Race to Rebuild: 1983 Honda CB1100F

By Motorcycle Classics Staff
Published on May 29, 2013
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Photo By MC Staff
Dime City Cycles will work its magic on our next project, a 1983 Honda CB1100F.

If there’s one thing we learned from the 1974 BMW R90/6 we transformed from a mild-mannered, worn out tourer into a slick café-styled road bike, it’s the sad fact that we’re too busy making a magazine to build a bike. It’s a problem made worse by the fact that we really enjoy the process: Getting grease under your fingernails has rewards beyond making the hand cleaner industry wealthy. Depending on your bent, it’s just plain fun learning more about what makes old iron tick.

Up to now, we didn’t think we really had a choice, but then we got to talking to Herm Narciso and Jason Paul Michaels at Largo, Fla.-based Dime City Cycles, where the unofficial battle cry appears to be “bring it on.”

Knowing how many custom projects Herm and Jason juggle while simultaneously working their derrières off to build up one of the most successful café/custom bike supply shops in the country, we were somewhat amazed when they said “sure, we could do that,” after we asked if they were interested in helping us with our next build. And “help” is a bit of a misnomer here, because outside of supplying some basic parameters we’ll mostly stand back, watching the build as it unfolds and reporting its progress here. (Check out their portfolio of builds at the Dime City Cycles website.)

To date, we’ve done a mild resto on a 1971 Triumph TR6C, we’ve café’d a 1973 Honda CB500, we’ve bobbed a 2010 Triumph Bonneville, and this year we went café again with our 1974 BMW R90/6, but the next Motorcycle Classics/Dairyland Cycle Race to Rebuild will track an entirely new path.

Cafés are cool, no question, and nobody does them better than Herm and Jason. We considered that route again, yet we all agreed we wanted to do something different. To get some feedback, we queried followers on Motorcycle Classics‘ and Dairyland Cycle’s Facebook pages about four options we were considering: another café, a street tracker, a resto mod and a modified scrambler. When the discussions were over, our direction was clear; a resto mod it is.

Major attributes of a resto mod include upgraded electrics, carburetion, exhaust and suspension, but with stock styling cues retained. A resto mod is usually significantly altered from stock, but on first blush looks true to its original form: When you look at it, you know what you’re seeing.

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