Windy City Wonder
WINDY CITY WONDER
CW READERS’ COLLECTION
Cafe Commando
NORTON’S FAMOUS Featherbed frame served as the jumping-off point for Jim Barsano’s stunning Commando-powered cafe-racer. “I’ve always liked Commandos,” the Chicago native confesses. “I thought one of those motors in a Featherbed frame would be the perfect combination.” As luck would have it, the
merger was already in progress-in a nearby town, no less. The orignal owner had a pair of parts bikes, a 1969 Commando, which donated its motor, and a ’63 Atlas, which gave up its Featherbed. Already fabricated were engine-mounting plates, plus a few odds and ends. A cut-down fork, aluminum gas tank and period solo seat were also on the block. No surprise, Barsano bought the whole lot.
Even with a plethora of parts, there was lots of work to be done. “I hate to say it,” Barsano says, “but the guy kind of butchered things. As soon as I brought the bike home, the kickstand broke. Then, we started having problems with the valves. We took the head off, one thing led to another, and now everything in the motor is new.”
The air-cooled parallelTwin still displaces 745cc, but it benefits from highercompression pistons, electronic ignition, performance coils, Mikuni carburetor and belt primary drive. “When he went through it, John made sure all the tolerances were right,” Barsano says, referring to his restoration cohort and machinist brother. “We use the original Amals for shows because they look neat, but the bike runs a lot better with the Mikuni.”
Thankfully, the frame was mostly intact. “We had to do some welding,” 49-year-old Barsano admits, “but it was pretty nice.” The rest of the bike is a collection of components put aside for the project: original clubmanstyle Dunlop handlebar, new-from-the-box Girling shocks, Akront rims, highrise headers and a beautiful aluminum oil tank from Mick Hemmings in England. Topping it off is a John Tickle front brake (an airscooped, double-leading shoe setup mated to the stock hub) that Barsano found at a Chicagoland swap meet. “Isn’t that something?” he asks. “I haven’t seen one since. Somebody offered me $ 1000 for it, but I wouldn’t sell—it really goes with the bike.”
Barsano owns a smattering of old English iron, but he claims the Norton is his pride and joy. “It runs really well,” he says. “The ride is a little choppy, but for short blasts on Sundays, it’s great.
Obviously, it’s no comparison to modem bikes, but it’s neat nonetheless.”
Assuming Britbike purists would shun such “bastardizing,” Barsano never planned on showing the cafe-racer.
Then he took the bike to a local Norton club gathering, just for fun. “As soon as I took it out of the trailer, people started looking at it,” he says proudly. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is really something!”’
Indeed. -Matthew Miles >
