CAFÉ KITBIKE Ryca? We lyca

By Dexter Ford

What is hip? It’s hard to put into words. But to a growing number of young urban motorcyclists (YUMs?), the Ryca CS-1 Café Racer sums it up nicely.

The Ryca’s spare lines echo the Triumphs, Nortons and BSAs of the ‘60s that were stripped down for illicit racing between English coffee bars. The café-racer style – low clip-on handlebars, rearset footpegs and raucous exhaust pipes – caught on then, starting with the London-area motorcycle toughs who called themselves the Rockers. It’s making a comeback today. But this time image-conscious young Americans are, in turn, stripping inexpensive Japanese bikes, repurposing the machines their Baby Boomer dads rode in the ’70s and ’80s.

The Ryca CS-1 is a kitbike, its custom-massaged bodywork, suspension and controls designed by Ryca Motors of Whittier, California (www. rycamotors.com). At its heart is an unlikely organ donor, a Suzuki S40, previously known as the Savage. Manufactured with few changes from the ‘80s to the present, it is a budget bad boy – an air-cooled, belt-drive, 652cc single styled to mimic a baby Harley-Davidson Sportster. Ryca designer Casey Stevenson, an ex-NASA engineer, saw potential in the S40’s unprepossessing underpinnings. He reshaped and downsized the fuel tank and created a sleek seat, tailpiece and sidepanels. Longer shocks in the rear and shortened fork

nUsing basic hand tools, just about anybody can transform a ho-hum cruiser into this attention-getting café for about $2500 plus paint. To date Suzuki has sold some 100,000 S40s in the U.S. and Ryca is transforming them at the rate of 2-3 kits sold per week.

n(Opposite) Step 2 in Ryca Motors’ grand plan is more kits for the Suzuki 650, including the RR-1 Bobber ($1995) with bolt-on hardtail, and the very British-looking CS-2/s Scrambler ($2995), both shown with optional chain-drive conversion. There’s also a standardstyle model and a streettracker. In the planning stage are Ryca kits for Evo Sportsters.

tubes leveled the machine’s stance, and rearset footpegs and clip-ons completed the makeover. The prototype looked and worked so well that Stevenson and partner Ryan Rajewski (“Ryca” is taken from the first two letters of their first names) decided to offer a conversion kit to the public. In the two years since, more than 300 kits have been sold.

The basic kit sells for $2495, not including shipping. Or, for that matter, an S40 donor bike. Those can cost anywhere from $800 for a neglected 1986 model to $5699 for a brand-new 2013 from a Suzuki dealer.

Assembly – and a little hacksawand-paint work – is required. Ryca modifies each customer’s fuel tank and re-laces their spoked rear wheel, replacing the stock 16-inch rim with an 18-incher. Ryca details the entire process in a series of web videos, created to turn a novice slacker into a custom-bike builder in a few short lessons, no welding required.

If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, Ryca will build you an all-new CS-1, using a showroom-fresh Suzuki S40, for somewhere around $9500, depending on options. Ryca is also encouraging dealers and bike-building shops to buy kits and do conversions locally. Out on the street, this little Ryca

turns heads like no mass-produced machine can. It’s dramatic and original, with its own aura of classic Thumper mixed with newmillenium chic. I was forced to drag out my black racing leathers to stay in character; my usual hi-viz yellow riding jacket was not going to cut it with L.A.’s too-cool-forschool moto-chic subculture. The Ryca feels tight and tiny, a natural for in-city commuting and short-haul café hopping. The riding position is tolerable from 8 mph to 80 and the low seat height is perfect for smaller, lighter riders. The seat is that in name only, but the flat steel plate underneath distributes one’s personal load without undue pain. The big Suzuki single is smooth, torquey, responsive and satisfying, its exhaust note crackling on downshifts like an old Manx Norton braking into Creg-ny-baa on the Isle of Man. The neighbors, of course, may beg to differ...

Brakes and suspension? Not quite IoM material. The stock Ryca kit shocks are too flaccid for any but the lightest, slowest riders, bottoming and bouncing over small bumps and moderate cornering loads. The stock Suzuki fork, its travel reduced 2 inches by internal spacers, is just as uninspired. And the front brake, a small single disc, requires a determined pull on the lever.

Room for improvement, then, but none of these problems are deal-breakers. The basic frame, engine and riding position are sound. Stiffer springs front and rear, higher-viscosity fork oil and stickier aftermarket brake pads would be an economical start. An extra thousand dollars for better-quality rear shocks and a revalved, resprung fork, and the CS-1 might grow up to be nearly as fast through a set of switchbacks as it looks. But is it hip? The two giggling teenaged girls who chased me up the I-405 in their Camry, just to snap photos of it on their iPhones, vote yes. Hipness, as we have established, is the devil to define. But like those girls – perhaps the most influential jury of all – you’ll know it when you see it.