Café Rouge Norton 850 Custom Café Racer

Larry Houghton entered the AMD World Championship and attacked from a different angle, he brought Café Rouge, powered by a 1976 Norton 850. Since Larry’s Lamb Precision Engineering Ltd hails from the U.K., it makes sense.

As I was browsing through the winners of this year’s championship, I was struck by how quickly the style had changed from years past into the board track theme and a lot of competitors had some derivation of the same thing; nice bikes, well built, but falling into line on this trend like the stretched choppers of a couple years back. Then I saw Café Rouge and it stood out instantly.

Larry’s hand built frame has a cantilever shock working the rear swingarm with an upside down Suzuki fork. Wheels are 21 inch front and 23 inch rear with a 130 width tire out back. Everything is adjustable, rake from 25 to 38 deg, seat height and rear ride height. The tank is machined from 2 blocks of acrylic. The engine is tilted 40 degrees delivering power through a 4 speed transmission.

Café Rouge placed 11th after a tie break. Yes, it’s a show bike, no, it’s not really practical but it does show some outside the box thinking compared to many of the other bikes in the competition. Interesting.

Source thekneeslider.com