Welcome to Australian Cafe Racers.
Australian Cafe Racers is an Australian wide Cafe Racer Enthusiast group. We are based in Sydney, Perth, Newcastle, Brisbane and Melbourne. Created in 2011 we have grown from 1 member in Sydney to over 2000 Australia wide. We have been featured in magazines and websites worldwide and continue to showcase the Australian Cafe Racer scene to the world.
We are enthusiasts of Japanese, European and American vintage, classic, and custom style motorcycles. We ride Monthly, we ride weekly - Join us to keep up to date with rides in your local area.
Our goal has always been to bring Cafe Racer enthusiasts together.
We dont charge members to join us and never will. We do ask if you do want to support us or throw some money our way that you do so by heading to our store and buying yourself some kick ass merchandise!
We use the money to pay for more merchandise, group related costs, motorcycle events and sponsorship.
History of the Cafe Racer
A cafe racer is a type of motorcycle as well as a type of motor cyclist. Both meanings have their roots in the 1960s counterculture group the Rockers, or the Ton-up boys, although they were also common in Italy, Germany, and other European countries. In Italy, the term refers to the specific motorcycles that were and are used for short, sharp speed trips from one coffee bar to another.
Rockers were a young and rebellious Rock and Roll counterculture that wanted a fast, personalized and distinctive bike to travel between transport cafes along the newly built arterial motorways in and around British towns and cities. The goal of many was to be able to reach 100 miles per hour (called simply "the ton") along such a route where the rider would leave from a cafe, race to a predetermined point and back to the cafe before a single song could play on the jukebox, called record-racing.
A classic example of this was to race from the Ace Cafe on The North Circular road in NW London to the Hanger Lane junction and back again. The aim was to get back to the Ace Cafe before the record on the jukebox had finished. Given that some of the tunes back then were less than two minutes long, the racers had to make the three-mile round trip at extremely high speed.
Ace Cafe London. Rebuilt in 1949 after being destroyed in World War II
- There are no joining fees.
- If you are keen to ride with like minded enthusiasts then join us. To join us click here
- No politics
- No dickheads