Page 48 - 100% Biker (January 2020)

BIKE FEATURE HONDA CX500

SPECIFICATION

SHEET

ENGINE:
1979 Honda CX500P V-twin, stock
ignition, 5-speed gearbox, one-off
custom 2-into-2 exhausts, ‘friction’
primary drive to rear wheel.
FRAME:
Original Honda from headstock to
rear mid of engine. All rear frame
completely handbuilt, subframe
fabricated from 2” pipe.
FRONT END:
17” Yamaha R1 wheel, Dunlop Radial
195/65/17” tyre, Yamaha R1 disc
and caliper, braided hoses, Yamaha
R1 forks, aluminium billet yokes,
clip-on handlebars, Suzuki Hayabusa
Generation 1 master cylinders, modified
attic find mudguard.

REAR END:
17” Yamaha R1 wheel, Dunlop Radial
120/70/17” tyre, one-off swinging arm
fabrications from 1” GB pipe, rear brake
is the friction wheel, hub and shoes
from Yamaha Virago 125 with heavily
modified chain, sprockets and pulleys,
brass surround number plate holder.

MISCELLANEOUS:
One-off petrol tank fabricated from
sheet metal and acts as tailpiece
supported by 2” pipe subframe
backbone, one-off seat fabricated from
sheet metal and part of petrol tank,
minimal wiring loom, engineering by
John Morton and Tom Hilgrove.
PAINT AND FINISH:
Ger Conlon Brown (secret recipe) by
Ger Conlon at C&C Choppers. Powder
coatng and polishing by Ed Cannan at
Mad Max Polishing.
THE ONE QUESTION YOU ARE NATURALLY

out trying to get the bike finished. ASKING IS, DOES IT WORK?
But, Ger says, “She said she’d
used a lathe in school. So I gave race bike about it, but other people system. (Oddly, in all the times I’ve
her a quick sketch and a piece of might see a streetfighter while still seen Ger, I’ve never actually asked
brass and told her to make that. I others might think futuristic café him why he did it. I suspect the
thought it would keep her busy for racer. But then everything about answer would be a slightly puzzled,
a few hours while we could get on Tweety turns conventional ideas “Well, why not?”!). Drive is
with the bike. Not too much later on their head. transferred from the CX500 output
she handed me the finished piece. Up close, some spectators have shaft to a Yamaha XS1100 barrel
I was impressed—and I used it on mistaken the chain and sprocket box which was reversed to drive
the bike. Then she was given a few arrangement at the headstock the friction wheel anticlockwise.
more sketches and parts to make, for mere steampunk adornment, It’s a feat of engineering that
and those were all used as well! along with the other neat touches reaffirms for me why I love
But I did get her name wrong. I that might have been inspired by custom motorcycles. There were
called her Kelly for the first few that genre. But decorative they any number of ways in which Ger
days until she finally said, ‘My may be, there’s nothing purely and his trusty sidekick at C&C,
name is Anna’. She’s now been decorative about these parts, if Owen, could have made the build
renamed as Kellyann!” that makes sense—and it starts to much easier but not only did
The first thing you notice about when you realise that the standard they choose the path untrodden,
the design of this CX is how lardy CD shaft drive is missing. they also got the bike finished
elegant and beautiful it is (and, And there’s no final chain, either. in three months in time for the
let’s face it, you don’t often see That’s because when Dan Irish Motorbike and Scooter
‘elegant’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘CX500 in trustingly said, “Do what you see Show at the RDS in Dublin in
the same sentence). It defies being fit,” to Ger, Mr Conlon decided 2017. Admittedly, Ger has spent
pigeonholed—it has elements of a to build a bespoke friction drive time finetuning it since and if

48 | 100% Biker | issue 256 | www.100-biker.com