Cafe Suzie?

Kawasaki GS 550 E.  Can you see a cafe racer here?

My pal Larry has another project besides upgrading the chassis of his '03 Ford Focus.  He got this bike in barter for helping a fellow gearhead with a problem.  It's low milage because it wasn't running when he got it.  Still isn't.  Other than that, the bike is in fine shape.  Now that he's retired, he can look into the "won't start and run" problem.  After he finishes his other project, restoring his '81 VW Scirocco.

His excellent idea is to turn the Suzie into a cafe racer.  Right size, right look,  right color.  With a single-occupancy saddle and some other tossed parts, it might shed up to 100 lbs.  Were it my project,  I'd try to slide no turn signals, etc., past those fine folks at the DMV.  (Talk is cheap, Pilote.)

Larry rides a Honda 750 Nighthawk.  A tip of the helmet to him: I wouldn't even get on a bike at our age.    He is a cautious rider.  And he should be: our bones break easier and take longer to heal.  A cafe bike needs an aggressive rider.  So he'll probably flip the Suzie.  After a few rides.

He'll be sad to see it go because he knows, and I know, that we missed some Dragon Slayings while toiling in our respective corporate bureaucracies.  You know: those crummy jobs that allowed us to retire with good bennies in our 60's.  I don't know if youth is wasted on the young.  I do know that a cafe rider's brain is trapped inside my creaky body.