About CafeRacerForSale
Independent, reader-supported cafe racer guidance — build and buying guides, donor-bike valuations and honest gear roundups. Online since 2014.
What this site is
CafeRacerForSale started in 2014 as a place for the cafe-racer scene, and it's been rebuilt around one idea: give the straight answer the forums circle around but never quite land. What bike to build from. What it really costs. What actually protects you. We're not a marketplace and we're not a magazine — we're the reference you check before you spend money, whether that's on a donor bike, a set of rearsets, or a helmet.
Our editorial standards
These are the rules we hold every page to. They're the reason to trust what you read here over a page that just wants the click:
- We research, then we verify. Facts — engine specs, common faults, safety-standard details — are sourced, and claims are fact-checked against primary sources (standards bodies like SATRA, NHTSA and Snell; manufacturer pages) before they go live. If we can't stand a claim up, it doesn't get published.
- We flag what we can't confirm. On gear we state a CE level (EN 13634 for boots, EN 13594 for gloves, EN 1621 / EN 17092 for jackets) only where the maker publishes one. Where a brand just says "CE certified" without a level, we say so — a vaguer claim is a weaker claim, and we won't dress it up.
- We never publish scraped prices or fake reviews. Prices move, so we link out to the live price rather than quote a number that's wrong by the time you read it. We don't invent ratings, "we tested it" claims, or verdicts we didn't earn.
- Valuations are estimates, not appraisals. Our value calculator gives a grounded, directional range to inform a conversation — not a guaranteed figure.
- We rank by use, not by who pays. Some links are affiliate links (see our disclosure), but the order of a roundup is set by what actually suits the bike and the rider, never by commission.
Who writes it
The site is edited under the name Jason, a cafe-racer enthusiast who's spent years around these builds. The authority here isn't a claim to have ridden every bike or tested every helmet — it's the standards above: sourced facts, honest hedging, and transparency about how we make money. Where a topic touches safety, we lean on the actual standards and the makers' own published specs rather than opinion.
How we make money
CafeRacerForSale is free to read and reader-supported. Some of the links to gear and parts are affiliate links — if you buy through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That's it, and it never changes a ranking. The full details are on our affiliate disclosure page, and how we handle data is on our privacy policy.
Get in touch
The community lives on our channels — say hello, show your build, or ask a question: