Honda FT500 By Sideburn

Words by Gary Inman, photography by Paul Bryant. There's a phrase, very popular in England, 'You can't polish a turd'. But, taking on their first project bike, Sideburn magazine tried. The starting point was a £370 ($600) Honda FT500C, and the magazine didn't want to spend a lot on it. Luckily, they had Carl of CFM in Lincolnshire, England, on their side. He's a local one-man do-it-all bike builder/fabricator, and he sorted the bike out. One of the biggest jobs was removing the FT500 sub-frame and replacing it with raised seat rails. This was done to make the new tank...