Belgian-Built Café Racer from Bruthaus Classics…
Joris Vander Borght is a man with no shortage of passion. The Belgian artist and motorcycle builder rode his first motorcycle at the age of 12, when his older brother hoisted him aback a mighty Bultaco Pursang 360. The rest was history:
“I tore a full 25 metres through an orchard on my rear wheel until the end came in sight…I didn’t know how to brake and I dropped sideways. I had changed from child to adolescent in one stroke; the microbe wouldn’t let me go.”
After a difficult adolescence that included the loss of his older brother, Joris received a gift from his father in the form of a 1952 NSU Pony 98cc, which Joris restored without the help of the internet — it was 1981, after all!
“I was crazy about this bike and had to apprentice everywhere, go to libraries doing searches, trial-and-error. I knew absolutely nothing about engineering. But I turned it into a beautiful first restoration, and it still rode!!! That was the thrill of my life!”
By high school, Joris had moved up to a 1967 Honda CD50, into which he fitted a 90cc engine:
“I tinkered until when the little machine smoothly reached 110km/h, the best proof were the ‘rolls’ of the Rijkswacht [police] in those days…”
Joris continued to restore, modify, and ride motorcycles while forging a career as an installation and performance artist, opening a highly successful art gallery (Bruthaus) with his wife, Nancy, in 2012. Fast forward a little more than a decade, however, and the years of stress were taking a toll on Joris’s health — it was time to get back to working with his hands.
He converted his gallery into a workshop, and the 1976 Honda CG125 “Barn Racer” you see here is the first machine built under the new Bruthaus Classics brand. As you may know, the Honda CG125 has been in production since 1976 — nearly 50 years. Says Joris:
“A Honda CG125 is just about the most sold, replicated, and longest produced model in the world — a real workhorse. I came across a wreck somewhere and decided to convert this barn-find, as my first self-built Bruthaus Classics ladies’ racer. An ode to British cafe-racers, with a sexy Japanese seventies sauce over it. The ugly duckling became a beautiful little machine!”
The modifications are extensive, including alterations to the frame, swingarm, and suspension for better roadholding, as well as many one-off aluminum parts.
“I never use ready-made pieces you find on the conversion market — what you make yourself is better!”
Joris details all of the work below, but highlights include an extended swingarm, lengthened and stiffened frame, custom-laced wheels, CD200 tank, and bespoke brackets, handlebars, fenders, and more.
“With this bike, Bruthaus Classics wanted to pay tribute to the British ‘cafe-racers’ of the UK in the 1960s. Youngsters who rebuilt their motorbikes to race from bar to bar as fast as possible. A custom we knew until the 1970s and 1980s, including in Belgium. It was the era when the motorbike was no longer a ‘means of transport’ but became a ‘form of expression’.”
We’d say it was job well done, Joris, and we look forward to the next Bruthaus Classic to roll from the workshop!
Honda CB Café Racer: Builder Interview
• Please tell us a bit about yourself, your history with motorbikes, and your workshop.
In 1977, when I was twelve, my older brother hoisted me onto a Bultaco Pursang 360cc. He showed me how to accelerate and operate the clutch. I tore a full 25 metres through an orchard on my rear wheel until the end came in sight…I didn’t know how to brake and I dropped sideways. I had changed from child to adolescent in one stroke; the microbe wouldn’t let me go.
Three years later, at 15, I had a difficult childhood, alcohol, drugs, bad friends… My elder brother and soulmate had just committed suicide and I had lost the path a bit. To focus everything a bit, my father bought a 1952 NSU Pony 98cc at the flea market. He helped me restore the thing for one day, and then he said, “Now you have to do everything yourself.” It was 1981 and there was no internet yet…
I was crazy about this bike and had to apprentice everywhere, go to libraries doing searches, trial-and-error. I knew absolutely nothing about engineering. But I turned it into a beautiful first restoration, and it still rode!!! That was the thrill of my life!
And then I was off. Before and after school and on weekends, I did jobs to buy motorbikes and parts. My first real daily transport was a wreck of a Honda CD50 from the late sixties; I made the little beauty ride and used it as a daily means of transport to school, timing myself to go faster and faster 🙂 Wonderful!
I then found a 90cc engine and put that in my CD 50, everything went even faster and I was stopped by the police a number of times, but I was also able to ride and escape them in the city centre many times.
During my art studies, I then restored several motorbikes for myself.
The first motorbike I did distant journeys with was a Sarolea Estafette (B) 400cc side-valve 1952 from the Belgian army. After a day trip, the valves had to be recalibrated every time. Furthermore, I restored a Honda CB250 from 1972, Honda SL125 from 1976, Motocomfort, NSU Pony, Triumph TR25, and I improved my BMW R65 (then with 120,000 km. on the odometer), with which I caught up with the R80’s 🙂 I unwittingly won a mountain climb race against a Harley-Davidson club with it in the French Alps (nb. with 35kgr of luggage)…
I also built a racer based on a 1970 Honda CB360 — a super fast bike with six gears, Boriani rims, Koni springs, special camshaft.
I kept improving and speeding up motorbikes. I did everything out of passion and as a hobby; professionally I was an artist.
