Motorcycle News - Café Express: Freeride’s Montesa Cota 247 cafe racer
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Montesa bikes tick all the boxes: the Spanish manufacturer was hugely successful in motocross and road racing from the sixties to the mid-eighties. Its Cota 247 model was also popular with trials riders—but who’d have thought a trials bike would make a great little café racer?
Pierre specializes in the repair and maintenance of classic bikes, and prepping machines for vintage racing series. But he’s also very good at creating sharp-looking, quirky customs—like the Honda CX650 scrambler we featured a few months ago.
It’s one hell of a transformation. At just 192 pounds (87 kilos) dry, the original Cota 247 is a nimble handler so weight reduction was not a priority.
Pierre has given it a full reconditioning, with new bearings and seals, and even a new crankshaft. He’s also tweaked the stock exhaust system and intake, and fitted a big bore piston kit from Italkit.
After many ours of fettling and polishing, the motor looks as good the day it left the Barcelona factory in 1972.
Pierre has added a custom fiberglass rear cowl to match, plus discreet aluminum fenders. Midwest Aero Design shot the intense red paint, and a fresh coat of satin black epoxy helps the frame fade into the background.
The new rear cowl is covered in a racy black suede that extends over the seat pan, applied by Kabuki Sellerie. We haven’t heard of that French shop before, but they obviously know what they’re doing.
So Pierre has overhauled and cut down the original Betor forks. Now fitted with shorter springs, they’re hooked up to 18-inch period-correct Akront wheels using a hub from a 1960s Montesa Impala street bike. There’s a matching Akront out back, cushioned by new YSS shocks.
He’s built new clip-ons too, adapting them to the stock Cota 247 top yoke, and installed a Domino throttle and Amal brake and clutch levers.
This pocket-sized café racer is unlikely to break any lap records at Paul Ricard, but it’ll rule the roost at the traffic light Grand Prix. More of this braaaple sauce, please! Freeride Motos Racing | Facebook | Instagram Motorcycles via Bike EXIF http://www.bikeexif.com January 31, 2019 at 11:13AM Leave a Reply. |
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1/31/2019
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