{"id":1480,"date":"2011-01-04T13:45:05","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T02:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/domain.com.s180574.gridserver.com\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2015-06-27T22:10:07","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T12:10:07","slug":"honda-1971-cb450-bonita-applebum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/honda-1971-cb450-bonita-applebum\/","title":{"rendered":"Honda 1971 CB450 “Bonita Applebum”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Suddenly, Bonita found herself lost and alone in a scary but very well-lit cave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s another bike from one of the new friends we made at the Deus Build-off<\/a>. Please meet\u00a0the\u00a0very lovely Bonita Applebum and her old man, Pepe Luque.<\/p>\n

Can you tell us a little about yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in Bolivia and migrated to Australia at the age of 2. I\u00a0grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney in a family of 7 in a small housing\u00a0commission home (aka ‘housos’ to us westies<\/a>). As you could imagine, I spent most of my time on the streets getting away from a cramped up\u00a0houso, where we were fighting over every little thing. Meanwhile, I had taken up skateboarding which\u00a0till this day I still do and love. The rest of the time was spent\u00a0modifying cars in my mother\u2019s backyard, poor Mum! These mods were\u00a0basically pulling out the piston motor and dropping in a rotary. Some\u00a0of the cars were Gemini’s 12a and 12a turbo, Datsun 1000 coupe 12a,\u00a013b turbo, and a Ford Anglia (Harry Potter’s car) 12a and so on… In\u00a0the meantime, while skating, I managed to pick up a few sponsors and a few speeding fines! I eventually moved out of the western ‘burbs and I am currently working for a large private hospital on Sydney’s North Shore as the Operating Theatre Prosthetic Inventory Co-ordinator. Still skating biatches! I also love snowboarding, wakeskating<\/a>, PS3 and anything to do with Apple Inc. I love building things and Bonita Applebum is my first ever bike build.<\/p>\n

Take us through the build of the bike.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bonita Applebum began life as a 1971 Honda CB450, which I bought on\u00a0eBay. It had a broken top triple tree and it was also\u00a0unregistered. I searched everywhere for a replacement and was unable\u00a0to find one, until a friend suggested I contact Jay from Sydney\u00a0Motorcycle Wreckers. I was fortunate enough that he had one, but it\u00a0came with a price, I had to buy a beaten up, rusted, old ass rolling\u00a0chassis with it.\u00a0I was content on riding Bonita stock standard until I witnessed my\u00a0first ever nostalgic race class at Eastern Creek, and from that day on I fell in love with Cafe Racers and that era of bikes.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

I had no intention of building a serious contender in the Cafe world.\u00a0This build took place on the lounge room floor in my small apartment;\u00a0I was very fortunate that I had an understanding flatmate at the time. The majority of the parts were gathered from eBay, and the\u00a0transformation started. As I took parts off the bike I bought on\u00a0eBay, I cleaned, painted and spit polished them before I installed\u00a0them onto the newly sand blasted and powder coated frame I got from\u00a0Jay. I thought it would be easier to take parts off from one bike and\u00a0put them back on the other, considering I had no experience in building\u00a0motorcycles.<\/p>\n

I’m considerably happy with the final outcome, besides some minor fine-tuning. For example upsizing the main jets to compensate for the airflow in and out of the motor and replacing the Pirelli tyres for some Firestones is on the agenda also.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Polishing – so addictive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Did you sketch, Photoshop, or just go with the flow while building?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was basically no detailed pre planning with the build, but I did have a picture of a bike that inspired me that BCR<\/a> built, that was the CB450 Armadillo<\/a>. The colour scheme chosen for the bike is timeless. The handgrips and seat colour was suggested by my flatmate, it turned out better than I could imagine.<\/p>\n

You entered the bike in the Deus Bike Build-off. How was it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since I had never built a bike before I was a little freaked out in\u00a0entering the bike in the Deus Enthusiast Biker Build-off. It was nerve racking and a lot of fun at the same time. The atmosphere Deus created helped with my nerves and by lunchtime I had made some new friends and met some interesting people. One of them I consider to be the Godfather of the old Hondas, who I speak to occasionally and he has a lot of Honda wisdom (Sensei). It was extremely flattering receiving so many positive comments from spectators.\u00a0What I also found out on the day was that Tony (who did the pinstripe\u00a0demo at the Deus show) was the original Bonita owner. He swapped it\u00a0with Glenn, the guy I bought the bike off on eBay, I discovered it’s a small world!<\/p>\n

