Honda CX500 cafe featured build: “Eve”

Today’s build is a 1980 CX500 Shadow from Australia:

Jim, the owner, picked it up as a partially finished project. It had started out as a completely stock blue bike that had then had some frame modifications by Matt Bromley, the man behind the motorcycles of Mad Max: Fury Road. Since then the front suspension has been rebuild and upgraded to Progressive springs and 20wt fork oil:

A set of Mikuni VM34s, thanks to Murrays Carbs:

You can also see a Motion Pro single sided fuel shutoff and new glass fuel filter there. Tappet covers in Duplicolor gloss black high heat paint, with blue flecked high tension leads:

Rear shocks were upgraded to a more modern pair from Dime City Cycles:

The H-box was removed and the stock exhausts were replaced with a pair of shorty exhausts:

You can also see the final drive, also painted in Duplicolor high heat paint. A new fender and brakelight adorn the rear, behind a Nitro Heads seat:

The radiator side covers were drilled for new indicators:

The tank was a spraycan job with Duplicolor ivory paint, and many gloss topcoats over the top:

New gauges and idiot lights:

Jim says that the bike rides much better than it did, though he was intending on trying 15wt fork oil in place of the 20wt next time it was up for a change. One of his favourite thing about the bike is it’s exhaust and intake noise – while the exhaust is a touch too loud without additional baffles, it has quite a pleasing note. The bike has now been sold and Jim is now focused on his next CX build – or two…

As an epilogue, here’s a photo from before the tank was painted – it can certainly make a difference to the overall “feel” of the bike!

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