Café Racer

Café Racer Episode One, revisit the origins of the fast, customized street bike through eyewitness accounts of the Rockers and ton-up boys themselves.

Join Largo, Florida's Dime City Cycles in their search for the perfect project bike in a junkyard bristling with two-wheeled treasures. Music legend Billy Joel rides with Café Racer and recalls some of his favorite fast bikes.

Meet J&B Moto Co. a café emporium located in the heart of Harley-Davidson country; Florida's Dime City Cycles tear into their project bike to find some good and bad surprises.

Café Racer travels to the cornfields of Davenport, Iowa where former chopper builder Greg Hageman unearths a project bike in his family's barn. J&B Moto Co. attempt to build a café racer version of the world's most famous road racing motorcycle

Café Racer makes a visit to the annual Mods VS Rockers rally in Chicago, the nation's longest-running café event. J&B Moto Co. hand their Yamaha XS 650 monoshock custom over the pro-roadracers Eric and Ben Bostrom for a high-speed test ride.

We meet Yoshi Kosaka of California's Garage Company as he sets out to build a 1965 Triumph motorcycle in Los Angeles. Across the Golden State, Jay LaRossa tears into a Yamaha SR 500 single, making the machine a thing of speed and beauty.

The Café Racer crew packs its bags and travels to London's Lewis Leathers, the world's oldest motorcycle gear manufacturer. Alan Bernard of Santiago Choppers switches from choppers to ton-up machines as he sets out to build a wicked, Kawasaki custom.

If you dig café bikes that are raw, gritty and quick, New York's 6th Street Specials is the place to be this week as owner Hugh Mackie searches for parts to build a vintage BSA twin.

New York's XPO Streetfighter show the historic links between futuristic streetfighters and café racers as they start a 919 Honda project bike. In Manhattan's Lower east Side, 6th Street Specials' Hugh Mackie starts rebuilding a 1958 BSA twin.

In Chicago, the husband and wife team of Chad and Bee McDade begin a Norton Commando project with lots of hidden surprises. XPO Streetfighter brings in its best technicians to transform their 919 Honda naked roadster into a Café-Fighter.

After watching the best custom café builders in the world creating one of a kind, motorcycles, can two unskilled riders do the same for just $1,000 and in under 12 hours?

The crew at Delaware's Loaded Gun Customs hands their Triton hybrid bike over to pro roadracers Ben and Eric Bostrom to see whether the combination of Norton handling and Triumph power still holds up to the legend.