Judging by the faces and comments from the judges it seemed and\u00a0sounded like they really appreciated Bonita Applebum. The only thing\u00a0that went wrong on the day was when the bike was being judged and the\u00a0throttle cable snapped when the judges asked me to give it some stick\u00a0(who’s cable snaps just on judgement time?) I only wished someone had\u00a0taken a picture of my face at the time of the throttle snapping, it\u00a0would have been priceless.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

How have the mods you’ve made changed the way the bike rides?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Considering I had not ridden the bike before the mods, they have not\u00a0affected my ride, as I don’t know what the ride should be like! I\u00a0have had a lot of negative feedback about the travel height between\u00a0the rear tyre and the rear cowl. After riding the bike for the first\u00a0time on the road recently, I had no issue with the travel\u00a0height; no scrubbing or rubbing.<\/p>\n

Any lessons you’ve learnt from the build?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I did tackle this bike aesthetically first before considering every\u00a0other aspect. I now know for future builds that getting it up and\u00a0running comes first, then tear it down, then pretty everything up and\u00a0put it back together. Also, do not neglect Call of Duty as I once reined supreme and now I have a lot of catching up to do. Muff-Diver is my PSN username if anyone wants to add me and please add Pipeburn when requesting.<\/p>\n

If money was no object, what would be your ultimate Honda? Do you have any other non-Honda\u00a0favourites?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t know much about Honda bikes, so I can’t really comment on\u00a0which would be my ultimate Honda. Wait a minute, a friend from work\u00a0owns a CBR1000RR and that looks pretty nice, so I guess that would be the weapon of choice.\u00a0My all time favourite bike would be The Falcon Bullet. If Earl Hickey\u00a0<\/a>can own one, so can I.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Loving the subdued colours with the tan highlights<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What bikes have you owned before?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Previous bike owned before would be a GSR RR, which is a pocket bike<\/a>\u00a0with a Bizeta 50cc motor in it. This thing threw my brother-in-law off in a matter of 2 seconds, he ain’t your ordinary size guy! He is quite large which surprised me when it threw him off. Mind you, he was only wearing thongs (flip flops) shorts and a t-shirt. Poor bastard had gravel rash for the rest of his holiday. (Personally, I’d much prefer photos of that over the cable snap face – Andrew.)<\/p>\n

You mentioned you are colour blind. How did that impact the bike build?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main section I really struggled with was the wiring of the bike.\u00a0As you could imagine, being colour blind did not help with the colours\u00a0of the wires. I was very fortunate that my girl and my brother\u2019s wife\u00a0helped with labelling the wires. For instance, yellow with a white\u00a0trace, I labelled FLB (front left blinker) and so on. It took me by\u00a0surprise that I nailed the wiring on first go.<\/p>\n

You’re a keen skateboarder. Any similarities\u00a0between the skating world and custom bikes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest similarity I see between the skateboard world and the bike world is the phrase “Go Hard or go Home”!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. Are you in Sydney? Do you have a bike that you think tops Bonita? Why not\u00a0contact us<\/a>\u00a0and see if we can’t get it shot in the Pipeburn Garage of Photographic Super Excellence? Do it; do it now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"Suddenly, Bonita found herself lost and alone in a scary but very well-lit cave<\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s another bike from one of the new friends we made at the Deus Build-off. Please meet\u00a0the\u00a0very lovely Bonita Applebum and her old man, Pepe Luque.<\/p>\n

Can you tell us a little about yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in Bolivia and migrated to Australia at the age of 2. I\u00a0grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney in a family of 7 in a small housing\u00a0commission home (aka ‘housos’ to us Westies). As you could imagine, I spent most of my time on the streets getting away from a cramped up\u00a0houso, where we were fighting over every little thing. Meanwhile, I had taken up skateboarding which\u00a0till this day I still do and love. The rest of the time was spent\u00a0modifying cars in my mother\u2019s backyard, poor Mum! These mods were\u00a0basically pulling out the piston motor and dropping in a rotary. Some\u00a0of the cars were Gemini’s 12a and 12a turbo, Datsun 1000 coupe 12a,\u00a013b turbo, and a Ford Anglia (Harry Potter’s car) 12a and so on… In\u00a0the meantime, while skating, I managed to pick up a few sponsors and a few speeding fines! I eventually moved out of the western ‘burbs and I am currently working for a large private hospital on Sydney’s North Shore as the Operating Theatre Prosthetic Inventory Co-ordinator. Still skating biatches! I also love snowboarding, wakeskating, PS3 and anything to do with Apple Inc. I love building things and Bonita Applebum is my first ever bike build.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,85],"tags":[1001,718,102],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17503,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/17503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pipeburn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}