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Honda CB450 Cafe Racer "Bonita Applebum"

The Honda CB450 Cafe Racer "Bonita Applebum" started its life as a 1971 Honda CB450 bought from eBay, and believe it or not, the bike was built in a small apartment. After buying all the items needed from eBay, Pepe Luque - the guy who now owns the bike - started to clean, paint, and spit polish every piece before installing them on the frame.

Besides some minor fine-tuning, Luque worked on this project all by himself, including upsizing the main jets to compensate for the airflow in and out of the motor and replacing the Pirelli tires for some Firestones. As for the exterior paint, it was inspired by a CB450 Armadillo, while the handgrips and seat color was suggested by his flatmate. Why is the fact that he built the whole thing by himself so noteworthy? Well, Pepe Luque is colorblind.

When explaining how he came about picking the colors and getting everything just right for the bike to work, he said: "The main section I really struggled with was the wiring of the bike. As you could imagine, being color blind did not help with the colors of the wires. I was very fortunate that my girl and my brother’s wife helped with labelling the wires. For instance, yellow with a white trace, I labelled FLB (front left blinker) and so on. It took me by surprise that I nailed the wiring on first go."