After a life as an installation and performance artist, I started an art gallery with my wife Nancy in 2010, which was fast, successful. We participated in international fairs and sold a lot of start-up artists to major museums. We started many young artists, successfully! But last year, I suddenly developed stress-related health problems. We stopped the gallery. I had a need to work with my hands again, to be able to focus.
So in May 2022, I started the Bruthaus Classics vintage motorbike restoration company. With the same Bruthaus prefix as the gallery, without staff. We downsized our business…
I now restore motorbikes for customers, very idiosyncratically (from BMW to CZ, nothing is too small for me). My customers know they can’t stress me, no deadlines, just Bruthaus quality.
Parts I can’t find, I make myself. We have a full metal workshop with turning and milling machines, welding stations, homemade machines, blast cabinets, welding stations, bending benches, etc. I sew the leather for the saddles myself using a stitching machine over 100 years old that I restored myself.
My former, self-designed and built gallery space is now my studio; it still has a lot of artworks by young artist friends.
What I prefer to do is design and build engines myself based on donors — I never work with drawings but immediately proceed via trial and error as I created works of art.
What needs to be improved, I make myself. (For example, the BMW airheads had terribly bad frames and swingarms — I improve those until they are good). I never use ready-made pieces you find on the conversion market — what you make yourself is better!
Just like in my artistic practice as an artist, and just like my beliefs as a curator gallery owner, I am against “decor” — “form follows function”!
My daily bike is a 1976 CZ 175; I think that within the former socialist ideal in which it was designed, that bike is gorgeous. I love its ugly beauty…but I equally love Brough Superior or Vincent HRD. I love all honestly designed motorbikes (except choppers and foul-tuned bikes), I have a fondness for racers and cafe racers, because functionality is driven to the top there.
I really enjoy working on BMWs (airheads), pre-1970 British bikes, and pre-1980 Japanese bikes. I love speed immensely, however relatively.
• What’s the make, model, and year of the build?
Honda CG125, 1976.
• What custom work was done to the bike?
- The overall weight is 17 kg lighter than the donor bike.
- The rear swingarm was extended by 3 cm (better roadholding).
- The footpegs were folded and moved back by 10 cm and raised by 4 cm (better racing stance for the pilot).
- The rear suspension was increased by 3 cm.
- The gear shift and rear brake controls were totally modified.
- The frame was extended and “stiffened” by 8 cm for better handling.
- The wheels were completely self-built with chosen diameter and spokes.
- Chain guard, rear brake-fixing device, rear mudguard, odometer holder, clip-on racing handlebars were developed in “lightened” aluminium.
- Illuminated and extended headlamp brackets and front fork
- Air filter changed to sports filter
- Oil evaporation from the crankcase is collected in a canister to prevent road contamination
- Valve operation on ball bearings
- Fully developed and illuminated saddle
- Petrol tank from Honda CD200 from the early 1970s
- Everything is always done in the Bruthaus workshop!
This bike was fully developed to be as safe and ergonomic as possible.
• What’s the story behind the nickname “Barnfind Racer I”?
Well, I always had a fondness for English machines from the fifties and sixties. The Rockers did just the same in those days as what I did in the eighties: buy an affordable bike and improve it to be faster and more reliable. In the 1980s, I did that with Japanese bikes from the 1960s and early 1970s. I also have a bit of a penchant for lightweight single-cylinders.
A Honda CG125 is just about the most sold, replicated, and longest produced model in the world — a real workhorse. I came across a wreck somewhere and decided to convert this barn-find, as my first self-built Bruthaus Classics ladies’ racer. An ode to British cafe-racers, with a sexy Japanese seventies sauce over it. The ugly duckling became a beautiful little machine!
• Can you tell us what it’s like to ride the completed bike?
I feel sixteen again! Speed is relative, but this little machine goes fast for what the original donor was! The lightness and handling reminds me of my former Honda CD50, but faster and more aggressive. The handling is superb, it is an extension of your body and you are in close contact with the interface between the tyres and the track!
• Is there anyone you’d like to thank?
1. My father Michel Van der Borght (1932 – 2014), who introduced me to this wonderful passion more than 40 years ago — he was a particularly good father!
2. Allan Millyard, whose work inspires me so much, and gives me the self-confidence that actually nothing is impossible.
3. My wife who gives me these opportunities by trusting me, despite having little connection with it herself. She is also the business manager of Bruthaus Classics.
4. My friend Koen Fourneau, vintage car restorer, who believes in Bruthaus-Classics and regularly supports and helps me in starting this business.
Follow the Builder
Website: www.bruthausclassics.com
Instagram: @bruthaus_classics
Facebook: Bruthaus Classics
Photography: Cedric Charles and Celesta De Vos
This “Barn Find” Honda converted to a “Cafe Racer” is the EXACT projection of what a Cafe Racer is and should be. I can verify that this is what was happening in the late ’50s, early ’60s when I was a teenager in Madrid. A “Cafe Racer” came about because the bikes were so stripped of non-essential parts, that you could only ride them from Cafe to Cafe because they were so uncomfortable that you could only stand to ride them fast to the next Cafe! Really…we did it on 125cc Bultacos and Montesas and for a 16-year-old paying $1 a quart for gas, that really made your day!!!