Zephyr 550 cafe-racer from Germany.

And here comes a moment exciting for me: I received photos of one of the first Kawasaki Zephyr 550 modified with our cafe-racer kit. This also was one of the first two kits for Zephyr 550 I’ve ever made, the very one that came with a tail painted in red to match the original Zephyr 550 colour.

The owner of ZR550 promised to send photos as soon as he installed the kit and other components, cleaned the bike; and he kept his promise up to the word: in the photos you may see below are his Zephyr with tires still wet and some water still dripping from various nooks.

But let’s take a closer look at the bike itself. It’s a 1991 Kawasaki Zephyr 550. Its brakes were upgraded with ER6 calipers. Long years ago I did the same brake upgrade with my own Zephyr 750, and I could sincerely recommend it to all owners of Zephyr 550 and 750 with “old” type of calipers. And I could only heartily approve the choice of black braided brake lines since it’s also my favorite option for the brake lines.

Kit light’ components complete the LED lighting setup of the motorcycle: the cute LED headlight unit and tinny LED turn lights. I am still addicted to the classic “metal and glass” headlights, even as I run some of them with LED H4 units, however the headlight of this Zephyr (LED unit in metal housing) managed to shake my resolve to stick to classic glass diffusers.

And it’s also cool that the classic handlebar remained and wasn’t replaced with clip-ons. In combination with low chrome plated end bar mirrors it forms the line with original chrome plated gauges.  Along with other components (including the kit) it completes the neo-cafe look of the motorcycle, making the image whole and harmonic.

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