This Honda CB500 Four Custom Is A White Knight In Shining Armor

We at RideApart do love a nice custom build. This motorcycle is serious hotness. Even if you don’t like the aesthetic, you cannot deny the skill that went into it. Duke Motorcycles out of Tourrettes Sur Loup, France, built this dreamy thing, and we are here for it.

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This particular bike began life in or around 1973 as a Honda CB500. The build is so clean, so well executed, that while you know that is definitely not the frame or suspension the bike was born with, it’s hard to see where the original parts end and the custom parts begin.

The standout, apart from the amazing paint job, is that single-sided rear swingarm. That and its counterpart suspension components up front were stripped off a Ducati for this build. Those beefy forks are bigger than this bike ever dreamed of when it was new.

The gas tank, while shaped to look stock, is in fact entirely fabricated. It flows so nicely into that seat pan and rear cowl, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s all one piece! The frame below it is original to the bike but has been thoroughly modified to accept and support all of its new pieces.

Let’s talk about that paint job, though, shall we? This is not something you see often at all. All-black bikes are common enough that there’s a term for it: murdered out. Anything that could have been chrome or otherwise metallic and shiny is black, and that is a murdered-out motorcycle. All white though? Why not? The frame, swingarm, forks, heck the motor itself and even the shock reservoirs are a gorgeous semigloss white that evokes cake frosting. 

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The exhaust pipes are another real stunner of a design consideration. Those four-into-two undertail pipes aren’t bent smooth, but instead are shaped with a series of precise angles. They end up looking like a fine-cut jewel. Coupled with the gold lettering and the white paint, the bike feels more like a piece of jewelry than a motorcycle. The design touches like the cabling along the tank and tail look quite fiddly to keep clean, but who’s taking this thing out in the rain, anyway?

Source: YouTube, Return of the Cafe Racer

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