Cafe Espresso
CAFE ESPRESSO
American FLYERS
When men were men and small Harleys were Italian
A PITCHED WAIL PIERCES your cocoon of soothing Britbike parallel-Twin thrum. It’s a frantic sound, and moving so fast you can’t pinpoint it. Then comes an orange blur quickly obscured by blue smoke.
Welcome to the annual Southern California Norton Club’s All British Ride, which strictly speaking isn’t all British. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had your Whitworths buzzed by this screaming 1969 Aermacchi Harley-Davidson Rapido café special.
Four years ago, this gleaming little 125cc twostroke jewel was a rustedout $25 roller with a cracked frame bought at a vintage swapmeet. Much was missing and little of what was
there was savable, but owner Mike Jacobs had The Vision and dived in, junk first. “A friend of mine has several small Harleys, and just kind of fell in love with them,” he says. “It’s one of those things you buy with your heart.”
Jacobs may have bought the bike with his heart, but it’s clear from how finely finished and truly custom it now is that he finished it with his soul.
Well, that and some creativity. Because the bike was in such a downtrodden, incomplete state when he got it, going for the superoriginal concours-quality restoration wasn’t considered. “What I was starting with was just too sad, so I thought I’d have a little fun with it,” he says. It was café custom all the way.
From the surprisingly abundant buffet of parts available for the little Harleys of that era, he selected his favorites. So,
the engine cases came from
a 1973 model because that
year featured a five-speed gearbox. But to preserve the 1969 vibe he converted the bottom end to right-hand shift using the earlier shifter parts and covers from the original motor. To the top of this was fitted an aluminum Cagiva cylinder with a plated bore (Cagiva bought Aermacchi in 1978), which replaced the original iron cylinder. The main benefit of this was performance. “The ports are just massive compared to the original cylinder,” says Jacobs. Appetites for inhalants thus increased, a 27mm Dell’Orto carb took the place of the old 24mm unit. On the smoky side resides a custom expansion chamber fabricated from two-stroke pipe remnants with the help of his neighbor.
The cracked and corroded frame, meanwhile, was repaired and gussetted. Socalled “baby” Ceriani
triple-clamps were fitted
using a custom-made steering stem, while a tiny Ceriani fork was harvested from a 1975 Aermacchi, as was a narrowed doubleleading-shoe front brake. Rear shocks are longerthan-original 13-inch Marzocchis, while Akront rims, 18-inches front and rear, uh, round out the mechanical package.
The café-racer personality is lent to the bike by the 1968 tank and seat, the only year street-style bodywork was offered in the States.
Jacobs says he doesn’t ride it much, just at local organized runs and club events. When he does, he usually doesn’t flirt with the 85-mph top speed. “It’s a lot of fun and surprisingly stable,” he says. “Plus, the engine is rubber-mounted so there’s no buzz.”
No buzz? A few of the guys he passed on the All British Ride would beg to liffer!
Mark Hoyer
