I build motorcycles slowly, in a Mokotow garage five minutes from home, and write everything down, including the mistakes. This site is the notebook.
In September 2019 I bought a blue 1993 BMW K1100 RS. Running, 4,200 zloty, all fairing and cream seat. I had never built a bike, I did not have a garage, and I was about to move cities. I decided to turn it into a cafe racer anyway.
It took five years and four workshops: a rented winter garage in Lodz, a corner at my in-laws during Covid, a stretch of pavement on Plac Bankowy where the seat base got laminated in the open air, and finally the Mokotow garage where the serious work happened. Every zloty went into a spreadsheet. Every solution came out of long nights of forum threads and bearing catalogues.
The bike got finished. The notes did not stop. That is this site: I write down what I actually did, in full, including the part where I got it wrong, because the version I needed in 2019 did not exist.
The whole story, with the real numbers, is in Four workshops, one K1100. There is a Yamaha XV750 in the garage now, so the next one is already underway.
Start to finish on one bike, with the full cost sheet and every mistake left in. These run long on purpose. They are the reason the site exists.
How to do one thing properly: polish alloy, lace a wheel, set carb float height, weld a loop that doesn't sag. Short, specific, repeatable.
What we bought, what it cost, whether it lasted. If a part was rubbish it says so, and there are no affiliate links pushing the verdict either way.
What actually makes a brat a brat, why tracker geometry works, where the cafe racer came from. History with the myths taken out.
Every build has its full photo set on the feed, and that's where the conversation happens. Ask there and you'll get an answer, usually the same day.
For anything else — a build you want covered, a correction, or a boring commercial question — email works too.
A short email every Thursday. The week's build story, one thing worth knowing in the garage, and a part we'd actually buy again. That's it.
No spam, no partner mail, unsubscribe in one click. We keep your address and nothing else.
