Today’s 1981 Honda CX500 Custom featured build comes from the Gold Coast of Australia and has been done by Purpose Built Moto:
Straight up you can see that there’s a fair bit that has been done to this bike – the build period was almost two years and it was done by Tom Gilroy, who is the man behind Purpose Built Moto. A few of the mods:
- New triple clamps (Purpose Built Moto)
- Custom LED tail lights integrated into tail metal
- Excel Alloy rims – 18″ x 2.25″ front, 17″ x 4.5″ rear, laced with stainless steel spokes
- Pirelli Angel GT tyres
- Flashpoint LED headlight – 5.75″ (Link)
- Purpose Built Moto Hollowtip indicators (Link)
- Steering damper
- MotoScope Mini speedometer (eBay US, eBay AU, eBay UK, eBay CA, Amazon
- Custom made spoke rings
- Brembo RCS radial master cylinder (eBay US, eBay AU, eBay UK, eBay CA)
- Brembo radial clutch lever
- Vapour blasted engine, rebuilt
- 2-1-2 exhaust syste, one-off
- Lithium battery
- Custom switches and electrics (Purpose Built Moto)
- ER6-N rear shock (eBay US, eBay AU, eBay UK, eBay CA)
- Modified front forks
- Custom rear sets
- Bar end mirrors (eBay US, eBay AU, eBau UK, eBay CA)
- Carbon fibre front mudguard
- Stainless steel brake lines (eBay US, eBay AU, eBay UK, eBay CA – check for correct model as they are different lengths)
- Pod filters
The brief from the customer was that it had to be like nothing anyone has ever done before. The whole build stemmed from the muffler and exhaust design that Tom (the man behind Purpose Built Moto) drew up, and contrary to his usual method of building he fabricated the exhaust piece before anything else. From there he lowered the tank and worked on the subframe and monoshock conversion.
The tailpiece is made from machined aluminium with some hand bent tubing attached, with integrated tail lights. This all supports the ultra lightweight carbon fibre tail piece – yes, that’s real carbon fibre – and Tom feels this is the biggest standout of the build and is sometihng that really sets it apart from any other CX build done before. This isn’t the only carbon fibre piece on the bike – the front guard is also done from the lightweight material, with a metal stabiliser hidden beneath.
Tom feels that the tailpiece and subframe was the most challenging part of the build – constructing it in such a way to not only completely hide any visible lights or wires but to also house many of the bike’s electrical components while being strong enough to support a seat from a base that was only 120mm wide.
The original seat design got scrapped and was completely redone from scratch after an intensive creativity session and the end result is the angular and slim shape you see today that the carbon fibre was laid over.
It wasn’t just the rear suspension that was worked over – the front forks were rebuilt with the springs shortened by 15mm and changed to a stiffer rate spring. In addition to this, the fork caps have been changed to a preload adjustable type (eBay US, eBay AU, eBay UK, eBay CA). Tom had the custom top triple clamp machined to lower the effective fork height, and fitted a steering damper to reduce the bike’s likelihood of headshake following the suspension modifications.
The MotoScope Mini (eBay US, eBay AU, eBay UK, eBay CA, Amazon) is tucked just beneath the steering stem nut:
Some top shelf hardware up front (Brembo MC: eBay US, eBay AU, eBay UK, eBay CA):
Tom has classified this bike as the first “Signature” Purpose Built Moto build to show that he had full creative control over the build.
The tank colour is a Nardo grey variation, mixed with some silver leaf.
Thanks to the intake/exhaust modifications the bike is now pushing 45.5hp at the rear wheel, which is a significant improvement over the stock figures.
For more inspirational CX builds, check out the master build list.