers taking style elements from American Greasers, British Rockers, 70s bikers, and modern motorcycle riders to create a global style of their own. Café racer riders would often lighten their bikes, and tune their engine, typically fitting "clip-ons" (or dropped handlebars) and rear-set footrests which enabled the rider to "tuck in", reducing wind resistance and improving control. Occasionally, café racers might be fitted with half- or even full- race-style fairings.[10] Some bikes had swept-back pipes, reverse cone megaphone mufflers, TT100 Dunlop tires, and larger carburetors (often with inlet trumpet rather than air filters). Occasionally the standard dual seat would be replaced by a solo saddle.[19] As owners became more experimental, they would fit engines in different frames. A typical example was the "Triton", a homemade combination of a Triumph Bonneville engine in a Norton Featherbed frame. A less common hybrid was the "Tribsa" which had a Triumph engine in a BSA duplex frame. Other hybrids included the "NorVin" (a Vincent V-Twin engine in a Featherbed frame), and bikes with racing frames by Rickman or Seeley

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